बेबाक · Editorial
Custody, Compliance and Delay: Liberty Needs Courts That Are Prompt and Police That Obey
Custody over a protest, a police chief rebuked for defying a court, a verdict delayed for months: liberty is safe only when every office answers to law on time.
One week, one question
IANS reported from New Delhi on October 19 that a Special Executive Magistrate had extended by two days the judicial custody of Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), in connection with the Jantar Mantar trespass case. Separately, the Allahabad High Court made the Meerut Senior Superintendent of Police stand through a hearing for failing to comply with its order. And in the Madras High Court, Justices Anita Sumanth and Sunder Mohan ruled that life convicts may take their 40 days of annual leave in two instalments. Each case turns on the same question: who holds power over a citizen's liberty, and does that power answer to law?
Order versus dissent
The state's case deserves a fair statement. Trespass is an offence whoever commits it, and the police have a duty to keep order at a site that draws large and sometimes heated gatherings in the capital. A Malayalam report describes young people taking to the streets at Jantar Mantar, including with demands for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The case for concern is stronger still. Custody on a protest-linked charge has a chilling effect far beyond the two people held. Here it was extended by an executive magistrate rather than a judicial one. One published commentary argues that the CJP leaders were detained on flimsy grounds and treated more harshly than the Congress and other Opposition parties. It also records the counter-argument that established parties are recognised political players and are therefore treated differently. That claim of unequal treatment rests on a single commentary and remains contested. It still raises a question the authorities should answer in public.
Strain across the system
The rest of the record shows strain at every level. The Enforcement Directorate has moved the Supreme Court against a High Court order quashing its case against a portal and its founder. It argues that the High Court delivered its verdict five months and 26 days after reserving judgment, in violation of the apex court's guidance. Yet the directorate itself filed its appeal almost five months after the May 29 order. Delay ran in both directions. The Allahabad High Court went further than rebuking the police: it instructed the administrative judge in Meerut to act against the Chief Judicial Magistrate there. In Koraput district, Odisha Vigilance arrested an ADEO and a Village Mate for allegedly siphoning more than Rs 12.33 lakh through fake development projects. That is enforcement aimed where it belongs.
The considered verdict
Liberty should be the rule and custody the exception, above all when the alleged offence arises from a protest. The Madras High Court read the prison rules in favour of the people they govern, holding that prison authorities cannot compel convicts to take their leave only once a year. That instinct should guide every magistrate deciding whether to detain. The Allahabad bench was right to insist that police chiefs obey judicial orders. But the courts can demand punctuality from others only if they decide promptly themselves. A republic that detains protesters swiftly but decides cases slowly has its urgencies the wrong way round.
What should change
Three steps are feasible now. First, any order extending custody in a protest-related case should give written reasons, and the issuing authority should make them public. Release on bond should be the default where no violence is alleged. Second, each High Court should publish a monthly list of judgments reserved for more than three months, so that delay becomes visible and accountable. Third, state police headquarters should set up compliance cells to track court orders and report to the relevant High Court. No officer should then need to be made to stand before a bench to learn that judicial orders are binding.
A republic that detains protesters swiftly but decides cases slowly has its urgencies the wrong way round.
What this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
An editorial is the considered opinion of the FarziUPSC desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions, not parties. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →