The Munawar Faruqui Case: Supreme Court Directives Flouted
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-02-08 03:06:28
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
It is unfortunate that the police, the lower judiciary and jail superintendents in India do not follow Supreme Court guidelines and directives, do not pay heed to its warnings and avoid using technology, when needed, to harass citizens. The arrest and subsequent denial of bail by lower courts and the MP High Court and the delay in releasing him even after the apex court granted bail in the case of standup comic Munawar Faruqui and five of his associates proves all of this without an iota of doubt.
The arrests were wrong in the first place. The Supreme Court has repeatedly warned policemen not to immediately arrest persons even under cognizable and non-bailable sections if the punishment under the section is less than seven years in jail. Yet, police forces across the country use section 295A of the IPC, read with section 41 of the CrPC to arrest people as soon as a complaint is lodged although the punishment under sec 295A is just three years.
Then, ignoring the rule "bail, not jail" and several Supreme Court orders and directives in this matter, first a magistrate, then the sessions court and finally the MP High Court denied bail to them as if they were hardened criminals. The High Court said they were contravening the provisions of sec 295A "under the garb" of standup comedy, ignoring the fact that there was no garb involved and the accused persons were professional artistes using comedy and satire to entertain people. The right to entertain and the right to be entertained was included in the right to freedom of speech and expression by the Supreme Court in the case Ministry of I&B versus Cricket Association of Bengal.
Finally, even after being granted bail, Faruqui was not released from Indore Central Jail as the authorities were bent on shifting him to UP where there was a similar FIR pending against him, once again ignoring the fact that the apex court had stayed the operation of that FIR. The specious reason provided was that the jail authorities had not received the apex court order. Did they not know that the Supreme Court has a website where all such orders are uploaded? Did it not occur to the jail superintendent to provide relief to the accused by accessing the same? In the end, the Supreme Court had to call him to do the needful, which is strange and regretful.
The Supreme Court must come down strongly on everyone guilty of not following its diktat on various matters. It has already issued a notice to the MP government as Faruqui has challenged the FIR lodged against him. Perhaps the time has also come to put a stop to the misuse of sec 295A of the IPC, read with sec 41 of the CrPC, by laying down clear guidelines as to when they can be used and against whom and whether immediate arrests are legal and if so, whether lower judiciary should grant bail as a matter of routine and withhold the same only in exceptional cases after recording the reasons in writing.
