Comments on: The Binayak Sen case: An anomaly? http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-binayak-sen-case-an-anomaly Powered by Webshore Wed, 02 Sep 2015 13:53:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ahmet http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-binayak-sen-case-an-anomaly#comment-21722 Ahmet Mon, 29 Jun 2015 10:37:04 +0000 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=1873#comment-21722 Farzana,Eventually, the legal charges might get dismssied by higher courts in favour of Dr. Binayak Sen. Plus international pressure is mounting as well - for instance, Amnesty International has given a statement against judgement. However, the inescapable irony is if it were not somebody as well known Dr. Sen - the situation would have had been made much more terrible for the person by prosecutors. Heck, at this rate even academic interest in Maoist ideology will be looked at with suspicion - branding the person as terrorist. Cheers,Mahesh.p.s.: Have a Nice "whatever is left of it" weekend. Farzana,Eventually, the legal charges might get dismssied by higher courts in favour of Dr. Binayak Sen. Plus international pressure is mounting as well – for instance, Amnesty International has given a statement against judgement. However, the inescapable irony is if it were not somebody as well known Dr. Sen – the situation would have had been made much more terrible for the person by prosecutors. Heck, at this rate even academic interest in Maoist ideology will be looked at with suspicion – branding the person as terrorist. Cheers,Mahesh.p.s.: Have a Nice “whatever is left of it” weekend.

]]> By: Malavika Raghavan http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-binayak-sen-case-an-anomaly#comment-2391 Malavika Raghavan Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:18:05 +0000 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=1873#comment-2391 Hi Sidharth - I think the judgment begs the question of whether the disregard to the basic doctrine of stare decisis by the judge, in fact calls him into contempt. If the basic certainty to be guaranteed by a system of precedent is disregarded - the foundation on which we have built an entire jurisprudence - then apart from being a question of the rights of the undertrials, the catastrophic implicatons of judgments like these undermining our "system" of justice by disregarding it, are truly frightening. Do we then "respect the processes of law" as recommended by the Home Minister (not sarcastically. of course.) and let the system of appeal cure such "anomalies"? Do we expect the SC to step in? Either way, the challenges of managing the system from the top are unwieldy in a country the size of India, especially when judges are apparently immune from the consequences of their own misjudgments. Hi Sidharth – I think the judgment begs the question of whether the disregard to the basic doctrine of stare decisis by the judge, in fact calls him into contempt.
If the basic certainty to be guaranteed by a system of precedent is disregarded – the foundation on which we have built an entire jurisprudence – then apart from being a question of the rights of the undertrials, the catastrophic implicatons of judgments like these undermining our “system” of justice by disregarding it, are truly frightening. Do we then “respect the processes of law” as recommended by the Home Minister (not sarcastically. of course.) and let the system of appeal cure such “anomalies”? Do we expect the SC to step in? Either way, the challenges of managing the system from the top are unwieldy in a country the size of India, especially when judges are apparently immune from the consequences of their own misjudgments.

]]> By: Sidharth Chauhan http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-binayak-sen-case-an-anomaly#comment-2334 Sidharth Chauhan Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:12:01 +0000 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=1873#comment-2334 Arghya - you're right. It's difficult to make the generalised claim that this particular decision by a Sessions Judge is a representative sample of adjudication in criminal cases. One would necessarily have to present an overview of a much wider sample of trial court decisions (both across several states and over a meaningful time-period) to make an assertion of that sort. While there are many exemplary trial court judges serving in all parts of the country, most practitioners and observers do say that erroneous decisions such as this one are too frequent for comfort. Even if it is not a comment on the general quality of justice-delivery in the lower courts, this decision has so many prima facie errors that one would have to go through scores of other decisions to come up with something comparable. In that sense, the decision may not be an anomaly in the strict sense but it is a visible example of an unusually high error rate. Arghya – you’re right. It’s difficult to make the generalised claim that this particular decision by a Sessions Judge is a representative sample of adjudication in criminal cases. One would necessarily have to present an overview of a much wider sample of trial court decisions (both across several states and over a meaningful time-period) to make an assertion of that sort. While there are many exemplary trial court judges serving in all parts of the country, most practitioners and observers do say that erroneous decisions such as this one are too frequent for comfort. Even if it is not a comment on the general quality of justice-delivery in the lower courts, this decision has so many prima facie errors that one would have to go through scores of other decisions to come up with something comparable. In that sense, the decision may not be an anomaly in the strict sense but it is a visible example of an unusually high error rate.

]]> By: Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-binayak-sen-case-an-anomaly#comment-2332 Arghya Wed, 05 Jan 2011 05:13:17 +0000 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=1873#comment-2332 Dear Sidharth, This was an extremely well-researched and informative article. It's refreshing to read something which actually dwells on the judgment since most of the commentaries doing the rounds, including one or two you've cited show little knowledge of the actual decision itself and are based more on some television reports of the same. Be that as it may, my question is- to what extent do you think the magistrate in question is representative of the Indian lower judiciary in light of the three parameters- ignorance of precedent, flawed application of facts to the law and a conviction-friendly approach to adjudication? Of course this is a high profile instance where these aspects are coming to light but how widespread is this malaise? Dear Sidharth,

This was an extremely well-researched and informative article. It’s refreshing to read something which actually dwells on the judgment since most of the commentaries doing the rounds, including one or two you’ve cited show little knowledge of the actual decision itself and are based more on some television reports of the same. Be that as it may, my question is- to what extent do you think the magistrate in question is representative of the Indian lower judiciary in light of the three parameters- ignorance of precedent, flawed application of facts to the law and a conviction-friendly approach to adjudication? Of course this is a high profile instance where these aspects are coming to light but how widespread is this malaise?

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