"If It Shocks Your Lordship's Conscience, There Is Perversity On The Face Of It": The Gripping Courtroom Exchange In Bhima Koregaon Hearing

“If it shocks Your Lordships’ conscience, then there is perversity on the face of it...if, on a feel of the case, Your Lordships do not think this case deserves such(SIT) investigation, I will go elsewhere”. Argued Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi.The PIL by historian Romila Thapar and four other eminent persons over the arrest of five activists in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence witnessed yet another eventful hearing in the Supreme Court on Monday as ASGs Tushar Mehta and Maninder Singh and Senior Advocate Harish Salve engaged in a war of words with Senior Counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Anand Grover, Ashwani Kumar and Rajeev Dhawan and Advocate Prashant Bhushan.The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice A. M. Khanwilkar clarified that any decision as to the quashing of the criminal proceedings or directing an independent inquiry into the allegations shall be taken only upon a perusal of the evidence and other materials. The bench also extended its earlier interim order of house arrest in respect of the five accused activists.Dr. Singhvi faced resistance in opening his arguments on behalf of Ms. Thapar, with Mr. Mehta stressing on the evidence which purportedly implicates the accused in serious offences-“Your Lordships are the custodians of the Constitution...Your Lordships must decide whether this is just ‘dissent’ or something else which involves the criminal law...persons who are strangers to the allegations have come before Your Lordships saying that as per their perception, the individuals arrested are social activists and incapable of committing the acts they have been charged with...when Your Lordships go through the evidence we have placed on record, you will also feel as citizens...these materials have been retrieved from computers, laptops, pen drives, hard-disks etc...to do away with any claims that the evidence was planted, from the moment the police knocked on their doors till the time the evidence was sealed, everything has been video-graphed...”Once again, he questioned the locus of the petitioners- “the accused have already resorted to the remedies under the law...the petitioners, who are not in the zone of investigation, have moved this court...can Your Lordships take notice of this under the idea of ‘dissent’? Suppose, tomorrow, there is some material against a politician and another eminent politician of the same party comes to you and says that he is a great person but because he has a different ideology his dissent is sought to be curbed, and then we come to you under Article 32?”“We will not get into that extreme example...we will only see if they should go to the criminal courts or is there something we can do under Article 32”, observed the Chief Justice.“We are not on locus...we had entertained this petition and passed the order for house-arrest as we had felt that liberty may be sacrificed”, he continued.“The accused have been in jail since June and the PIL has come to be filed before Your Lordships only now when the trial has begun”, Mr. Mehta refused to relent.Speaking for the Centre, ASG Maninder Singh rooted for the propriety of the criminal law procedure- “the problem of naxalism is not limited to one region but is is transcending states and becoming a serious national concern...is it that the investigation (in the case at hand) is not being conducted correctly or that the courts below are not good enough to deal with the matter? The moment Dr. Singhvi is allowed to open the case, it would seem so...Such a situation has not arisen at all! What is the basis of questioning what is happening? This would be dangerous for the courts as well as the accused...I am not doubting Your Lordships’ jurisdiction. I am only on the basic issue of procedure- that it is the judicial officers who are the competent authority to look into this...”Regarding Mr. Singh’s contention as “pedantic”, Dr. Singhvi insisted that he be heard- “Adjudication under Article 32 depends on the feel of the case rather than text or context...unless I shock the conscience of the court, I cannot get the relief (of an independent probe)”Upon receiving the bench’s audience, Dr. Singhvi commenced his submissions- “There are two FIRs...the first one imputes the incitement of riots to Hindutva activists Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote. It speaks of disruption of a peaceful procession being carried out by the Dalits to commemorate the 200th anniversary of a ‘Mahar’ credited with performing Shivaji Maharaj’s son Sambhajiraje Bhosale’s funeral after the latter’s body had been dissected by Aurangzeb...the second FIR is by Tushar Damgude, a self-proclaimed fan of Bhide, who has made claims of provocative slogans promoting enmity”It was his case that the quotation by Dalit Activist Sudhir Dhawale of the Hindi translation of the following lines from the 1943 play ‘The Good Person of Szechuan’ could not rationally be the basis of the FIR- “When injustice is done there should be revolt in the ...

"If It Shocks Your Lordship's Conscience, There Is Perversity On The Face Of It": The Gripping Courtroom Exchange In Bhima Koregaon Hearing

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