Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Oct 5, 2024

Double standards in the application of law have come to be commonplace in India. People with influence (in good books of the powers that be) generally benefit when the police and investigation agencies dilute charges, hold back action against ‘certain accused’ or in grant of parole or bail while serving serving prison sentences. A textbook example of this is the case of the north Indian god-man Gurmeet Ram Rahim the head of the religious cult ‘Dera Sacha Sauda’ who is serving a 20-year jail term on charges of murder and rape for the past four years but he has an extraordinary reach into the political establishment. Ram Rahim has been granted parole or temporary release umpteen times [1], particularly so when elections are in the air to allow him to woo voters for the BJP —the ruling party in Haryana [2]. The opposition parties have criticised this on numerous occasions and recently the Congress party pleaded with the Election Commission of India, saying that granting of parole to Ram Rahim would violate the Model Code of Conduct in force before the Haryana assembly elections, but that too was overlooked. There are other flagrant examples such undue influence for people close to Mr Modi’s ruling party at the centre or in the states. We saw this in the manner in which prisoners in Gujarat sentenced of murder and rape in the 2002 Bilkis Bano case who enjoyed parole and were eventually released wrongly before ending their term. In sharp contrast are many cases of opponents of the BJP, mostly opposition politicians, student activists and dissenters who have been targeted, have faced detention, and arrest but have been denied bail repeatedly. Many of those arrested under the Bhima Koregaon Case or those held under the Delhi Riots case have been charged under laws with restricted bail provisions have been in jail with no sign of bail. Despite judgements of the Supreme Court of India which state that bail-not-jail should be the norm [3], little has changed. It is time for all democrats & opposition parties in India to make firm long term public commitments to reform the criminal justice system and to play by the rules and counter misuse of police and enforcement agencies from going after opponents and make grant of bail systematic.

October 5, 2024 —HK