The Madras High Court has directed prisons to allow inmates to interact with their lawyers via video calls or even by meeting physically in places where covid cases are on a decline. The bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy also directed that the orders of the High powered Committee should be uploaded on government websites for public access.

During the hearing, a report submitted by the state indicated that a Covid care centre was launched in Puzhal Central correctional home, and in other prisons, the number of Covid positive cases is not alarming. The report stated that undertrials, are in the process of being released on parole or leave to avoid overcrowding. It has been stated that there are 7 women with children in correctional homes and out of them, 4 are convicts and steps are being taken to give them leave. Further, the Union Territory of Puducherry has 200 inmates out of which 64 had tested positive for covid which was a cause ofr concern as per the court.

However, the court was informed that out of the 200, only 150 remain as some were given parole and other were hospitalized for treatment and the prison has capacity of 300.

The court took into consideration the suggestion made by the amicus curiae SC Vaigai and directed that the decisions taken by the High Powered Committee (HPC) with regards to categories of prisoners to be released and setting out parameters for parole should be uploaded on government websites. The court also directed that the process of temporary release of the inmates should be expedited so that the crowding in the correctional homes is brought down to the extent possible.

An intervenor submitted before the court that all contact between inmates at correctional homes and advocates have been stopped while contact with family is maintained. The court took note of this and observed, “Since there are video conferencing facilities and, in any event, there are video calls possible by way of mobile apps, the authorities at all correctional homes should permit interaction between advocates representing the inmates and the relevant inmates upon setting down certain parameters in such regard.”

The matter will next be heard on June 3.

The order may be read here:

Related:

Madras HC raises concern over shortage of Covid vaccine, Black Fungus drugs
Prisoners have right to access medical records under Article 21: Bom HC
Bombay HC sets up video call with Father Stan Swamy on May 21

The post Allow inmates to talk to their lawyers: Madras HC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Since the NIA Special court has taken about a month to provide Parkinson’s inflicted Father Stan Swamy with a sipper and straw, a group of lawyers have sent straws and sippers to Taloja Jail, where he is currently lodged.

LiveLaw reported that the group wrote to the Superintendent of Taloja Jail stating, “We, the undersigned lawyers, feel that above all detention must be humane. To that effect we urge you to make arrangements for all inmates as per the jail manual who have special medical needs. For Father Stan Swamy, we urge you to facilitate his dignified drinking of water, we are sending this plastic Sipper and paper straws, which we believe are permissible as per the Jail Manual and cannot cause any harm.”

List of 42 Advocates who have signed the letter to Taloja jail for Stan Swamy are:

• Nandita Rao
• Malavika Rajkotia
• Sharukh Alam
• Iram Majid
• Naomi Chandra
• Tanima Kishore
• Ruchi Singh
• Anjali Sharma
• Ritu Bhalla
• Kajal Chandra
• Ekta Kapil
• Sunita Dutt
• Santosh Paul, Senior Advocate
• Ethashan Hashmi
• Swaty Singh Malik
• Shweta Kapoor
• Aakanksha Nehra
• Anand Grover, Senior Advocate
• SaumyaTandon
• Anubha Rastogi
• Manali Singhal
• Fozia Rahman
• Mani Gupta
• Niharika Behl
• Aditi Gupta
• WR Khan
• M. Rashid
• M. Noorullah
• Mohan Katarki, Senior Advocate
• Sabarish Gandhi
• Anupam Sanghi
• Tarannum Cheema
• Nidhi Mohan Parashar
• Kirti Singh
• Firdaus Moosa
• Kriti Kakkar
• Sonam Anand
• Abdul Nasir Khan
• Kiran Kalra
• Sangeeta Bharti
• Suruchi Suri
• Som Nath Bharti

On November 6, Father Stan Swamy filed an application seeking permission to allow him a straw and sipper in the Central Jail as he cannot hold a glass because he has Parkinson’s Disease.

Special NIA Judge D.E. Kothalikar, presiding over the case, directed the medical officer to reply to the requirement of a straw and sipper, along with winter clothes when the NIA refused to provide him with the sipper mug after taking 20 days to reply. The matter will now be heard on December 4.

Apart from lawyers, SabrangIndia reported on some other citizens who shared on social media, orders that they have placed for sippers for the Jesuit priest.

Related:

Taloja Jail may soon get a deluge of ‘sippers’, but will they reach Fr Stan Swamy?
Father Stan Swamy moves NIA court for bail  

The post Lawyers send straws and sippers for Father Swamy to Taloja Jail appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Supreme Court on Friday heard the submissions made by The Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta for the state of Uttar Pradesh.

As per LiveLaw reports, SG Tushar Mehta submitted that the respondent State had no objection to Siddique meeting his lawyers. “There was no objection and there is no objection”, he said. He outright denied the allegations that Siddique Kappan was denied access to a lawyer.

In addition to this, the Bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde expressed his displeasure in the manner earlier judicial proceedings were reported in the media in this case. According to Bar and Bench, CJI Bobde termed the media reportage claiming that court had denied relief to Kappan “unfair”.  

SG Tushar Mehta also opined that the reporting was inaccurate and such reports need to be clarified.

“There was very unfair reporting about an earlier order. It was said that we denied you relief”, remarked CJI SA Bobde. However, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioner Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), submitted that “he had nothing to do with it” and “unfair reporting happens everyday.”

The case is now listed for next week.  

Background

In the previous hearing, on November 16, the Bench headed by CJI Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian had adjourned the matter to November 20 and issued a notice to the State Government of Uttar Pradesh to file its response in the habeas corpus plea filed for release of Siddique Kappan.

During the brief hearing, CJI Bobde had remarked, “We are trying to discourage Article 32 petitions” and told Senior Advocate Sibal that he might be asked to approach the High Court as they were not inclined to encourage Article 32 petitions.

“Why did you not approach the High Court?’, CJI Bobde had asked Mr. Sibal on November 16. Mr. Sibal had submitted that as Kappan was not allowed to meet anyone in jail, he could not go to the High Court. Thereafter, the court sought a response from the Uttar Pradesh Government and adjourned the matter to November 20.

Siddique Kappan, a freelance journalist was arrested on his way to Hathras on October 5 for carrying suspicious literature and booked under sections of UAPA and IPC, alleging promotion of enmity between different religions and funding a terrorist act.

Subsequently, KUWJ had moved a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court against his arrest, deeming it constitutional. An intervention application was also moved by the petitioner union seeking directions from the top court to permit Siddique to speak to his lawyers and family members.

SabrangIndia reported yesterday, November 19 that he was finally allowed to speak to his lawyer for five minutes after 49 days in Mathura jail.

Related:

Freedom of Press in UP: Journalists killed, attacked, arrested, not allowed to talk to lawyer
We are trying to discourage Article 32 petitions: Chief Justice of India
Hathras arrest: Union moves SC to allow journalist to talk to family, lawyers

The post No objection to Siddique meeting his lawyer: UP gov’t to SC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In June this year two lawyers filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) naming European Union member states’ migration policies in the Mediterranean as crimes against humanity.

Members of the NGO ‘SOS Mediterranee’ during the rescue of more than 250 migrants on a wooden boat off the Libyan coast. EPA-EFE/Christophe Petit Tesson

The court’s Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, must decide whether she wants to open a preliminary investigation into the criminality of Europe’s treatment of migrants.

The challenge against the EU’s Mediterranean migrant policy is set out in a 245-page document prepared by Juan Branco and Omer Shatz, two lawyer-activists working and teaching in Paris. They argue that EU migration policy is founded in deterrence and that drowned migrants are a deliberate element of this policy. The international law that they allege has been violated – crimes against humanity – applies to state policies practiced even outside of armed conflict.

Doctrinally and juridically, the ICC can proceed. The question that remains is political: can and should the ICC come after its founders on their own turf?

There are two reasons why the answer is emphatically yes. First, the complaint addresses what has become a rights impasse in the EU. By taking on an area stymying other supranational courts, the ICC can fulfil its role as a judicial institution of last resort. Second, by turning its sights on its founders (and funders), the ICC can redress the charges of neocolonialism in and around Africa that have dogged it for the past decade.

ICC legitimacy

The ICC is the world’s first permanent international criminal court. Founded in 2002, it currently has 122 member states.

So far, it has only prosecuted Africans. This has led to persistent critiques that it is a neocolonial institution that “only chases Africans” and only tries rebels. In turn, this has led to pushback against the court from powerful actors like the African Union, which urges its members to leave the court.

The first departure from the court occurred in 2017, when Burundi left. The Philippines followed suit in March of this year. Both countries are currently under investigation by the ICC for state sponsored atrocities. South Africa threatened withdrawal, but this seems to have blown over.

