NEW DELHI: Law Minister H. R. Bharadwaj’s outburst last week conveyed his anguish at the diminishing role of the Supreme Court as the last frontier of civil liberties. In the times of Justice V R Krishna Iyer and Justice P N Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India, the judiciary was regarded as the champion of civil liberties, he says, but laments that it is not so any more and holds the Supreme Court as the self-destructor of the image.

When such a categorical statement comes from a learned and experienced person, many would wonder as to what went wrong with the development of jurisprudence so as to make the law minister grope for an answer to a question he himself posed — “Where is that jurisprudence today?”

‘Deeds speak more than words’ is a maxim that can help seek an answer to Bharadwaj’s question. And the Supreme Court’s action in dealing with civil liberties of the masses in recent years would definitely jog the memory of people who would be the final sounding board for this question.

The independence of the executive in dealing with issues vital to the right to life of citizens had made it so lethargic that it did not bother — whether people choked under pollution caused by vehicles, the forest wealth dwindled, bonded labourers bartered their freedom for minuscule wages, children’s limbs got stunted in factories or in quarries, manual scavengers kept on carrying night soil, people got shot without being asked a question by security forces in terrorist-affected areas, and when people saw it as the last bastion to get justice during and after the Gujarat riots.... Did the government, nay executive deliver on all these fronts?

Those who say yes would be sadly mistaken if they take a look at the numerous judgments of the SC, each protecting the valuable civil rights of the people at large. If the SC made CNG the fuel for city transport, banned cutting of forest, freed bonded labourers, rehabilitated child labourers, got the load off the heads of manual scavengers and made the state responsible for any person being shot without being asked a question, then one would say it effectively dealt with these issues.

The law minister also said that non-grant of bail in petty offences has forced lawyers to resort to “undue”methods. Only a minority of black sheep in any profession resort to “undue” methods and it is they who bring a bad name to the legal fraternity, which can boast of being as competent as any other profession. If he meant to say courts had hardened their stance against grant of bail, the Hinduja brothers in the Bofors case and Kanchi sankaracharya in a murder case would not have got bail.

The only notable instance when the apex court faulted in giving a ruling in favour of the civil liberties was during Emergency (1975-77). Justice Krishna Iyer himself as recently as the year 2000 referred to Emergency as the “darkest chapter in the democratic history of India”.

In the same article, Justice Iyer mentioned the Supreme Court’s decision on a petition, challenging the constitutional validity of Emergency provision. He said: “The Supreme Court heard arguments against the Emergency but Attorney General Sri Niran De went to the extent of justifying the Emergency. Even when a police officer maliciously shot dead an innocent man, the court had no power to interfere. Alas, except Justice (H R) Khanna, the other four judges of the Bench upheld the Emergency with all its macabre implications. That was the darkest hour of the Supreme Court.”—Dawn/Times of India News Service