- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
ARYAN Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, who was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a drugs-on-cruise case early on October 3, finally got bail from the Bombay High Court on Thursday (28) after being denied the same by lower courts a number of times.
A number of voices were heard emerging from the film fraternity that supported the 23-year-old Aryan and said the judicial system of India needs to be addressed. Veteran journalist Vir Sanghvi has now come out with a strong observation on the case after Aryan spent almost a month in jail.
In a piece that he penned for his website, Sanghvi said by continuously denying bail to Aryan, the lower courts proved that they little listen to the Supreme Court’s pronouncements on upholding the country’s Constitution.
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He cited the judgment that Justice D Y Chandrachud, a Supreme Court judge, gave in a 2018 case of abetment to suicide related to journalist Arnab Goswami.
“Liberty survives by the vigilance of citizens, on the cacophony of the media and in the dusty corridors of courts alive to the rule of law. Yet, much too often, liberty is a casualty when one of these components is found wanting,” he said.
Aryan Khan denied bail again, moves high court
Justice Chandrachud said the courts in India are the “first line of defence” against the deprivation of personal liberty to citizens. But in reality, people who had been convicted of no crime, were kept behind bars as their bail applications moved from one court to another.
Sanghvi also said that the apex court referred to a famous judgment (Rajasthan v Balachand case of 1978) which was delivered by Justice Krishna Iyer. He said in it: “The basic rule may perhaps be tersely put as bail, not jail.”
“In fact, jail ends up being the rule in today’s India. As the Supreme Court pointed out, 91,568 bail pleas are pending in High Courts, while 1.96 lakh pleas continue to wait for a hearing in the district courts. Obviously, many judges have either forgotten what Krishna Iyer said or decided not to bother with the principle of personal liberty,” Sanghvi said in his piece.
It took SRK over three weeks & huge legal fees to get bail for Aryan against whom there was no case.
What happens to ordinary people who lack his clout & resources?
My piece on how by denying bail, the lower courts are trampling on the Constitution. https://t.co/JqOQ8NVs0t pic.twitter.com/Gnvba1UJcD— vir sanghvi (@virsanghvi) October 28, 2021
The journalist rued that the Aryan Khan case showed that nobody in authority paid the slightest attention to what Justice Chandrachud had said. He said the judge was not making law but just restating the principles of personal liberty as the Indian Constitution promises. “So, by ignoring his concerns, courts have also ignored the spirit of the Indian Constitution,” he said.
Sanghvi also referred to the observations that Justice PN Bhagawati, a former chief justice in India, had made over refusal of bail. According to Bhagawati, refusal of bail meant deprivation of liberty and that a fundamental right to bail is implicit in India’s Constitution.
Sanghvi added that Bhagawati’s concern was with those poor Indians who languished in Indian jails without being convicted because the judges had either refused to hear them properly or denied them bail.
Just like Chandrachud now, Bhagawati had said: “It is a travesty of justice that many poor accused are forced into long cellular servitude for little offences because the bail procedure is beyond their meagre means….One reason why our legal and judicial system continually denies justice to the poor…. is our highly unsatisfactory bail system.”
“In time, Justice Bhagwati’s words, like those of Justice Krishna Iyer were forgotten. Instead the judicial system took the line that there was no point in restricting injustice only to the poor. Why not extend injustice to all Indians, even those who could afford legal representation?” asked Sanghvi.
He said the present situation is such where government agencies and police forces can lock up anybody at will. It doesn’t matter that the case will eventually collapse for by the time that happens, the victim will have spent enough time in jail and locked up for crimes for which he/she will never be convicted.
“It took SRK over three weeks & huge legal fees to get bail for Aryan against whom there was no case. What happens to ordinary people who lack his clout & resources?” the journalist asked in a tweet.