In this climate, many cheered the news of the ICC Prosecutor’s 2017 request to investigate crimes committed in Afghanistan. As a member of the ICC, Afghanistan is within the ICC’s jurisdiction. The investigation included atrocities committed by the Taliban and foreign military forces active in Afghanistan, including members of the US armed forces.

The US, which is not a member of the ICC, violently opposes any possibility that its military personnel might be caught up in ICC charges. In April 2019 the ICC announced that a pre-trial chamber had shut down the investigation because US opposition made ICC action impossible.
Court watchers reacted with frustration and disgust.

EU migration

An estimated 30,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean in the past three decades. International attention was drawn to their plight during the migration surge of 2015, when the image of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi face-down on a Turkish beach circulated the globe.

More than one million people entered Europe that year. This led the EU and its member states to close land and sea borders in the east by erecting fences and completing a Euro 3 billion deal with Turkey to keep migrants there. NATO ships were posted in the Aegean to catch and return migrants.

Migrant-saving projects, such as the Italian Mare Nostrum programme that collected 150,000 migrants in 2013-2014, were replaced by border guarding projects. Political pressure designed to reduce the number of migrants who made it to European shores led to the revocation and non-renewal of licenses for boats registered to NGOs whose purpose was to rescue migrants at sea. This has led to the current situation, where there is only one boat patrolling the Mediterranean.

The EU has handed search and rescue duties over to the Libyan coast guard, which has been accused repeatedly of atrocities against migrants. European countries now negotiate Mediterranean migrant reception on a case-by-case basis.

A rights impasse

International and supranational law applies to migrants, but so far it has inadequately protected them. The law of the sea mandates that ships collect people in need. A series of refusals to allow ships to disembark collected migrants has imperilled this international doctrine.

In the EU, the Court of Justice oversees migration and refugee policies. Such oversight now includes a two-year-old deal with Libya that some claim is tantamount to “sentencing migrants to death.”

For its part, the European Court of Human Rights has established itself as “no friend to migrants.” Although the court’s 2012 decision in Hirsi was celebrated for a progressive stance regarding the rights of migrants at sea, it is unclear how expansively that ruling applies.

European courts are being invoked and making rulings, yet the journey for migrants has only grown more desperate and deadly over the past few years. Existing European mechanisms, policies, and international rights commitments are not producing change.
In this rights impasse, the introduction of a new legal paradigm is essential.

Fulfilling its role

A foundational element of ICC procedure is complementarity. This holds that the court only intervenes when states cannot or will not act on their own.

Complementarity has played an unexpectedly central role in the cases before the ICC to date, as African states have self-referred defendants claiming that they do not have the resources to try them themselves. This has greatly contributed to the ICC’s political failure in Africa, as rights-abusing governments have handed over political adversaries to the ICC for prosecution in bad faith, enjoying the benefits of a domestic political sphere relieved of these adversaries while simultaneously complaining of ICC meddling in domestic affairs.

This isn’t how complementarity was supposed to work.

The present rights impasse in the EU regarding migration showcases what complementarity was intended to do – granting sovereign states primacy over law enforcement and stepping in only when states both violate humanitarian law and refuse to act. The past decade of deadly migration coupled with a deliberately wastrel refugee policy in Europe qualifies as just such a situation.

Would-be migrants don’t vote and cannot garner political representation in the EU. This leaves only human rights norms, and the international commitments in which they are enshrined, to protect them. These norms are not being enforced, in part because questions of citizenship and border security have remained largely the domain of sovereign states. Those policies are resulting in an ongoing crime against humanity.

The ICC may be the only institution capable of breaking the current impasse by threatening to bring Europe’s leaders to criminal account.

This is the work of last resort for which international criminal law is designed. The ICC should embrace the progressive ideals that drove its construction, and engage.

Courtesy: The Conversation

The post Migration in the Mediterranean: why it’s time to put European leaders on trial appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Lawyer writes to Bar Association in wake of CBI raids against Indira Jaising appeared first on SabrangIndia.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties is shocked at the lodging of an FIR against the Lawyers Collective, its President and senior lawyer, Anand Grover and other office bearers by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). We condemn this vindictive and utterly unjustified act against this well known human rights and legal aid organization with a long history of fighting for the rights of ordinary people. PUCL deplores this undisguised attempt to intimidate and silence Mr Grover, as well as legal luminary and co-founder of Lawyers Collective, Ms Indira Jaising, and office bearers of the organization.

