बेबाक · Editorial
Justice Without Pedigree: Two High Court Orders and the Standard Courts Must Keep
A murder conviction stayed in an order that noted the convict's political standing, and a stampede inquiry kept out of the State government's hands, show the courts at their most uneven and their most exemplary.
Two orders, one question
Two High Courts have recently issued orders that raise the same question: does power earn different treatment from the bench? The Allahabad High Court has stayed the conviction of a man convicted of murder who wishes to contest the 2027 Uttar Pradesh polls, and granted him bail. In doing so it noted that he was a political figure and an active party worker before his conviction. The Calcutta High Court has rejected the State government's proposal for the inquiry into the Chorbagan stampede. It held instead that the inquiry commission be headed by a retired judge. One order appears to bend toward political standing. The other holds firm against executive convenience. The contrast deserves attention.
The case for the stay
The strongest defence of the Allahabad order should be stated plainly. Staying a conviction during an appeal is a recognised judicial power, not a favour. Appeals in serious criminal cases can take years, and appellate courts may suspend a conviction where waiting would cause harm that cannot be undone. A man later acquitted cannot recover an election he was barred from contesting. Courts are entitled to weigh the real-world consequences of a conviction, and the right to stand for office is not trivial in a democracy. On this reading, the court's reference to the appellant's public life explains what he stands to lose, and the court is protecting his right to have his appeal heard before he loses something permanently, rather than rewarding his politics.
Why the reasoning troubles
The difficulty lies in what the court chose to note. A murder conviction is among the gravest findings a court can record. When an appellate bench points to a convict's political activity and party work while granting relief, it risks implying that political standing adds weight to a plea that an ordinary appellant could not make. A daily-wage worker convicted of the same offence has no candidacy to protect and no party record to point to. If public life becomes a reason for leniency, the law ends up treating the ambitious better than the anonymous. The rule of law must apply to the politician and the labourer alike. A courtroom that weighs a man's party work when deciding his liberty has begun, however slightly, to measure citizens by their usefulness to power.
Calcutta shows the standard
The Calcutta High Court shows what institutional firmness looks like. A division Bench led by Chief Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge rejected the State government's proposal on how the Chorbagan stampede inquiry should be constituted. It said that a sitting judge cannot head such an inquiry under a Supreme Court directive, and that a commission headed by a retired judge be appointed. This is the right call. Inquiries into public tragedies lose credibility when the authority whose arrangements are under scrutiny shapes who examines them. Keeping serving judges out of such commissions also protects the judiciary from being drawn into disputes it may later have to adjudicate. Independence here is the condition that makes any finding credible to those affected.
What should follow
Neither order is the end of the matter, and both can still be steadied. If the Allahabad stay is challenged, the Supreme Court should clarify that suspending a conviction during appeal must turn on the strength of the appeal and the irreversibility of the harm. An applicant's political career or party affiliation should carry no weight. Such a clarification would protect genuine appellants without creating a separate class of relief for the politically connected. In the Chorbagan matter, the retired judge's commission should be given a fixed timeline, public terms of reference, and a mandate to publish its report. Courts earn public trust when every citizen can expect the same reasoning from the bench, whatever their standing.
A courtroom that weighs a man's party work when deciding his liberty has begun, however slightly, to measure citizens by their usefulness to power.
What this editorial rests on
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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 →