 Hello and welcome to NewsClick and the leaflet. Today we are joined by two eminent personalities of India's legal fraternity. We have with us Justice Madan Lokul, the former judge of the Supreme Court of India and Indira Jaisingh, senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India and the founder of both the leaflet and the lawyers collective. And we are going to be discussing a wide range of issues regarding recent developments, the Hatra's gang rape and murder case of course, the kind of rumour-mongering, the kind of victim-blaming that has been happening around it in the aftermath. Also issues around Bhima Kuregao, the Delhi riots, the kind of conspiracy, the climate of conspiracy that is bringing the narrative of conspiracy that's being created in the country. So thank you both of us very much for joining us today. So my first question is regarding the Hatra's incident. So we have seen more developments over the past few days. On the one hand, we have seen the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Jogi Adityanath declare a conspiracy. We will of course come to that later. But there's also been a long series of events. Senior advocate Indira Jaisingh spoke to us last week on some of these issues on the systemic aspects. So I just want to ask the both of you in light of recent events, how do you see both the response of the state and the kind of systemic failures at various levels, at the levels of the police, at the level of medical fraternity, at the level of administration? How do you see it right now? So may I just make the comment that I have made earlier that when you say there's a failure by the state, it's very important to deconstruct the word state. Because the failure occurs at many levels. And the first level at which it occurs is the police station. The second level at which it occurs is the hospital. The third level at which it occurs is the district administration, which is responsible for ensuring a free and fair investigation. And I really cannot say how far up the ladder of the state the buck stops. But I would, I would really throw open this question that do we have any concept in this country of command responsibility, where ultimately it is the Ministry of Home Affairs. And beyond the Ministry of Home Affairs, the cabinet system, the entire cabinet, which takes responsibility for what we consider to be a complete failure in the administration of justice. Yes, Prashant, as far as I am concerned about the Hatras incident, you know, the beginning is terrible. And the end is also terrible. Right. Now, why do I say that the beginning is terrible. It's an immediate position that this girl was brought to the police station. Right. And the police refused to register an FIR for whatever reason. Now, there are instructions that have been given by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and it was reiterated, I think today or yesterday, that if there is a crime against a woman, and it's a cognizable offence, then the police must, it's mandatory, they must register an FIR. Right. Now, this girl was brought to the police station. It was obvious, I think it should have been obvious to the police that she had been bruised. Right. And so therefore an FIR should have been registered. But it was not. Okay, so that's where, right in the beginning, things went wrong. You know, so now people are saying all kinds of things that, oh, you know, she was beaten up by her family and so on and so forth. Fine. Assuming it to be so. Even then it has to be registered. Right. In a domestic violence, for example, the husband beats the wife, you can't say, oh, because the husband has beaten the wife, therefore I'm not going to register an FIR. It still has to be registered. So the beginning is terrible. The end is terrible. You know, suddenly in the middle of the night, they go and, you know, cremated, I don't even know whether it's cremation or whether it's just burning the body, because apparently no rituals are carried out, nothing was done, they, you know, through petrol, whatever. And therefore the whole thing, you know, the beginning is suspicious or terrible. The end is suspicious or terrible. Okay, now, what happens in between is something which obviously has to be investigated but then if you look at it from this perspective, you know, there is a lot that the state has to answer for. It is a lot that the state has to answer for. First of all, why was not the FIR registered? Secondly, what was the reason for the cremation or the burning in the middle of the night? I believe, at least I've read in the newspapers that they say that, oh, you know, there was going to be a law and order situation, so therefore we had to, you know, cremate in the middle of the night. Was there some urgency to cremate her at that time? Couldn't they have waited for a day? You know, after all, a body can be preserved for a day, can be preserved for two days. What was the hurry in, you know, cremating her? If I waited for a day, got the law and order situation under control, if there was a law and order situation, and then maybe done the cremation the next day or the day after. You know, so the whole thing is very, very shady. Absolutely. Sir, but you would agree that it denied the family an opportunity for a second person? Yeah, certainly. Absolutely. Right. And in this context, we are seeing this narrative of it being an honour killing, which is kind of shocking considering the history of honour killings in India, the caste dimensions of it. And now there's this narrative being widely spread by many networks that this was some kind of an incident. So would you like to reflect on that? Okay, you see, this is what I'm saying, that the worst case scenario is that she was beaten up by her family. That is a narrative that is being given now. Even then, the FIR has to be registered. Why was it not registered? Yes. You know? It's