The lodging of the FIR by the CBI is nothing short of a brazen abuse of the process of law. The FIR follows an investigation into allegations of violation of provisions of the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010, launched in 2016. Then, orders for the suspension and cancellation of LC’s registration to receive foreign funding were passed by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Lawyers Collective has refuted all the charges against it. Besides, the organization had challenged the cancellation of its FCRA registration in an appeal before the Bombay High Court, which is pending. The complaint registered against the Lawyers Collective, and its key functionaries, Ms. Indra Jaisingh and Anand Grover,  constitutes a motivated, vengeful and vituperative act meant to silence not just the Lawyers Collective but also serve as a lesson to all others who dare to challenge the Central Government.

An extremely disturbing aspect of the case against Lawyers Collective is the manner in which it follows so closely on the heels of an extremely dubious PIL filed in the Supreme Court of India by `Lawyers Voice’, a self-styled organization headed by Neeraj, said to be a member of the legal cell of the ruling BJP. Ms Jaising has stood in defence of human rights defenders and was vocal on the procedural irregularities in the recent sexual harassment case in the Supreme Court. On May 8 this year, amidst vociferous protests of prominent lawyers and activists over the failure of due process in the sexual harassment charge against the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogi, the latter heard and issued notice on the PIL, which sought an SIT probe into the ‘inaction’ of the Central government against the lawyers and their organization.

Seen against this backdrop, the sudden registration of FIR by the CBI strongly indicate a witch-hunt against 2 of the most outspoken and important human rights defenders in India. Indeed, a major aspect of the case made out against the organization was that its work violated various guidelines of the FCRA regulations including in lobbying work for passage of crucial rights protection legislations! Its important to point out that the Lawyers Collective and its team have taken up important cases throughout the 38 years of their existence. Apart from a range of cases relating to domestic violence, human rights, labour and womens’ rights, Lawyers Collective has taken up the important Naz case on rights of the LGBTQ community, the Novartis case, the Sabarimala case, the triple talaaq case and the Sohrabuddin case,  in which current Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah was involved.

Mr. Grover has held an important position as the UN Special Rapporteur on right to health from August 2008 to July 2014. He is currently an acting member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and is a member of the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights while Ms. Jaising was part of the team of lawyers for the accused in the ongoing Bhima Koregaon case as well as the case against Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, where she successfully fought the plea of the CBI to seek his custodial interrogation.

Clearly, the current dispensation finds such voices of conscience, as the Lawyers Collective and its office-bearers have been, as uncomfortable and inconvenient. The case lodged against the organization smacks of vendetta for its exceptional work on securing rights for the marginalized. It is ill-conceived, vindictive, politically motivated and designed to have a chilling effect on all those who raise a voice of dissent.

PUCL demands that the state desist from these continuous attempts to browbeat the senior lawyers, Ms. Indira Jaisingh and Anand Grover,  by embroiling them in multiple legal cases and procedures and misusing its powers to order the arrest and detention of all dissenters. PUCL demands that this witch-hunt against lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders cease forthwith.

PUCL demands that the case against the Lawyers Collective be dropped forthwith.

Mr. Ravi Kiran Jain,                  Dr. V. Suresh,
National President, PUCL        National General Secretary, PUCL

The post PUCL Statement Against lodging of FIR against Lawyers Collective & Sr. Advocate Anand Grover appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Muftis and lawyers come together to run a Muslim Personal Law training course in order “to combat uncalled for interference in purely Muslim law matters”

(Below is the English translation of a front page lead story published by the Urdu daily, Inquilab on Monday):

In order to strongly combat the targeting of Islam and Muslims with uncalled for interference in purely Muslim Personal Law matters, by raking up the issues of triple talaq, bigamy and uniform civil code, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has set-up a ‘Jamiat Law Institute’ where for the first time muftis and Muslim lawyers will come together on the same platform to run a Muslim Personal Law training course. With the Jamiat’s general secretary, Maulana Mehmood Madni as president, the new institute was inaugurated by former chief justice of the Supreme Court, AM Ahmadi.

The inaugural meeting, organised at the Jamiat’s Madni Hall in Delhi by advocate Shakeel Ahmed Syed, director, Jamiat Law Institute and a board member Maulana Niaz Ahmed Farooqui, was chaired by the president of the Jamiat, Maulana Syed Qari Usman Mansoorpuri.

