"Criminal Justice Machinery Relentlessly Employed Against M Zubair": Supreme Court

By Dilip -
NB: These remarks in the SC order are gratifying, and show that some of our judges are diligent in their duties as defenders of citizen's freedoms against the misuse of state power. I hope judges and magistrates in lesser courts take a lesson from this judgement and refrain from succumbing to the authoritarian impulses of the regime now in power. DS

New Delhi: Fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, who got bail last week, was "trapped in a vicious cycle of criminal process where the process itself has become the punishment," the Supreme Court has said, warning that arrest "cannot be used as a punitive tool". The detailed judgment in the case that was released today contained a series of extremely strong remarks. Muhammed Zubair had walked free last week, after more than a month in jail, days after Chief Justice NV Ramana flagged the matter of "hasty and indiscriminate arrests, difficulty in obtaining bail, and prolonged incarceration of undertrials".

"Arrest is not meant to be and must not be used as a punitive tool because it results in one of the gravest possible consequences emanating from criminal law: the loss of personal liberty," read the judgment from the bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna today.

"Individuals must not be punished solely on the basis of allegations, and without a fair trial... When the power to arrest is exercised without application of mind and without due regard to the law, it amounts to an abuse of power," it added.

The court said the Section 41 of the CrPC and safeguards in criminal law exist in recognition of the reality that any criminal proceeding "almost inevitably involves the might of the state, with unlimited resources at its disposal, against a lone individual"....

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/arrest-not-punitive-tool-supreme-court-on-fact-checker-m-zubairs-case-3192971


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