Advocate Syed Mujeeb
Safoora zargar,27 years old, on rolls of a Prestigious university, booked under FIR 59 of 2020 dated 6th day of March 2020 and her case entrusted to Delhi police special cell has lead to a different 3D outlook on being connected to stringent penal law i.e. sections 13,16,17,18 of UAPA and whereby, apparently scope of seeking Bail gets subdued to a larger extent and the twist reached to its zenith when learned judge held : “when you choose to play with amber’s, you cannot blame the wind to have a carried the spark a bit too far and spread the fire. The acts and inflammatory speeches of the co conspirators are admissible under….. “, Upon dismissing her Application for Bail.
Story director with a beautiful labour work got virtual standing ovation from the studio players who know the value of this crafted art. Quality fuels and quality products got in the casting of this case story as one, where to a case of rioting, under section 147, 148,149,120(B), Special Cell added charges of conspiracy to commit murder 302 attempt to murder 307, 124-A, promoting enmity on grounds of religion ,153-A and under sections of Unlawful Activities (prevention)Act UAPA.
So to let judge a book by its cover note, prosecution would have been in the canopy of confidence watching how the defence lawyer be consuming energy to articulate the script to flop the police story, to create dents and bends, to precipitate the prosecution story as not to be believed by reason and so to pass on to blurred semantics of no prima facie case, all almost impossible.
The defence in the matter seems to have found itself on a dead end upon questioning himself to a legal calculus of distance from Article 21, Right to life, The Golden principles of Criminal jurisprudence to a reasonable ground for believing accusation as not prima facie as true against the accused, not on the merit of the case but on the pages where much a distance he had to travel someway from ” Collective conscience speaking ” to “public will”.
Safoora zargar, a student with no criminal record, pregnant one and the hazardous of threat of covid 19, need of utmost care during pregnancy, the growing concept of Right to life and liberty, existing provisions for women, health grounds within General Bail procedure and the morality of the constitutional law stands within her right beyond legal environs to throw an open question before the working system in terms of understanding of criminalizing a voice of dissent.
Safoora, not the lone citizen but the whole Delhi witnessed a sustained voice, mature and concrete one against Citizenship (Amendment) Act and this voice born on merit as not to commit violence upon Articles of Faith envisaged in Constitution of India ,as found offending on the basis of Equality, upon the distinction on the basis of Religion.
So, Safoora belonging to a minority community has been “A conflict within” in seeking justice, when in the very FIR dated 27th day of Feb 2020, one Manish Sirhoi, caught with pistol and cartridges, with a criminal record stands enlarged on bail ,as not connected with anti terror laws.
It being so the architect of a case which is to speak and matters for legal objectivity as stand resting of analytics of the merit to the end of the trial.
Seeking for Bail a legal conundrum as discretion, the judicial one, being to be within set strait jacketed loop, to be appreciating police story and a little to decide under the weight of hunch on the bench, where the Right of dissent on being questioned as herein the particular case, had not to find any a calculus to speak, to change the graphics, the dimensions of the matter.
The rights within morality of constitution and abuse of the powers of investigating agencies to the extent of criminalizing a voice of dissent is a trend not healthy for the country, of which the law and legal need somewhere to iron the creases, finding the spirit or to prophecy the futuristic way if not to clip the absolute powers of investigating agency but be at least put to guard on the construction of police challans and question wind blows the dust?
Advocate Syed Mujeeb is a senior lawyer at the District Court of Anantnag