Prominent muftis and lawyers from UP, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan participated in the conference. The inaugural session was addressed by justice Ahmadi, professor Mohammed Afzal Wani (dean, Faculty of Law, IP University), Zafaryab Jilani (additional advocate general, UP), Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani (chief executive, Darul Uloom Deoband), Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani (general secretary, Islamic Fiqh Academy), professor Akhtarul Wasey (vice-chancellor, Maulana Azad University), Mufti Salman Mansoorpuri (Jamia Qasmiya Shahi, Moradabad), Kamal Farooqui (member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board) and advocate Anoop George Chowdhary.

Announcing the launch of the training course on Muslim Personal Law, justice Ahmadi said that when faced with constitutional issues, instead of getting agitated Muslims should respond calmly and with legal acumen. He said that certain forces use the demand for a uniform civil code as a whip lash merely to incite Muslims and we get all excited. The fact is that a uniform civil code poses a greater threat to the majority community than to us, he added. That is the real reason why no draft exists till date. He said if Muslims were to demand that a draft for a uniform civil code be placed before the public such forces will automatically come to their senses.

'Provision for triple talaq in law is as necessary as a toilet is for any home. A toilet is not a good place to be in but no house is complete without it'

On the issue of triple talaq, justice Ahmadi advised that Muslims should come together and apply their minds collectively to evolve a solution to this problem.  

While admitting that “triple talaq is undoubtedly being misused”, Zafaryab Jilani maintained that it cannot be abolished because that would lead to a lot of harm. Those who talk of gender justice must tell us whether there is gender parity and women have equal participation in the Supreme Court, Parliament, state Assemblies, government, educational institutions and elsewhere, he demanded. He maintained that gender difference is a fact of life that cannot be wished away. He argued that Muslim Personal Law does not operate outside the Constitution but is an act passed by the Parliament.

Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani said that the provision for triple talaq in law is as necessary as a toilet is for any home. A toilet is not a good place to be in but no house is complete without it, he said. There is a need to understand the necessity of triple talaq and explain the same to others, he added. The proposed training course will be very helpful in this regard, he opined.

Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani said that it was the need of the hour to explain the principles underlying Islamic laws to the satisfaction of the judiciary and others and it was the responsibility of muftis to rise to the challenge.
Professor Afzal Wani asked why the need for making provision for divorce was felt necessary while amending the personal laws of Christians and Hindus if it is such a bad thing.

Professor Akhtarul Wasey stated that when even the Prophet of Islam had no authority to introduce changes in Islamic law how anyone else could claim the right to do so. He added that on coming to power after Emergency was ended, even those who were opposed to it did not remove the provision for emergency rule from the Indian constitution. This only means that though emergency is undesirable, such an option must exist for governments. Similarly, triple talaq is not a good thing but it remains an important part of family law, he added.
 

The post Jamiat Launches a Law Institute to Defend Muslim Personal Law appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Full text of the statement by the Jawaharal Nehru University faculty

In a shockingly partisan statement that blatantly misrepresents events, the Bar Council of India has issued a report that justifies the well documented attacks by a mob of lawyers on Jawaharlal Nehru University students, teachers and media at Patiala House Courts over two days (February 15 and 17, 2016) as “a reaction to the incidents, which are grave in nature and very dangerous for the country”.

The Bar Council of India Joint Secretary Ashok Kumar Pandey claimed that a large number of JNU teachers and students and others had arrived at the court in three to four buses and raised slogans and used “provocative words”. This led to the untoward incident in which “both the sides took part,” said the report, adding that “any true citizen or a lawyer of India” was supposed to react strongly to the “anti-India” slogans.

We, the undersigned faculty members of Jawaharlal Nehru University, wish to set the record straight. Nine of us reached Patiala House Court No 4 between 1 and 1.15 pm on 15th February 2016 to attend the hearing on Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail plea. The sole objective of our presence there was that when Kanhaiya Kumar was produced he would see the faces of his teachers in the courtroom. At that time, a few students and other teachers of JNU, and some members of CPI, the parent organisation of Kanhaiya’s student group, were already waiting silently outside, similarly wanting him to see friendly and familiar faces when he was produced. There were about 15 to 20 of them, hardly enough to fill four cars, let alone one bus.

