On September 30, 1962, US President John F Kennedy
sent 3000
federal troops to protect the lone black man James Meredith to study in
the all white University of Mississippi where the racist Governor of the
Mississippi state Ross Barnett himself stood with his Marshals blocking
the entrance of Meredith to the University campus. Such was the
determination of JFK to protect the right of one black man that he
risked his next Presidential bid, which resulted in a violent clash with
racist southern whites leaving 2 dead, 160 soldiers injured and 28 US
Marshals wounded. Meredith was guarded twenty four hours a day by
reserve US Marshals and army troops for protection of one black citizen
to be educated as any other white citizen. This is oft quoted example
of the state using its might to protect the right of one individual, the
testimony of a strong democracy. When Teesta Setalvad was rejected
bail by Gujarat High Court on July 1st Saturday, her lawyers reached
out to the Honorable Supreme Court which was on vacation and that too a
weekend. However, within hours of the Gujarat HC judgement, the SC
constituted a
2 judge panel, which could not come to a decision and referred the
case to Chief Justice DY Chandrachud who urgently constituted another 3
judge panel on the same night. This 3 judge panel deliberated and
granted her interim bail for 8 days so that she can apply for bail in
the Supreme Court. The honorable judges noted that Teesta Setalvad
cannot be denied interim liberty even for one day, that she was a lady
and entitled to special protection under section 437 of CrPC.
On
the surface this looks like another towering example of the democratic
institutions of India standing for the right of one individual. But is
it so? Covering this news, Journalist Palki Sharma
spoke about
the state of Indian Judiciary which seems to be for the privileged, to
the privileged and by the privileged. The comments of honorable Judges
that no one can be denied justice for one day should be applied to
those involved in 5 crore outstanding cases in Indian Judiciary and more
than 4 lacs of undertrials waiting for justice. 70,000 of the 5 crore
cases are pending in the Supreme Court alone. None other than President
Murmu made a fervent
appeal in
the presence of the Chief Justice that the Indian Judiciary needed to
address the issue. Even previous Law Minister Kiren Rijju while
admitting the load cases of Judges is high,
pointed out
the judges work only 193 out of 365 days in a year, which is causing
enormous problems for justice seekers. While PILs are signs of
democracy where a common citizen can have access to higher Judiciary,
when PIL of powerful NGO's and activists (many funded by anti-India
international organizations) supersede 70,000 pending cases for decades
in Supreme Court alone, then it begs the question whether democracy is
really served, unless perhaps the PIL is put in the queue along with
those waiting for justice.
But there is a
bigger issue at the heart of the Teesta Setalvad case. The Teesta
Setalvad case is not a normal case. Her allegations against Narendra
Modi who is current Prime Minister of India about his involvement during
Gujarat riots when he was Chief Minister of the state resulted in an
investigation by SC appointed SIT committee, that not only could find
even a single charge made against Narendra Modi to be true but also
found several serious wrong doings of Teesta Setalvad. Teesta is also
accused of
getting foreign
funds such as the Ford Foundation, a known front of CIA which along
with the USAID committed many atrocities around the world and has
attempted regime
changes in more than 60 countries causing devastating consequences.
Several India news media reported the CIA involvement in
assasination of
Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Sastri and many Indian space and
nuclear scientists. Teesta Setalvad co-accused RB Sree Kumar is the IPS
officer (and AAP leader) who is
accused of
framing ISRO scientist Nambi Narayan along and his fellow scientists
with fake espionage charges (believed to be at the behest of CIA) that
stunted the advancement of space technology of the nation for more than a
decade. The honorable Gujarat HC judge Nirzar Desai himself
noted on
Teesta bail application case as, 'enlarging a person, who allegedly
acted at the behest of a political party, and tomorrow situation may
raise that some outside force may utilise and convince a person to make
efforts in similar line causing danger to Nation or to particular state
by adopting same modalities and, therefore, considering the totality of
the fact and circumstances as also considering the fact that any such
attempts may not take place in future, the bail application is required
to be dismissed'. The judge also noted how giving bail to such
individuals will blunt the progress of the nation because such
individuals with deep connections will deepen and widen the communal
polarization. This is more pertinent given the open threats of
international criminals like Soros who publicly claimed that he has
allocated 1 billion dollars to do regime change in India so that India
can serve Western interests. These regime change operations are
extremely sophisticated using a system of exploiting fault lines to
create devastation in the target nation as well as awards to powerful
members of that nation to influence them, such as for example, Harvard
Global Leadership
award to Honorable CJI Chandrachud. Harvard's rabid anti-India activities are exhaustively
covered in the prominent works such as 'Snakes in the Ganga'.
