Lawyers as judge and jury

UP’s legal fraternity forgets its professional responsibility to ensure no innocent gets punished.

In a press release issued from the CM’s office a day after the serial blasts in Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi on November 23, there is a mention of unconfirmed speculation that the blasts targeted advocates since they have refused, over the last three years, to defend individuals accused of terrorist actions in these three cities. The lawyers had also recently assaulted five men in Faizabad arrested for alleged terror crimes in UP — including three arrested recently in Lucknow on charges of plotting an attack on Rahul Gandhi — when they were produced in local courts.

In addition, UP has been witness to unruly court room scenes where advocates raised slogans and manhandled people. Acharya Jugal Kishore Shashtri of Ayodhya and colleagues, arrested in January 2006 during an event on Periyar’s birthday after being charged of having caused disrespect to Hindu religious symbols, spent three and a half months in jail merely because the sessions court was stormed by a ‘Jai Shree Ram’ shouting lawyers’ brigade every time the case for bail came up. Similarly, in the case of Hindu-Muslim marriages, lawyers have not been very kind to the couples. UP’s lawyers are in the habit of conducting trials even before the verdict is delivered.

The question of terrorism is complicated. When I was asked by veteran socialist leader Surendra Mohan to join a citizens defence committee for Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, projected by the Delhi Police as the mastermind behind the Parliament attack of December 2001, I agreed to become part of the committee even though I did not know Geelani. The High Court judgment on the case said there was no evidence to even remotely link him to the Parliament attack. I was happy not because our stand was vindicated but because Geelani was able to go back to his young wife and two little children.

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How do we know that people arrested as suspected ‘terrorists’ (and already indicted by the lawyers) are not innocents? Most are young Muslims, probably not very educated and hence not likely to get the kind of support that Geelani got. If they do not get proper legal support, how do we ensure that justice will be done to them?

UP’s lawyers should know that it is their professional responsibility to ensure that no innocent is punished. In a landmark order passed on November 26, Judges Amar Saran and Vijay Kumar Verma, taking suo motu cognisance of the blasts, sought an explanation from the government for security lapses as well as from the UP Bar Council for the professional misconduct of their errant members.

The intolerance exhibited by the legal fraternity is symptomatic of the state of mind of society at large. A society in which people are becoming intolerant of each other cannot be a secure place for anybody. A society that will not respect an individual as a human being cannot hope to exist in peace.

The writer is a Magsaysay awardee