Tomorrow it can be any one of us'

Published : Jan 28, 2011 00:00 IST

Justice Sachar, Former president of the PUCL. - V.V. KRISHNAN

Justice Sachar, Former president of the PUCL. - V.V. KRISHNAN

Interview with Justice Rajinder Sachar.

JUSTICE Rajinder Sachar, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, has emerged as one of the most powerful voices against the award of life sentence by the Raipur Sessions Court to Dr Binayak Sen. He says the judgment makes a mockery of the judiciary. Sachar, like Binayak Sen, is an active member of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). For the past two years, he has used the PUCL platform to campaign for the release of Dr Sen and has provided legal help to lawyers arguing his case. Excerpts from the interview he gave Frontline:

There is a strong civil society reaction to the verdict in the Dr Binayak Sen case. What are your comments on the judgment?

It is an outrageous judgment. It is one of those cases that should not have been taken up for prosecution. It is totally uncalled for to punish Binayak under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act. I have known Binayak for the last 20 years. He is a very gentle soul. A medical graduate, he settled in the Chhattisgarh area. He has worked with [Shankar Guha] Niyogi. I myself have held meetings there as our PUCL unit is very strong there. I held a meeting where Binayak was also present with about 500 tribal people. This was about three-four years ago. There was no violence. He was working with the poor trying to secure them their rights. [Narayan] Sanyal is one of his patients. Now the allegation is that he goes and sees him but what is forgotten is that every time he has gone to visit Sanyal in jail, it was with proper permission from the Superintendent.

I myself have gone and seen Binayak. The Superintendent was in his room, and we were talking normally. If he was a suspected Maoist, are the jail authorities so incompetent that they could not instal some electronic surveillance? Sen has visited Sanyal so many times but nothing happened then. Only when they caught hold of Piyush, some papers were recovered in which Sanyal is supposed to have written, Thank you very much for some help. We don't know. First they said he was caught from a hotel. They changed the version because it didn't hold ground. Then they said they caught him from somewhere. Home Minister P. Chidambaram himself asked Swami Agnivesh to talk to Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad [polit bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who was later killed in a police encounter in Andhra Pradesh]. He was obviously talking to him to give up arms. Can Swami Agnivesh be arrested for suspected treason?

We are appealing against the judgment. We are going to the High Court and we are going to ask for bail. At least decency demands that the bail is not opposed as it was in the case of ULFA [United Liberation Front of Asom] leader [Arabinda] Rajkohwa. Binayak is not going to run away. Binayak was in jail for two years before he was given bail. This is the tragedy. I mean people committing murder are given bail but he was denied it for so long.

He has been sentenced to life on loose grounds?

There is no ground at all. First [they say], there is sedition, the Chhattisgarh Security Act. Absolutely ridiculous.

Some literature is said to have been seized from Guha. Among my papers you will probably find a number of naxalite pamphlets. Reading is not a problem. In Kedarnath vs the State of Bihar in 1962, the Supreme Court has clearly mentioned that sedition is not speaking against the government and it cannot be used unless there is a violent attempt to overthrow the government. But these days we frequently come across sedition charges being framed even for speaking against the system. The BJP is the worst offender in Binayak's case because it is its government. The Government of India is not even pretending to take any action in such a ridiculous order.

Why was Binayak Sen picked out and systematically victmised in Chhattisgarh?

We have a strong PUCL unit in the State. It has been functioning for long, and it has also been very critical of the government, especially after Salwa Judum. The government was in a soup. Binayak took an active part in the PUCL's opposition to Salwa Judum. So you have to pick up somebody. I mean they threatened other PUCL members.

When Medha Patkar and Kavita Shrivastava, our PUCL national secretary, went to those areas they let the police loose on them. So it is not as if other people are not victimised. Binayak was a little more prominent because of his work in the tribal areas. Binayak was coming into contact with tribal people every day. Evidently, they had to brow-beat the tribal people and terrorise them.

What step is the PUCL planning next?