It
is not that the Honorable Supreme Court is not aware of the case and
the observations of the state HC. The urgency and deliberations of the
SC even while on vacation only proves the statements of the Honorable HC
judge on the reach of people like Teesta Setalvad at the highest levels
of Indian democracy that no common citizen have. At the heart of the
issue is accountability and to whom. No democratic institution can be
above the will of the people, its power has to be derived directly or
indirectly from the citizens of the state. Much debate has been made
about India's collegium system of selecting Judges including several
comments by the
Vice President
Jagdeep Dhankar (who himself was an advocate who practised
constitutional law at Supreme Court) and the previous law minister Kiren
Rijju. The parliament does not appoint itself, nor does the President
or Prime Minister. They are directly or indirectly elected by the will
of the people and their performance is evaluated and voted out by the
collective will of the people every 5 years. There is simply no other
democracy in the world where judges appoint themselves which resulted in
a system where almost all judges in the higher echelons of Indian
judiciary come from a handful of powerful families from either political
or legal dynasties. Only in Indian democracy do we see a unique system
of '
Uncle Judges' where more than 30% of the state's highest court judges have close relatives practising in the same courts. According to one
report,
50% of HC judges and 30% SC judges are family members of those who
served in higher judiciary. Perhaps only in India we see a
threat of
'contempt of court' hangs high on any reasonable criticism of the
judiciary. During his address on independence day in 2022 Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
said,
'Unfortunately, the evil of nepotism in the political field has
nurtured nepotism in every institution of India. It is engulfing many of
our institutions. Because of this, the talent of my country suffers.
The strength of my country suffers."
Coming
back to James Meredith versus Teesta Setalvad, it seems like while JFK
is putting weight of his nation's mighty institutions to protect the
rights of one victim, our democratic institution (judiciary) seem to put
the weight of its democracy to protect alleged criminal Teesta, who as
honorable HC judge noted, 'such people can pose danger to the nation
itself'. This is not good news. India is at the cusp of its destiny to
advance and become a superpower which threatens vested interests both
internally and externally and it is time we fix our democratic
institutions and collectively as a nation be extremely vigilant.
Regards,
Satya Dosapati
Authors Bio:
Satya Dosapati is an activist based in the US working on
causes for both India and US. He played a critical role in the
introduction of paper
trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT in 2010 that
put Indian democracy on a strong foothold. This was done by bringing in
top international experts and demonstrating the vulnerabilities in
Indian EVMs working with local organizations and CEC Qureshi. He
organized an All American Rally for Trump bringing in various ethnic
communities together in support of the Trump Presidential Election that
was
acknowledged by the Republican party and then candidate Trump. The
event
was covered by most of the US national media in Pennsylvania. He is well
known for challenging 100 and 30 million dollar lawsuits from Sonia
Gandhi proxies in the US when he coordinated a UN protest against Sonia
Gandhi posing to represent Mahatma Gandhi values at UN and taking a full
page Ad in New York Times exposing her. He has several successes in
activist movements such as forcing Andhra Pradesh CM YSR in 2007 in
banning conversions inside Hindu temples, bringing attention to the
plight of backward caste minor girls in West Bengal being kidnapped and
thrown into sexual slavery through love jihad. He led a protest
against University of Pennsylvania (Wharton economic forum) for dropping
Narendra Modi from keynote speech because of false allegations of some
leftist professors and got a (private) apology from UPenn President
. He initiated the first anti-corruption conference working with Ajit
Doval and Dr. Swamy before Anna Hazare protest at New Delhi Vivekananda
International foundation and brought in top international
anti-corruption Organizations personnel from UN (UNODC) and Europe
(Eurodad) and other institutions. His presentation on Plunder of India
by Sonia UPA received nearly 2 lacs hits. He was also engaged in animal
rights movements in the US for health, environment, and compassion. He
received his bachelors from IIT Chennai with graduate degrees in the US
and
is pursuing a career in Telecom in the US. His Koo id is @SatyaDosapati
and several of his articles were published in First Post, PGurus and
OpIndia news portals. His blog is https://SatyaBlog.org.