Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire | feeds from sacw.net | @sacw
Home > Human Rights > Binayak Sen Case - Farcical move to undermine the legal process

Binayak Sen Case - Farcical move to undermine the legal process

19 December 2010

print version of this article print version

[Editorials from two of India’s leading newspapers]

The Hindu
- 15 December 2010 | Editorial

FARCE IN COURT

Four years after Binayak Sen was arrested for his alleged links with the Maoists, the prosecution is struggling to present a case against the celebrated doctor and human rights activist. This was all too evident in its farcical attempt to link him to the Inter-Services Intelligence through an email correspondence between his wife and a person by the name of “Fernandes†in “ISI.†The trial proceedings are under way in the Raipur sessions court in Chhattisgarh. Either out of sheer ignorance or in a deliberate attempt to mislead the court, the chief prosecutor declared “we do not know who this Fernandes is, but ISI, as we all know, means Pakistan.†As Dr. Sen later explained, the ISI in this case stands for Indian Social Institute, and the email was addressed to Walter Fernandes, a former head of the New Delhi-based institute and a friend of his wife. But the prosecution appears to have been so taken up with the discovery that it even contended that the email, in which mention is made of “a chimpanzee in the White House,†was written in code, and possibly meant “terrorists are annoyed with the U.S.†All this would be laughable had this not been a trial that is viewed as an important test for Indian democracy. Dr. Sen, whose work as a medical practitioner among the poorest communities and as a defender of their rights is held up as exemplary public service, is being tried under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act. He is accused of conspiring to overthrow the state with two others accused in the case, Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal and a Kolkata businessman, Piyush Guha. The trial began in 2008 and, under the Supreme Court’s orders, must be completed by January 2011. Dr. Sen was released on bail in May 2009, two years after his arrest and following a long public campaign; the other two are in jail.

While no attempt can be made to pre-empt the court, the proceedings in the case are eerily reminiscent of another notorious case in which the accused, Iftikhar Gilani, a well-known journalist, was held without bail from June 2002 to January 2003. What was cited as the main evidence against him was that he had in his possession a research paper available on the website of a Pakistani think tank. How material originating in another country could be categorised as an “official secret†of the Indian state was never explained. Mr. Gilani was released when the Ministry of Home Affairs had no option left but to withdraw the case — “for administrative reasons and in the public interest†— as it became obvious there was no evidence against him. Clearly, and to its own detriment, the Indian state has yet to learn the lessons from that case.

o o o

The Telegraph (Calcutta)
- December 17 , 2010 | Editorial

ABSURD DRAMA

The idea of evidence, as the word’s etymology indicates, is founded on the faculty of sight. ‘Seeing is believing’: empirical knowledge — hence, all modern disciplines like law and medicine — is based on a judicious application of this premise. But turn it round, and one is left with ‘believing is seeing’, which is the realm of love rather than law, miracles rather than medicine. In such a world, the justice system is turned upside down. A particularly absurd instance of this inversion occurred recently at a sessions court in Chhattisgarh, during the trial of the renowned doctor and human rights activist, Binayak Sen. Mr Sen — who is out on bail after being in jail for two years for alleged links with the Maoists — was being tried under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act. On the second day of the prosecution’s arguments, the public prosecutor attempted to prove that Mr Sen and his wife were part of an international terror network because Ms Sen had written an email to “one Fernandes from the ISI†. And what could this ISI be but Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence? But, as it turned out, ISI is the Indian Social Institute in Delhi, and Walter Fernandes its former head and a friend of the Sens. The court was also regaled with other suspicious bits from the Sens’ correspondence. “We have a chimpanzee in the White House†appearing in one of the messages indicated, according to the prosecution, that Mr Sen was using a code, as terrorists often do; and his wife addressed one of her correspondents as “Comrade†, as Maoists often do one another.

All this would have been terrifically entertaining — the chimpanzee did make the judge smile — had some of the most crucial issues of democracy and human rights not been implicated in the treatment meted out to Mr Sen over the last couple of years. That an individual of rare and celebrated courage and skills has been accused of conspiring to overthrow the State, made to fear for his life, and was held in jail with an ailing heart for two years on the flimsiest of evidence, lays bare the actual state of justice in Chhattisgarh and, by extension, the Indian State. These latest incidents certainly give a comic twist to the tale. But that does not make the situation any less sinister. Paranoia, especially when founded on ignorance, could dangerously undermine the rational foundations of the legal process.