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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Supreme Court ex-judges suggest reforms to avert misuse of laws -Pheroze L Vincent

Supreme Court ex-judges suggest reforms to avert misuse of laws -Pheroze L Vincent

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published Published on Jul 25, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 28, 2021

-The Telegraph

Madan B. Lokur expresses doubt whether a clause and a law dealing with sedition and terrorism would be scrapped altogether

Justice Madan B. Lokur, the former Supreme Court judge, has expressed doubt whether a clause and a law dealing with sedition and terrorism would be scrapped altogether but has suggested measures to insulate them from misuse.

Several former Supreme Court judges and a former high court judge on Saturday called the sedition clause and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) unconstitutional.

Four former Supreme Court judges — Justices Lokur, Aftab Alam, Deepak Gupta and V. Gopala Gowda —as well as the former Patna High Court judge, Justice Anjana Prakash, were speaking at a webinar hosted by the Centre for Judicial Accountability and Reform.

Justice Lokur said: “It’s nice to say that UAPA, sedition should go. But as I said, I don’t think they’re going to go. Probably, the National Security Act is now going to be used. So how do people deal with the situation? The only way is accountability. Accountability has to be in two forms; one is financial accountability where compensation has to be given. Once the courts start telling police or prosecution that you better pay Rs 5 or 10 lakh, I think they’ll probably come to their senses.”

He added: “There is now… something called ‘soft torture’. We know about third and second degree methods, but you have soft torture.”

Justice Lokur cited the overcrowding of jails and the lack of sanitation and proper food for juveniles as examples.

“You have somebody like Hany Babu (the Delhi University teacher now lodged in a Mumbai jail) whose eye is in a very bad shape and when it appears that he might lose his eye, then he will be sent to hospital but not before that. Everybody has talked about Stan Swamy. Why could he not be given medical treatment earlier? Isn’t that torture?”

Justice Alam cited National Crime Records Bureau data to show that the UAPA had been proved to harass the innocent rather than punish the guilty.

He said: “In 2019, there were 2,361 UAPA cases pending trial; 113 were disposed of with conviction in 33 cases, acquittal in 64 and discharge in 16 cases. With low rates of disposal and high rates of pending, even if the case may fail, the accused may come out of incarceration after 8, or even 13 years…. The case doesn’t stand but the accused has suffered.

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The Telegraph, 25 July, 2021, https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/former-supreme-court-judges-suggest-reforms-to-avert-misuse-of-laws/cid/1823795?fbclid=IwAR0XsK3Sdb767PIpAywNSjuyWsvD-0riZfOqhAyaJpl-XhGNp0y6RyTockw


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