Initially, we (signatories to this letter) waited on the benches outside the courtroom, along with a few journalists. After the lunch break the court clerk and stenographer invited us to come into the courtroom and we were seated there even when a few lawyers, an under-trial and a policemen, etc walked in and out of the room. We were not asked by anybody at that point to leave. About fifteen minutes later, about ten to twelve men dressed in lawyer’s clothes rushed in, shouting at us to get out. These lawyers were led by a man whom we later recognised from the media coverage the next day as Mr Vikram Singh Chauhan. At that time we did not know who any of them were. They crowded the small room and abused us, saying that JNU teachers were anti-national and “deshdrohis”, that we were all “Pakistanis” and asking us ‘what kind of antinational education do you give your students’?

We tried to reason with them not to be abusive, and said that we had a right to be in the courtroom, but they continued to heckle us as “Pakistanis”, and told us that the seats were for lawyers alone. The police kept on just watching and did not intervene to stop them. Some of us even got up and told them that they could take our chairs and we would just stand, but they started physically trying to push us out of the courtroom. Our younger male colleague, Dr Rohit, who was standing at the back, was grabbed by his collar and dragged towards the centre of the courtroom. Chauhan said “maar do isko” and began raining blows on Rohit. Women faculty close to him tried to stop him physically, but the lawyers continued hurling abuses, and some of us were pushed and jostled and touched inappropriately in the process. The attempt was clearly to intimidate and harass us into leaving the courtroom, and indeed Patiala Court premises. The police and court staff kept on watching and did not intervene to stop them.

Profs Neera Kongari, Rohit, Himanshu and Janaki Nair were pushed outside the courtroom. Most of the men dressed in lawyers’ clothes rushed out after them. Extremely abusive language was used by the lawyers.

Those of us who remained inside could hear sounds of men shouting from outside, and fearing that we would be subject to even greater physical violence, five women faculty – Profs. Ayesha Kidwai, Madhu Sahni, Nivedita Menon, Susan Viswanathan, and Chitra Harshvardhan – once again sat down. A larger contingent of policemen entered the courtroom and asked us to vacate the courtroom. Some of the aggressive lawyers came back in and although we requested the police to hold them back, they did not even ask these lawyers to leave. Instead they were allowed to enter and leave the courtroom as they wished. We asked the police to bring us orders from the magistrate asking us to clear the courtroom and demanded to be escorted out of the building. We were told that the magistrate had given verbal orders to the police to clear the courtroom, but we insisted that we be given police protection throughout. When a contingent of policewomen arrived, it took the police 10 minutes to find a way to escort us out of the courtroom as the doorways and the courtyard was blocked by shouting lawyers. The police were forced to find another exit and led us to another ground floor exit but that was blocked too by shouting and screaming lawyers. We were led then up the stairs and at least two other stairwells were tried but we were led away as the police was unsure that they could get us out safely.

Other lawyers who passed us on the corridor kept up the threatening tone, saying we should all be sent to Pakistan. Finally, a safe exit into the ground floor shed where the notary publics sit, was found. The police escorted us to the gate and bundled five of us into autorickshaws as they feared that we would be assaulted even if were to walk to our cars parked in the parking lot.

JNU faculty who had been pushed outside the courtroom were completely silent, and they noted that the lawyers led by Chauhan, when finally obstructed by the police, sent in two women lawyers who also shouted abuse at the JNU faculty assembled in the courtroom. A few minutes later all the lawyers rushed out of the courtroom saying “nikal gaye” and began beating up every young person assuming they were JNU students, including a very young couple.

Later media coverage confirmed that students and the media people, as well as a CPI member, were assaulted by the mob outside.

Kanhaiya Kumar was not produced in court on that day, and when he was produced on the 17th, only one JNU faculty member was present, Prof Himanshu; in fact we were asked by Kanhaiya’s lawyers to stay away so that our presence would not create the opportunity for further violence. It was on that day, when no faculty was present, and only the same handful of JNU students and CPI activists, that Kanhaiya was physically assaulted and the media terrorised and beaten up for the second time by the same lawyers in full view of a passive police force.

So the claim of provocative slogans from “3 to 4 busloads” of JNU people rousing lawyers to physical assault is patently false.

The Bar Council report surprisingly fails to mention two crucial bits of evidence:

1. The WhatsApp message in Hindi that was circulated over February 14-15, that clearly mobilised for the attack. The message, snapshots of which are freely available in the media, calls upon all recipients to assemble in large numbers at Patiala House on Monday 15th to “peacefully and legally” “produce befitting consequences” (anjaam tak pahunchana) for the traitors who have been conspiring in Ganga Dhaba (JNU) and,
2. The sting operation by India Today that reveals Vikram Singh Chauhan and others boasting about their violent assaults on Kanhiaya and others.

