We Should Engage With The Institutions To Strengthen Democracy, Instead Of Retreating : Vrinda Grover | Full Text Of Interview

In this interview with Manu Sebastian, Managing Editor of LiveLaw, Advocate Vrinda Grover discusses issues related to arbitrary arrests, reluctance of Magistrates to grant bail in politically motivated cases and the importance of preserving personal liberty and free speech.The full transcript of the interview, slightly edited for length and clarity, is given below. The video of the interview can be watched here.Manu Sebastian : Hello everyone, today we are joined by Advocate Vrinda Grover, who fought the legal battle for fact-checking journalist Mohammad Zubair, right from the Magistrates court to the Supreme Court and got him bail not just in the existing cases but also in the future cases which could be registered against him based on his tweets. Welcome.The Supreme Court has given a very powerful order and the court has granted him bail not just in the existing cases but also in the future cases which are likely based on the same tweets. The court has also made an observation that the power of arrests should be exercised very sparingly. During the hearing, the court made an oral observation that there seems to be a vicious cycle going on against Zubair that as soon as he gets released in one case he is remanded in another case. During the hearing, you had used this this phrase "evergreening of his custody is going on" and the court seems to have accepted that proposition. So where do you do you see a larger significance for the Zubair's order, not just in this case but in the larger picture as well, because we see this trend happening across states, across the political spectrum where FIRs are involved against journalists and even common citizens for their social media posts criticizing the government. What is the message which the supreme court seems to be conveying?Vrinda Grover : I think the Supreme Court, both through the Zubair order - and as we know we only have the operative part of the order with us presently, the judgment is yet to be pronounced - and the judgment in the case of Satinder Singh Antil comes to mind is repeatedly saying that personal liberty is to be treated with the gravity that it deserves as has been conceptualized in the Constitution. Simply because the police is abusing its power, simply because there is a targeting of certain inconvenient voices that refuse to be silent, voices that are dissenting, the courts should not shy away from exercising their power of enlarging such persons on bail and scrutinizing the material that the police puts forward. So I think personal liberty has once again been foregrounded and at the same time we have been alerted that there is a a real possibility of the police actually abusing the power that it has in this case.MS : In this case, you had to fight right from the Magistrates court till the Supreme court and Zubair had the legal support of a good legal team. But there could be a lot of people who may not be in a position to avail legal aid. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said, even in the recent case in the Satinder Kumar Antil case also, that bail is the rule and jail is the exception. But that seems to be not happening at the ground level. People need to knock the doors of the higher courts for bail and by that time they have to spend several days as under trials in custody. The law is very clear but things seem to be not working at the ground level. So what do you think should be done to fix this?Grover : You're absolutely right. We know that there are many many people across this country and it's not only about people who may be speaking out on social media. There could be activists, there could be human rights defenders, there could be people of marginalized communities, who have been arrested on not very good legal grounds, who then suffer incarceration for years before they get bail. The Supreme Court has repeatedly been underlining and underscoring the importance of bail. It was in 1987 that Justice Krishna Iyer said bail is the rule and jail is an exception and this has been reiterated in multiple judgments now by the Supreme Court. The word of the Supreme Court is binding on all courts, all law enforcement agencies. I think we will have to take cognizance of the fact that there is a politicisation that is taking place of certain kinds of cases and we can't shy away from that reality anymore. A case where the individual arrested is seen to be anti-establishment or is seen to be asserting simply free speech which those in power, whether social or political, may not seem to be very comfortable, in those kind of cases ,there is a wariness, particularly at the Magistracy level, to grant bail and that to my mind is actually very worrying. It is worrying not only in terms of personal liberty of the individual who then has to go through the entire appellate process and we know that it's not easy to you know from different corners of this country to be able to approach the supreme court given that this you know and and get an early...

We Should Engage With The Institutions To Strengthen Democracy, Instead Of Retreating : Vrinda Grover | Full Text Of Interview

Manu Sebastian

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