19 November 2012 , was probably the worst day of this year. Two girls from Mumbai were harassed by a bunch of hooligans, for saying something that they wanted to say.
I don't want to talk about the person against which the comments were made by the girls. Sad, but I don't think I feel safe in this country anymore. So lets move on.
The problem is not that the girls were harassed. The issue is the active involvement of the state machinery, not to help those girls but to harass them even more, by arresting them.
Here the charges against the girls stated that they had incited religious sentiments. I ask, isn't this clause against the very basic feature of our constitution - Fundamental Rights ? It's a blatant violation of our right to speech. Why can't a person voice his opinions in this free country ? It sets a very dangerous precedent for our already battered democracy. The self-righteous perpetrators of this act need to be punished immediately with exemplary harshness.
I understand that the police might have done it to appease the angry hooligans, but it is our very own parliament that has equipped people with such faulty legal re-courses, that it can be mis-utilized at will.
They were charged under various sections of the Indian Information Technology Act, 2000. There seems to be a problem with this act itself. This act leaves a lot of things at the discretion of the Police\Investigating agencies\Courts.
Here, I would like to compare this act with the provision of life penalty under Indian Penal Code. India, is right now among the very few countries, which still have the provision of capital punishment. Many of the developed nations of the world have abandoned it. There is a reason behind it. You guessed it right !! It too had a lot to do with the discretionary powers of the judge.
India still awards capital punishment with great inconsistency in judgement. That is why Kasab got the noose and hatemonger like Mira Kodnani just got a life sentence, that too by a trial court which is supposed to award a stricter punishment to the offenders.
Well, coming back to the point, the supreme court has quite often struck down laws, that have tried to alter the basic structure of our constitution (read Keshwanand Bharti v\s State of Kerala), and it's high time that it carefully looks into this draconian law, which threatens to gag our beloved democracy.
Regards,
Ashish Mishra
No comments:
Post a Comment