On September 30, 1962, US President John F Kennedy sent 3,000 federal troops to protect the lone black man, James Meredith, to study in the all-white University of Mississippi where the racist Governor of the Mississippi state, Ross Barnett, himself stood with his Marshals blocking the entrance of Meredith to the university campus. Such was the determination of JFK to protect the right of one black man that he risked his next presidential bid, which resulted in a violent clash with racist Southern whites, leaving two dead, 160 soldiers injured and 28 US Marshals wounded. Meredith was guarded 24 hours a day by reserve US Marshals and Army troops for him to be educated as any other white citizen. This is an oft-quoted example of the state using its might to protect the right of one individual, the testimony of a strong democracy.
When Teesta Setalvad was rejected bail by the Gujarat High Court on July 1, her lawyers reached out to the Supreme Court. Within hours of the Gujarat HC judgement, the SC constituted a two-judge panel, which could not come to a decision and referred the matter to Chief Justice DY Chandrachud who urgently constituted another three-judge panel the same night. This three-judge panel deliberated and granted her interim bail for eight days so that she can apply for bail in the Supreme Court. The judges noted that Teesta Setalvad should not be denied interim liberty even for one day, that she was a lady and entitled to special protection under Section 437 of CrPC.
On the surface, this looks like another towering example of the democratic institutions of India standing for the right of one individual. But is it so? If one looks at the plight of an average Indian, especially the weak and the underprivileged, the Setalvad case appears to be one of a privileged citizen. The comments of judges that no one can be denied justice for one day should instead be applied to those stuck with five crore outstanding cases in the Indian judiciary and more than four lakhs of undertrials waiting for justice. At least 70,000 of the five crore cases are pending in the Supreme Court alone.
Even President Droupadi Murmu made a fervent appeal in the presence of the chief justice that the Indian judiciary needed to address the issue. Former Law Minister Kiren Rijiju pointed out that they work only 193 out of 365 days in a year, which is causing enormous problems for justice seekers. While PILs are signs of democracy where a common citizen can have access to the higher judiciary, when PIL of powerful NGOs and activists (many funded by anti-India international organisations) supersede 70,000 pending cases for decades in the Supreme Court alone, then it begs the question whether democracy is really served, unless perhaps the PIL is put in the queue along with those waiting for justice.
But there is a bigger issue at the heart of the Teesta Setalvad case. The case is not a normal one. Her allegations against Narendra Modi, who is the current Prime Minister of India, about his involvement during the Gujarat riots when he was the chief minister of the state, resulted in an investigation by the SC-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) committee, that not only could find even a single charge made against Narendra Modi to be true but also found several serious wrongdoings of Teesta Setalvad.
Setalvad is also accused of getting foreign funds such as the Ford Foundation, a known front of the CIA which, along with the USAID, committed many atrocities around the world and has attempted regime changes in more than 60 countries causing devastating consequences. Several Indian news media have reported the CIA’s alleged involvement in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and many Indian space and nuclear scientists.
Setalvad’s co-accused, RB Sreekumar, is the IPS officer (and AAP leader) who is accused of framing ISRO scientist Nambi Narayan and his fellow scientists with fake espionage charges (believed to be at the behest of the CIA) that stunted the advancement of space technology of the nation for more than a decade. Gujarat HC judge Nirzar Desai himself noted Teesta’s bail application case as, “enlarging a person, who allegedly acted at the behest of a political party, and tomorrow situation may raise that some outside force may utilise and convince a person to make efforts in similar line causing danger to nation or to particular state by adopting same modalities and, therefore, considering the totality of the fact and circumstances as also considering the fact that any such attempts may not take place in future, the bail application is required to be dismissed”. The esteemed judge also noted how giving bail to such individuals will blunt the progress of the nation because such individuals with deep connections will deepen and widen the communal polarisation.
This is more pertinent given the open threats of people like George Soros who publicly claimed that he has allocated one billion dollars to do regime change in India so that India can serve Western interests. These regime change operations are extremely sophisticated using a system of exploiting fault lines to create devastation in the target nation as well as awards to powerful members of that nation to influence them.
It is not that the Supreme Court is not aware of the case and the observations made by the Gujarat HC. Given the urgency and deliberations of the SC, even while on vacation, make many people wonder if this is a case of uncommon people with uncommon access. At the heart of the issue is accountability and to whom. No democratic institution can be above the will of the people; its power has to be derived directly or indirectly from the citizens of the state.
Much debate has been made about India’s collegium system of selecting judges, including several comments by Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar (who himself was an advocate and practised constitutional law at SC) and former law minister Kiren Rijiju. The Parliament does not appoint itself, nor does the President or the Prime Minister. They are directly or indirectly elected by the will of the people and their performance is evaluated and voted out by the collective will of the people every five years. There is simply no other democracy in the world where judges appoint themselves. As per a research done by a Mumbai-based lawyer, about 50 percent of the judges of high courts and 33 percent judges in the Supreme Court are family members of those in “higher echelons of judiciary”.
During his address on Independence Day in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “Unfortunately, the evil of nepotism in the political field has nurtured nepotism in every institution of India. It is engulfing many of our institutions. Because of this, the talent of my country suffers. The strength of my country suffers.”
India is at the cusp of its destiny to advance and become a superpower which threatens vested interests, both internally and externally, and it is time we fix our democratic institutions and collectively as a nation, be extremely vigilant.
Satya Dosapati is a US-based activist who has played a critical role in the introduction of paper trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT. The author has a website on Judiciary Accountability at https://judiciaryaccountability.com/; Souptik Mukherjee has a doctorate in Computer technology. Views expressed are personal.