From the transcript of the deposition of Kanhaiya Kumar to the Supreme Court judges’ panel after the attack on him the second day, made public on February 27th by CNN-IBN, it is also clear that the registrar general of the high court had been present at the time, and had asked Jatin Narwal, DCP, New Delhi, “to catch the guy” whom Kanhaiya identified as his attacker, but he failed to do so. When the DCP claims at one point that he was not in the room when Kanhaiya was attacked, the registrar again intervenes, saying “No sir, he was inside the room along with 10-12 officers.” (Transcript available in The Indian Express of February 28, 2016).

It is shocking that the Bar Council of India should produce such a patently false account of events that exactly matches the claims of Vikram Singh Chauhan and BJP MLA OP Sharma who led the violent mob. Even more appalling is the fact that a body that represents practising lawyers should justify physical violence on the grounds that anti-India slogans were raised, which is any case, a blatant lie.

Is the legal community now going to subvert due process and rule of law and take matters into their own hands whenever they feel their sentiments are hurt? This is particularly paradoxical given Vikram Singh Chauhan’s recent interview to The Hindu (February 27, 2016) in which he says the media has “already found him guilty”, for it seems BCI not only justifies Kanhaiya’s being “found guilty” by self-proclaimed nationalist lawyers, even before he is produced in court, but also their attack on him on the basis of their perception.

Chitra Harshvardhan
Himanshu
Ayesha Kidwai
Neera Kongari
Nivedita Menon
Janaki Nair
Rohit
Madhu Sahni
Susan Visvanathan

Photo Credit: VictorVibhu/Twitter

The post JNU teachers slam Bar Council report that justifies the Patiala House attack appeared first on SabrangIndia.

भाषा, किसी भी संस्कृति का अहम चिह्न है और इस लिहाज से वैसे भी संघ और उसके हिंदुत्व के समर्थकों की भाषा, लगातार उनकी संस्कृति की पहचान रही है। पिछले 30 सालों में आरएसएस या विहिप से जुड़े कट्टरपंथी-विक्षिप्त लोग, लगातार मीडिया में अपने सम्पर्कों के दम पर नौकरियां जुगाड़ते आए हैं और आज ऊंचे पदों पर हैं। यह सायास ही नहीं है कि तमाम मीडिया, इस वक्त हिंदू कट्टरपंथ और अंधराष्ट्रवाद को भड़काने में लगी है। अनिल दीक्षित नाम के इस शख्स (पूर्व पत्रकार कहना, पत्रकारिता का अपमान है) उसी श्रृंखला की छोटी सी कड़ी है। हालांकि अनिल दीक्षित ने काफी फजीहत होने के बाद, यह पोस्ट डिलीट कर दी, लेकिन उसका स्नैपशॉट हमारे पास है। यही नहीं, इन सज्जन ने लम्बे समय पहले नौकरी छोड़ देने के बावजूद, सोशल मीडिया पर अभी तक ख़ुद को एक बड़े अखबार में सम्पादक स्तर का पत्रकार बताया हुआ था, पोस्ट पर विवाद के बाद, इन्होंने अब ख़ुद को पूर्व पत्रकार कर दिया है। हालांकि इनकी भाषा और सोच से पत्रकार होने की हल्की सी भी गंध नहीं आती है। इनकी भाषा का संक्षिप्त विश्लेषण इस तरह देखिए…

जेएनयू में वामपंथ की काली कोख  
**************************************************
दरअसल यह मुहावरा, काली कोख, सिर्फ वामपंथ से वैचारिक विरोध से नहीं आता है। यह महिलाओं के खिलाफ भी छुपे हुए नज़रिए का प्रतीक है। वरना कोख, जो कि ओवरी के लिए प्रयोग होता है, उसकी जगह स्रोत का कोई और विकल्प भी इस्तेमाल किया जा सकता था।
इनकी भी धुनाई चाहिए, वकील करें या जेल में कैदी  
**************************************************************
जेल के अंदर किसी व्यक्ति को न्यायिक सुरक्षा प्राप्त होती है, जो अदालत और संविधान की शक्ति से संचालित है। साफ है कि अनिल दीक्षित नाम का यह व्यक्ति आपराधिक प्रवृत्ति का व्यक्ति है, जो क़ानून को या संविधान को कुछ नहीं समझता।
ये लौंडे कैदियों का कई रात 'काम चला' सकते हैं 
*******************************************************
हालांकि इसके ज़रिए इस मनोरोगी ने एक तरह से समलैंगिकता के समाज में होने को मान्यता दे दी है, लेकिन यह बात यह यौन उत्पीड़न और यंत्रणा के संदर्भ में कर रहा है। मतलब साफ है कि यह व्यक्ति बदला लेने के लिए किसी के यौन उत्पीड़न का सही मानता है। मतलब मूल प्रवृत्ति में ही यह ख़तरनाक़ मनोरोगी है और कभी ख़ुद भी ऐसा कर चुका है या कर सकता है। इसको पागलखाने भेजे जाने की ज़रूरत है। हैरानी है कि इसको ऐसे बड़े अखबार ने सम्पादक बनाया था।

