“I don’t want to make a comment on any particular case but, as I said, having been a part of this institution, for what has happened in the recent past, I hang my head in shame,” are the words of senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal for expressing his anguish over the state of judiciary in the country.
The former Congressman said some members of the judiciary had “let us down”. “Some members of the institution (judiciary), of which I have been a part for 50 years, have let us down. I hang my head in shame that this has happened. When the judiciary turns a blind eye to ex facie (on the face of it, what is apparent) violations of the rule of law, one wonders why an institution designed to protect the rule of law allows the rule of law to be infringed with open eyes,” Sibal was reported saying in an interview to PTI over phone from UK.
Though he said, he was not speaking about a particular case but the link can be guessed to the case involving AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair. Zubair is denied bail by Sitapur court in a case where he had termed some Hindu religious preachers hatemongers. Kapil Sibal said it was “unthinkable” for a person to be arrested for four year-old tweets.
The ace advocate was scathing in his criticism of the ways and means of usage of the governmental machineries in suppessing the dissenting voices. “More than that, now having realised that the arrest cannot possibly be sustained, the investigating agency is looking for other matters which have nothing to do with the original arrest. Clearly what we are witnessing is a mala fide arrest and a subsequent fishing inquiry,” He said.
I hang my head in shame, says Kapil Sibal on state of judiciary
‘What the investigating agencies now do is arrest a person and then start investigating what law he may have violated’
“I don’t want to make a comment on any particular case but, as I said, having been a part of this institution, for what has happened in the recent past, I hang my head in shame,” are the words of senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal for expressing his anguish over the state of judiciary in the country.
The former Congressman said some members of the judiciary had “let us down”. “Some members of the institution (judiciary), of which I have been a part for 50 years, have let us down. I hang my head in shame that this has happened. When the judiciary turns a blind eye to ex facie (on the face of it, what is apparent) violations of the rule of law, one wonders why an institution designed to protect the rule of law allows the rule of law to be infringed with open eyes,” Sibal was reported saying in an interview to PTI over phone from UK.
Though he said, he was not speaking about a particular case but the link can be guessed to the case involving AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair. Zubair is denied bail by Sitapur court in a case where he had termed some Hindu religious preachers hatemongers. Kapil Sibal said it was “unthinkable” for a person to be arrested for four year-old tweets.
The ace advocate was scathing in his criticism of the ways and means of usage of the governmental machineries in suppressing the dissenting voices. “More than that, now having realised that the arrest cannot possibly be sustained, the investigating agency is looking for other matters which have nothing to do with the original arrest. Clearly what we are witnessing is a mala fide arrest and a subsequent fishing inquiry,” He said.
