The destruction of India’s judicial independence is almost complete – By Rana Ayyub
Last week, as India rolled out plans to deal with the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Supreme Court quashed the bail petition of Anand Teltumbde, one of India’s leading scholars, and asked him to surrender to the police in the second week of April.
Teltumbde, an advocate for India’s most disadvantaged communities, including Dalits, once called “untouchables,” has been swept up in a broad crackdown against lawyers, activists and dissent in general. He has been accused of supporting a banned group of Maoist militants, known as Naxalites, who seek to overthrow the government – charges he of course denies. Many of those charged have been languishing in jail for a long time.
Teltumbde’s work against the caste system in India and his fight against majoritarian politics made him a target of right-wing leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Teltumbde has been on the forefront of condemning the communal politics unleashed by Modi and has compared him to Hitler. He also rightly accused Modi of being complicit in the anti-Muslim carnage of 2002 that left more than 1,000 people dead in the state of Gujarat, when Modi was chief minister.
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Judicial Independence: Three Developments that Tell Us Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair – By Madan B. Lokur (Mar 23, 2020, The Wire)
As former CJI accepts RS berth, let’s say it again: Judges are not law, but its creatures – By Alok Rai (Mar 26, 2020, Indian Express)
The Revolving Door for Ranjan Gogoi Does the Supreme Court and Parliament No Credit – By Rajeev Dhavan (Mar 25, 2020, The Wire)
How Shaheen Bagh Protestors Got Tacit Support From the Judiciary – By Wajahat Habibullah (Mar 27, 2020, The Quint)https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/shaheen-bagh-covid-coronavirus-wajahat-habibullah