बलात्कार का मज़ा  
**************************************
जिस तरह से यह व्यक्ति बलात्कार को किसी वैचारिक विरोध की सज़ा के तौर पर इस्तेमाल करने का हिमायती है। कल को संभव है कि यह वैचारिक विरोध किसी महिला की ओर से आए, तब भी यह ऐसे ही तरीके का समर्थन करे। ऐसे व्यक्ति की जगह भी जेल या पागलखाना ही है। ज़रा सोच कर देखिए कि किसी भी स्थिति में बलात्कार को सज़ा के तौर पर देखने वाला व्यक्ति आखिर कितना समझदार हो सकता है।

इसकी भाषा के विश्लेषण के आधार पर यह व्यक्ति न केवल यौन कुंठित है, बल्कि हिंसक रूप से मनोरोग के स्तर पर है। इसके जितनी जल्दी हो इलाज की ज़रूरत है। दुर्भाग्य यह तो है ही कि यह एक बड़े मीडिया संस्थान में ऐसे पद पर रहा, जहां और लोगों पर भी असर डालता रहा होगा, बल्कि बड़ा दुर्भाग्य यह है कि यह देश ऐसे ही लोगों की पागल भीड़ में बदलता जा रहा है।

(लेखक, पूर्व टीवी पत्रकार हैं। टेलीविजन, रेडियो और प्रिंट समाचार मीडिया में एक दशक से अधिक का अनुभव, फिलहाल स्वतंत्र लेखन करते हैं।)

The post पूर्व पत्रकार, वर्तमान हिंसक मनोरोगी! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Facebook page firsr had the ‘journalist’ describing himself as a Deputy Editor of Dainik Jagran, After journalists phoned and questioned the paper he changed this to “former Deputy Editor.”Within hours of journalists and activists circulating and questioning Dainik Jagran on the post, the post too has been deleted.

In a shockingly worded post, that can be interpreted as incitement to violence against the students, he says,

“The two traitors to the nation – Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya – who have emerged from JNU’s dark womb, will today be presented before court by the police. As they have been charged under section 124A, the question of a bail to them is out of the question…. They too should be thrashed, whether by lawyers or other prisoners in jail. These boys could ‘service’ the prisoners for many nights, the same way the accused in the Nirbhaya case were forced to ‘service’ them. Prisoners can help them ‘enjoy getting raped’. This way the traitors will also realise how an Afzal cannot be born in every home. Nationalists like us are thirsting for action.”

His facebook page says that he is a practicing lawyer who worked in senior journalistic posts earlier. He studied ‘Political Philosophy’ at the Dr. BR Ambedkar University, Agra.

The original FB Post by (Dr) Anil Dikshit in Hindi:
“डॉ. अनिल दीक्षित
जेएनयू में वामपंथ की काली कोख से पैदा देशद्रोही उमर खालिद और अनिर्बान भट्टाचार्य को पुलिस आज कोर्ट में पेश करेगी, धारा 124ए में फिलहाल तो जमानत मिलेगी नहीं… इनकी भी धुनाई चाहिए, वकील करें या जेल में कैदी। ये लौंडे कैदियों का कई रात 'काम चला' सकते हैं, जैसे निर्भया कांड के दोषी चलाते थे, कैदी उन्हें 'बलात्कार का मज़ा' महसूस कराते थे। इस बहाने इन्हें पता भी चल जाएगा कि हर घर से अफज़ल यूं ही नहीं निकल सकता। हम देशप्रेमियों की भुजाएं फड़क रही हैं…
https://www.facebook.com/akdagra?fref=nf

The post Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya should be thrashed, raped in custody: Agra Lawyer appeared first on SabrangIndia.