Personal liberty sacred

BY ordering the immediate release of a convict from Hapur (Uttar Pradesh) who was awarded 18 years in jail — two years each for nine minor cases of theft of electrical equipment — a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has set right the miscarriage of justice dispensed by lower courts. The verdict is significant for it not only reasserts the right to personal liberty as being sacrosanct but also sends the heart-warming message that no case is small for the apex court. The Bench reduced the sentence of the convict, who has already spent more than three years in prison, saying that the penalty for all cases would run concurrently instead of successively.

The Bench expressed annoyance with the Allahabad High Court and the trial court for overlooking this fundamental right. Indeed, through these courts’ sentencing, a petty thief had been treated on a par with hardcore criminals. The grant of relief to this convict sends down to all courts a cogent jurisprudential message of protecting the citizens’ freedom. The underscoring of the right to liberty assumes significance also in the context of recent events in our country where the voice of ordinary people, especially if it goes against that of the political masters, is being increasingly muzzled and their freedom brazenly curtailed.

To counter this unwelcome trend, the credo of ‘bail rather than jail’ has been emphasised upon by the judiciary. But sadly, it is often ignored in violation of Article 21, which is often described as the heart and soul of the Constitution. The Article reads, ‘No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.’ It is estimated that nearly two lakh bail applications are pending in various courts across the country and around 18,000 of them for over five years. The need to release convicts and undertrials in cases of non-heinous crime has been repeatedly felt for another urgent reason: to decongest the clogged prisons. Sending people unnecessarily to overcrowded jails only adds to the logistical and systemic burden.

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