Govt’s mind games with judiciary can be tricky
A cryptic keyword Union law minister Kiren Rijiju used to describe how he deals with the Supreme Court collegium was an eye-opener. He said it was about playing mind games but did not elaborate. Swift appointments to the higher judiciary after collegium reiterations are nonnegotiable, yet the government continues to sit on many such recommendations. Apparently, it is confident it would not draw judicial censure. The government won a mind game last week when the collegium announced the withdrawal of its reiteration to transfer Orissa High Court Chief Justice S Muralidhar to the Madras High Court since the proposal was gathering dust and the judge was nearing retirement.
One wonders if mind games came into play in, say, the approval of the Gujarat government’s proposal to grant remission of sentence to 11 lifers after 14 years in prison in the Bilkis Bano case. For, both the Centre and the Gujarat government don’t want to submit their files on remission to the SC for scrutiny. Instead, both told the bench hearing Bilkis’ plea that they were weighing options to go for an appeal against its order to produce the files. Thankfully, the bench didn’t blink. It warned it would draw conclusions if the paperwork was unavailable. Such confrontation between the executive and the judiciary invariably harms democracy.
Significantly, another set of lifers in the Gujarat riots was not treated on par with those in the Bilkis case though the former had already spent 17–18 years in jail. The SC had to intervene and grant bail to eight of them. That they were among those who initially lit the communal fire that left the nation scarred forever is undeniable, as they were found guilty of torching the Sabarmati Express coach in Godhra on February 27, 2002, that killed 59 Kar Sevaks. But mob justice to avenge wrong is not acceptable either. When the mobs scoured the streets of Gujarat for revenge, pregnant Bilkis Bano, then 21, became a target of one of them as she was gang-raped and nine of her relatives murdered.
Bilkis’ rapists and murderers were at least convicted as the case was tried in Maharashtra. But in another post-Godhra riot in Naroda village where 11 people were slain, a special court in Ahmedabad last week acquitted all 67 accused. It is a sad commentary on the state of the judiciary in Gujarat and the neartotal polarisation of its polity.