I am happy that the press has given good support in Binayak's case. Demonstrations are happening all over. We will be concentrating on filing the appeal. The press should also take up a different angle. It is amazing that the government admits that naxalism is there because of lack of attention given to the tribal people. The top people in political circles will say that they are sorry and there is corruption. The top man in the judiciary will say he is sorry but since there is corruption, nothing substantial could be done. We are in the habit of not taking responsibility. We think somebody else has to cleanse the system.

So many memoranda of understanding have been signed with private investors who are taking away tribal lands and tribal people are not being properly compensated. Their rights are being taken away. Please tell us what these MoUs are. People are being displaced. What are the provisions for them? The government has a 26 per cent profit-sharing scheme. If that is so, then let us know its provisions. The PUCL is against any violence. We don't even support naxalite violence because it gives the government an opportunity to suppress a genuine people's movement.

Do you know the shocking fact in Kobad Gandhy's case [Ghandhy, a polit bureau member of the banned CPI (Maoist) was arrested last year]? The FIR mentions, among others, the PUCL as a Maoist front organisation.

I wrote to Chidambaram saying this is scandalous. This is not how a democratic state that purports to work for the poor should function.

You want the agreements between the government and private companies to be made more transparent.

Yes. Binayak is victimised because he has been demanding exactly this. There are a lot of people like him who are working in that area demanding this. Gandhian Himanshu Kumar, who ran an ashram, is one of them. Now he can't settle there even though he has been one of the victims in the earlier period, from the Maoist side. We are fighting this battle in the Supreme Court. The military has still not vacated the schools. If the government is genuine about it, it should allow a team of independent people to visit the place and do the needful.

The judgment is almost a reproduction of the police charge sheet.

See, these things happen in the judiciary where some people take a different view. One is amazed that any court could have taken such a view. This officer is a Sessions Judge and he is not the first person in the chain of judges that heard Binayak's case. He is the third one. Even the High Court is inadvertently responsible for this decision. The judge who sentenced Binayak to life was still on probation. The High Court should have seen to it that a judge on probation did not hear such an important case, a case which the world was watching. It should have made sure that such an important case was finished in less time and was heard by only one judge, to avoid any break in understanding.

Many wonder why the judiciary did not take the defence into account.

Yes, it was reported in the press that just because Ilina Sen wrote a letter to the Indian Social Institute , she was said to have some links with Pakistan's ISI.

The past decade has seen an increase in state intolerance to activism. What are the reasons for this?

Because there is less build-up of public opinion. The press is acting according to its convenience, allowing the state to function in an autocratic way. You see, every state has an inherent tendency to become intolerant. It is only by outside agencies such as courts, public opinion and inner conscience that it can be controlled. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So power needs to be kept in check. The corporate sector has a big stake in the development of India.

In such a context, many Binayak Sens will happen if we don't put a good system of checks and balances in our democracy and do it urgently. Binayak Sen has become a symbol to fight other such cases. Many false cases and unnecessary branding of poor people are happening. These are the issues that the opposition should be taking up in Parliament.

In Jharkhand, the PUCL has taken up cases of murder and arson. A steel industry was being set up and people were forcibly displaced. With our active resistance, we stopped the government from going ahead with the project. Journalists are also being attacked. Today it is Binayak, tomorrow it could be anyone of us.

The government is unabashedly promoting growth without equity. You cannot leave all your mines to a couple of billionaires and not give any of its share to the people.

Binayak Sen's case has revived the threat of draconian laws.

Yes. We have always opposed these laws. We challenged the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act in the Supreme Court but did not succeed. Under some of these laws, even helping or coming in contact with a member of a banned organisation can be a crime. The period of investigation under these laws is 180 days as opposed to 90 days in normal laws.

There are so many poor men and women who could be Maoist sympathisers. How can a social worker or an activist not be in touch with them if they are working in that area? Binayak Sen had got a grant from the Christian Medical College to work on a health project. The project is suffering.

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