Backing justice with mercy

The Supreme Court has backed up justice with mercy by ordering the shifting of a Delhi-based journalist, Siddique Kappan, who was arrested by the UP police last year and was recently admitted to a hospital in Mathura, for better treatment to a Delhi hospital. Kappan was arrested in October last year when he was travelling to Hathras to report on the rape of a Dalit woman. Later he was charged under the UAPA for his alleged association with the Popular Front of India, an Islamist outfit. He has languished in jail ever since without bail, though the members of his family, friends and associates in the profession have maintained that they had no knowledge of his links with any extremist organisation. Whether he had such links or not, he has the right to due process of law and human treatment which any person is entitled to, in jail or outside.

There are charges that Kappan was ill-treated in jail and in hospital. His wife wrote to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) that he was Covid positive and was “chained like an animal to a cot of the Medical College Hospital, Mathura, without mobility, and he could neither take food nor go to the toilet for the last more than four days’’. He also suffers from ailments other than Covid-19. MPs from Kerala had also written to the CJI about the matter and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) filed a case in the court seeking his shift to the AIIMS. The court has ruled that he would be sent back to Mathura only after he recovers. It should be noted that the UP government opposed his shifting on various grounds but the court found little merit in them.

The court did well to ensure justice to a citizen who was denied the most basic of his rights. Access to medical services and facilities should be considered as part of the right to life. But the matter again raises many disquieting questions. It is not possible for all citizens to approach the highest court or any court on their own or through others when their rights are violated and when justice is denied to them. The more general issue of the increasing recourse to draconian laws like the UAPA against citizens also arises from such situations. Even after the journalist spent many months in jail, no one knows if the charges against him are supported by any evidence. The same is the case with many others, including those arrested in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case or in cases relating to the 2019 anti-CAA protests. The Supreme Court should ensure that justice is done in all such cases.