The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order in a case of anticipatory bail for activists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand. The two have been accused of embezzling funds meant for victims of communal violence. Until the final order is passed, on an as yet unreported date, they will continue to be protected from arrest.
During its hearing, the Supreme Court asked the Gujarat police why it needed to interrogate the couple in custody. The police said that the two had not been cooperating and might tamper with witness statements.
“Liberty is not unlimited but liberty cannot be put in the ICU,” the Court is reported to have said. The two-member bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel ordered Setalvad and Anand to submit to the police any information they required, including a full list of donors.
The court pointed out that money that seemed to have been transferred from their personal accounts could have been an auditing error and therefore would not require custodial interrogation. It added that if Setalvad and Anand did not cooperate, the police could file an application to cancel this bail.
On February 12, the Gujarat High Court had rejected the couple's application for bail, after which the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Judges switched around
Justices SJ Mukhopadhyay and NV Ramana were on the original bench to hear the case, before Chief Justice HL Dattu assigned it to Justices Misra and Goel. Lawyers had raised questions about the close links of Mukhopadhyay and Ramana to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the judges did not recuse themselves from the case.
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan explained in an e-mailed statement why the judges should have done so.
Eyebrows had also been raised recently when it came to light that former Chief Justice of India and current Kerala Governor P Sathasivam came to Delhi to attend the wedding reception of BJP chief Amit Shah's son.
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During its hearing, the Supreme Court asked the Gujarat police why it needed to interrogate the couple in custody. The police said that the two had not been cooperating and might tamper with witness statements.
“Liberty is not unlimited but liberty cannot be put in the ICU,” the Court is reported to have said. The two-member bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel ordered Setalvad and Anand to submit to the police any information they required, including a full list of donors.
The court pointed out that money that seemed to have been transferred from their personal accounts could have been an auditing error and therefore would not require custodial interrogation. It added that if Setalvad and Anand did not cooperate, the police could file an application to cancel this bail.
On February 12, the Gujarat High Court had rejected the couple's application for bail, after which the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Judges switched around
Justices SJ Mukhopadhyay and NV Ramana were on the original bench to hear the case, before Chief Justice HL Dattu assigned it to Justices Misra and Goel. Lawyers had raised questions about the close links of Mukhopadhyay and Ramana to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the judges did not recuse themselves from the case.
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan explained in an e-mailed statement why the judges should have done so.
It has been brought to my notice that Mr. Narendra Modi was an invitee of and recently attended the weddings of the children of Justices Mukhopadhyaya and Ramanna, who are hearing the case of Teesta Setalvad. The allegation of Teesta in this case is that she is being hounded by the Gujarat Police since she had played a leading role in exposing the role of Modi in the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and is seeking accountability for it. In these circumstances the question has arisen whether it would be appropriate for these judges to hear this case.
The Principles for a judge recusing from a case have been laid down by the Supreme Court in the 1987 case of Ranjit Thakur, where the court laid down that when a judge asks the question whether he should recuse himself from a case, the correct principle is not to ask “Will I be biased?” but to put himself in the shoes of the litigant before him and ask, “Will the litigant before me have a reasonable apprehension of bias?”
The code of Conduct for judges framed in 1999, says that “Justice must not merely be done but it must also be seen to be done.” It further says that, “A judge shall practice a degree of aloofness consistent with the dignity of his office.” It further says that a judge shall not decide a matter in which a friend is concerned. A consistent reading of this code requires that a judge should not socialise with politicians unless they are his close personal friends, and if so they should not hear cases concerning them. A person in Teesta's position can reasonably apprehend that Modi must have been invited to the weddings of the judges' children because they are his personal friends and in which case, she can reasonably apprehend bias in this case. I therefore feel that this is a case where the judges would be well advised to recuse themselves from the case, in order to, as the code of conduct says, “reaffirm the people's faith in the impartiality of the judiciary."
Eyebrows had also been raised recently when it came to light that former Chief Justice of India and current Kerala Governor P Sathasivam came to Delhi to attend the wedding reception of BJP chief Amit Shah's son.
