Author: Rakesh Bhatnagar
Publication: DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
Date: January 2, 2011
URL: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_supreme-court-admits-it-violated-fundamental-rights-during-emergency_1489126
Thirty-four years after the Supreme Court
approved of the suspension of fundamental rights in the name of the Emergency,
it has admitted that it had committed an injustice on the people of the country.
Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had advised
President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in June 1975 to declare a state of emergency
under Article 352 of the Constitution.
The period witnessed large-scale detention
of political opponents under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA).
Despite support from the Madhya Pradesh high
court for habeas corpus in the case of additional district magistrate (ADM),
Jabalpur, versus Shivakant Shukla, Chief Justice YV Chandrachud had gone along
with Justice AN Ray, Justice PN Bhagwati and Justice MH Beg in a 4-1 verdict
to reject such petitions on April 28, 1976.
The only dissenting opinion was that of Justice
HR Khanna.
"The verdict of the five-member bench
upholding the suspension of fundamental rights was erroneous," said a
bench of justice Aftab Alam and justice Asok Kumar Ganguly while commuting
to life imprisonment the death sentence, earlier upheld by it, of a man who
murdered four members of a family.
The bench said Justice Khanna rightly gave
a dissenting judgment by holding that "under clause (8) Article 226 under
which the high courts can issue writs of habeas corpus is an integral part
of the Constitution. No power has been conferred upon any authority in the
Constitution for suspending the power of the high court to issue writs in
the nature of habeas corpus during the period of emergency."
There is no doubt that the majority judgment
of this court in the ADM Jabalpur case violated the fundamental rights of
a large number of people in this country, Justice Ganguly observed.
The judge was setting aside his own verdict
of May 5, 2009, along with Justice Arijt Pasayat, now retired, wherein the
apex court had upheld the death sentence of Remdeo Chauhan alias Rajnath Chauhan
who murdered Bhabani Charan Das and three members of his family on March 8,
1992.
"The instances of this court's judgment
violating the human rights of the citizens may be extremely rare, but it cannot
be said that such a situation can never happen," the bench said.
