The granting of bail to Dr Binayak Sen, the prominent civil rights activist and putative Naxalite sympathiser, by the Supreme Court on Friday is a shot in the arm for judicial balance. It also offers confirmation that India is still a land where an individual is free to hold any view, and peruse any material, without violating the law of the land.
A dedicated and highly respected medical practitioner for more than three decades among the poor tribal communities of Chhattisgarh, last year Dr Sen had been sentenced to life in prison on the charge of sedition and seeking to assist the building of a Naxalite network by a trial court in the state. In virtually confirming the judgment, the Chhattisgarh high court had rejected Dr Sen’s plea for bail. These events had created a veritable storm in international circles, and 22 Nobel laureates lined up to plead for granting bail to Dr Sen at the high court stage, only to be disappointed. With the government’s permission, the European Union appointed observers to be present at the bail hearings in the Supreme Court. In the light of the nature of the case, the grant of bail by the country’s apex court would appear to act as a rap on the knuckles for the state high court, not to say the chief metropolitan magistrate at Raipur who had presided over the Sen trial and held him guilty of sedition. The language of the Supreme Court’s order makes this amply clear.
In granting bail, the two-judge bench of the apex court reportedly noted that it was “concerned” about the implementation of the judgment as no case of sedition had been made out against Dr Sen by the state government. The court also reportedly observed, “We are a democratic country. He may be a Naxalite sympathiser. Nothing beyond that.” The trial court judgment had shocked many. The magistrate went on the basis of the fact that Dr Sen had visited an ailing Naxalite serving a jail term 33 times in 35 days, and reading Maoist literature and Naxalite documents. The apex court threw out such a puerile basis of argument in a sedition matter being made out by the counsel for the Chhattisgarh government. Notably, it said that just as a person reading or possessing Gandhi’s autobiography did not automatically become a Gandhian, someone studying Naxalite or Maoist material cannot be said to be a Maoist. As for the charge of numerous visits to a prisoner, the Supreme Court rightly observed that on such occasions a visitor is accompanied by jail officials and could not, therefore, have been a recipient or carrier of secret communication.
The Supreme Court also refused to entertain the request of the state government’s lawyers that while on bail Dr Sen be restrained from entering Chhattisgarh. The apex court left this for the trial court to decide. It will be interesting to see what stance the lower court takes on the issue. If the civil rights activist is made to keep away from the state, the impression is likely to be created that the trial court has disregarded the spirit of the Supreme Court order. While convicting Dr Sen, the trial magistrate had noted that he had kept the totality of the circumstances in view, as he saw it, and took into consideration the fact that several violent acts by Naxalites had occurred in recent times. This gave rise to the impression that while the sedition case was non-existent — as the Supreme Court would note so tellingly — the magistrate thought it was a call to duty for him to have Dr Sen put away for an extended period. This was the extent of provincialism on the part of the lower judiciary which the apex court order has righted.