Protect our Republic, my lords

Description

Context: The judiciary’s quick intervention in the Arnab Goswami case turns the spotlight on other serious cases that languish

Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, was arrested by the Mumbai Police on November 4, 2020 on a charge of abetting the suicide of Anvay Naik.
The accused was remanded to judicial, not police, custody.
He moved a writ petition for habeas corpus before the Bombay High Court, wholly unusual, as he should have moved the Sessions Court for bail or discharge and then come to the High Court if unsuccessful.

A contrast that is worrisome

The High Court heard his case for five hours on a holiday, and then he moved the Supreme Court.
SC takes up the whole day, and that evening he is set free.
Two whole days of judicial time of top constitutional courts have been spent in deciding whether this one man should get bail, when his case was coming before the Sessions judge the next day.
There is however the disturbing contrast between speed of the SC in this case with other cases which involve large scale and serious violations of fundamental freedoms.
It raised this question, has the Court abandoned its role of judicial review over acts of government, reducing itself to an arbiter of private disputes?

What is of import?

At Rashtrapathi Bhavan when the then chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachaliah was sworn in to his office in February 1993.
Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao said that he looked forward to a cordial relationship between the Court and the government.
He received a riposte, which can only be described as classical — “ Prime Minister, the relationship between us has to be correct, not cordial. Cordiality between court and government has no place in our constitutional scheme of checks and balances.”
It is worrying to note that there is not one decision in the recent past where the Court has held against the executive?

Judgments never made

And that there are several where it is the writ of the executive that runs, simply because there is no judgment of the Court.
Witness the petitions against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, preventive detentions in Kashmir, and the challenge to the dilution of Article 370.
And the appeal against the gag order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court preventing the reporting of the first information report about land grabbing by those with proximity to high places is still awaiting listing after two months.
And in one case, a decision comes in after the issue no longer survives, that of the Shaheen Bagh protest, where the Court decried the unregulated use of public spaces for protest.

Words of caution

Following on the heels of the Arnab Goswami release comes the Attorney-General for India’s nod to book the stand-up comedian, Kunal Kamra, for contempt of court for his tweets about the Supreme Court in the instant scenario.
What kind of message is being sent out here? The staple fare of comedians is to exaggerate to make a point; has our Supreme Court really come to the stage that it should be pricked by this?
Great kings valued their critics jesters like Akbar did Birbal and Krishnadevaraya did Tenali Raman, good kings tolerated them, the others beheaded or banished them.