- Bilkis Bano and G N Saibaba: A tale of two injustices October 22, 2022 https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/bilkis-bano-and-g-n-saibaba-a-tale-of-two-injustices-8221303/ The question is not about the power of the Chief Justice to order the listing of a matter before any bench at any time. It is about the unhealthy precedent that has been set. It is only in the rarest of rare cases that special sittings were held in the past, where the life and liberty of an individual was at stake. Never, perhaps, have they been held to take away the liberty of an individual who had secured the same through the process of the court, and not by executive fiat.
UAPA is a stringent and draconian law. It is difficult — perhaps even impossible — for a person prosecuted under the said Act to obtain bail. That is why procedural safeguards, such as obtaining sanction from a competent authority appointed by the central or state government, as the case may be, before launching prosecution have been provided. It is against this background that the Bombay High Court made the salutary observation that “the fight against terrorism was important, but procedural safeguards cannot be sacrificed at the altar of perceived peril to national security.”
Comment: Somehow some lawyers seem to have persuaded judges that the State is so weak against people like Sai Baba, Stan Swamy, or for that matter BK16, that cannot be confined in some other more human manner till the trial is done. And that should raise whatever "procedural" issues in the first instance. Teesta had insisted that the Gujarat Police take them to a jurisdictional police station so that she could record her statement and get due service..
The State position seems to be that Bilkis' and other women and their who were targetted in 2002, dont need any protection from people who feel that their "sanskar" allows them to violate human beings for their beliefs, and politics... and that the only issue was that the order followed formal procedure even if it was illogical or had key persons in the State disagreeing with it...