amazing. And, you know, in the context of honour killings, of course, we've also handled a lot of cases of honour killing, but it's normally the other way around. It's when an upper class woman has an affair with a man who's lower to her in the caste hierarchy, then her family turn round and kill her as they perceive it to be, you know, a violation of their honour in the caste hierarchy. Here you have the reverse situation. Yes. Yes. And so, you know, it defies your imagination as to why a family member would kill his sister. But as Justice Lokul said, it's still a matter to be investigated. Right. And in this context, I also wanted to ask about a case like this being taken notice of Suomoto by the Supreme Court. We've had instances in the past 2014, I believe there was a case in West Bengal, which was taken, which the Supreme Court took cognizance of. In this case, however, there was an appeal, a PIL had to be filed before it was taken up. So, could you talk a bit maybe about the grounds on which such cases are taken cognizance of by the Supreme Court? You see, it depends on a variety of factors. Now here, it seems that the Allahabad High Court had taken so much of cognizance of the events that could be, I don't know, that could be one reason why the Supreme Court did not take it up. Allahabad High Court is already looking into it. Why should we look into it also? That could be one reason. But the way it has spanned out. I mean, there are grapes that are committed on a daily basis. The courts cannot take Suomoto notice of all of them. But the way in which this particular case has spanned out. Normally, I would have thought that somebody would bring it to the notice of the Supreme Court or nobody brings it to the notice of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court might take so much of cognizance. But I suppose the only thing that I can think of at the moment is that because Allahabad High Court had taken so much of cognizance, therefore, you know, the Supreme Court did not deem it appropriate to take notice. But since the matter is subject, I also wouldn't like to say anything more than that. But as one of the people who was representing the 100 letter writers, more than 100 lawyers wrote a letter to the Supreme Court of India, what I would like to emphasize is sometimes certain kind of relief cannot await determination, even by a court of law. One of those examples is witness protection. When critical evidence needs to be preserved. In my opinion, a court of law and in particular the highest court of the land needs to step in very, very urgently, at least to preserve the evidence to make sure that an appropriate court of law deals with it in an appropriate manner. And the concern here that I would like to put on record is that after all the most critical witness was the mother who was the first person who saw she would obviously be a very material witness. And in a situation like this where you're living in a village which is dominated by the tacos, which is the cost to which the people alleged to have raped her belong. There is every possibility of the material witnesses being coerced into making statements that they don't really want to make, or into giving up the case. We've seen cases where even rape victims have been done to death, forget being coerced you know it happened in the on our case. It could be an accident it could be just anything. So, as a matter of preserving the rights of all the parties, I think it was right on our part to approach the Supreme Court and say grant immediate witness protection, and the court has issued notice on the question of witness protection I would like to pass the question on to just local because he has been party to the framing of several witness protection programs in the context of crime against women as well. Yes, I think witness protection is certainly very, very important. But here, you know when you talk about evidence. This girl was in a sense the best evidence, you know, was she raped or was she not raped. Was her tongue cut, or was it not cut. How do we know, you know tomorrow somebody might just come up and say no no actually her tongue was not cut. You know, so, and supposing I mean just just assume for the sake of argument that you know that the medical reports is that she was not raped. Like some ADG has said that you know, we didn't find any sperm so there was no rape. But if a proper postpartum had been conducted, video graphed, as the NHRC has said in some cases, that would have been the best evidence for that in a sense that has been destroyed, you know, but the family certainly is very good evidence or very good witnesses to what has happened. And they're not being allowed to meet anybody. You know, I mean, I also read in the newspapers that their phones have been taken away. Why should the phones be taken away. I find this whole thing very strange actually. Just look, you would agree that by denial of access to anybody that would include denial of access to lawyers to legal assistance to legal aid, and, and that denial of access to justice gives itself a violation of a fundamental right. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And you see, look at it from the point of view of the family. You know, they've just lost their daughter who has died. Right. They believe she was gang raped. They believe she was very brutally beaten up. They know as a matter of fact that she was committed in the middle of the night. The whole whole episode, you know, has a huge dramatic or an emotional, you know, reaction on the family. And then next day or two days later, you know, you go and say, all right, you know, I'm taking your phones away. Or I'm sending the, you know, district commissioner to come and talk to you. Or I'm going to send some, you know, very senior person like a director general of police to come and talk to you. Are they in that kind of frame of mind? You know, when we talk about sexual offenses against women. The Supreme Court has said it that you must make sure that the victim and the offender do not have eye contact. Why? You know, the victim probably comes to the court after a month or two months or maybe three months. One doesn't know. But in spite of that, in spite of a gap of one month, take the least one month, they say you still should not have eye contact. Here we're talking about two days and may not be with the, you know, with the accused, but with persons who are in authority. Just try and imagine what is going on in their mind, in the mind of the family. You know, and then I think we should be in a position to understand what's actually happening. Just look, we also have to imagine what is going on in the minds of the state functionaries to be able to do things like this. Are they not expected to read judgments of the Supreme Court? Are they not responsible for upholding the rule of law? And so in the context of what you said, the destruction of the best evidence, I would, I would urge you to let us know, are there no legal remedies such as destruction of evidence by people in authority and you have written a recent article on framing accountability jurisdiction. Would this not be a classic example of laying our hands on some accountability jurisdiction or jurisprudence over here? Yeah, certainly, certainly. You see, what is happening, it has happened over a period of time, it's also happening now, is that the state gets away with a lot of things. You know, now you look at what happened in Jamia. All right, it's come on national TV, so it's not something that is known to a few people, it's on national TV. There was a boy who was being beaten up and some girls had to come forward to stop that boy being beaten up. What right did the policeman have to beat up that boy with a larky? There were scenes of policemen breaking the tail lights of some motorcycles. There are scenes of policemen in JNU smashing the CCTV cameras. I think it was JNU or maybe Jamia, I'm not very sure. Smashing the CCTV cameras, I don't know how much a CCTV camera costs, it must be costing quite a lot. So can the functionaries of the state, in this case the police get away with doing things which if you and I did, we would be in trouble. You know, if I go and break a CCTV camera, I'm going to get a notice for damaging public property and pay so much. But if a policeman does it, perfectly okay. No action taken. If I go and break somebody's tail light or headlight or something, I'll have to pay for it. If I beat up somebody with a larky, I'll have to pay for it. And be prosecuted. And be prosecuted, yeah. But if the policeman does it, it's okay. You know, and I don't know, he might break somebody's leg or break somebody's arm. And you say it's okay. Right. So, in this context, it's interesting that you mentioned, of course, Jamia and Jane you, because one of the aspects of the heartless incident is the chief minister statement after where he said that the kind of media response the outrage that has come the protest that have broken out. All this has been framed around the supposed international conspiracy to destabilize the administration of the state. And the international conspiracy is something the chief minister, the head of the government of Uttar Pradesh is actually saying that there is this foreign funding. And this is happening and we know over the past few years, especially that this is not something new conspiracy is seems to be the key word of the government at every point of time. We saw it in the Delhi riots, we saw it in Bhima Kuregaon, we've seen we've seen leaders say everywhere there's always some foreign elements who are working with, say anybody who raises a voice against the government supposedly to create a conspiracy. So could you both maybe talk a bit about how this conspiracy culture has reached such a situation where even talking about an incident like this may end up being called a conspiracy. So, just look, I'm also seeing this only in the last three or four or five years. Before this, we have seen rapes, as you point out, it's also nothing new. But I am seeing that now every single incident which concerns the public at large, whether it was Bhima Kuregaon or whether it was, and let's not forget, Bhima Kuregaon is a fallout of a meeting, which was for which our Justice BB Sawant has taken responsibility for being one of the organizers of that meeting. It was perfectly legitimate, it was in broad daylight. It was part of the right to organize, part of 191 a rights, etc. And yet, we are now being told that was a conspiracy. But similarly, of course, in the daily rights, right, a conspiracy, a conspiracy, a conspiracy. And then finally, now in the Hatra's case, we are again being told that we are all conspirators. I don't know, tomorrow you and I and just local might be in a conspiracy to discuss this whole issue on this website, and we might be conspirators. So, in my opinion, it is not just the conspiracy that I would like to draw attention to, but the conspiracy to do what? Conspiracy to destabilize the government of India? Conspiracy to destroy the sovereignty of the country? Conspiracy for sedition. Okay, now this is the, this is where I find a problem. It's one thing to tell me that I have been part of a riotous crowd. And leave it at that. Yes, I will be prosecuted for rioting. But to go that extra step, and to say not only was I part of a riot, but that this purpose of this riot was a conspiracy to destabilize. To destabilize the government of India or the government of a state or the national integrity of the country or the sovereignty of the country. This is what I find problematic. In my opinion, the only reason to do that is to bring in the U.S. PA at where they cannot be grounded. This is how I would analyze the situation. Otherwise, I don't see any reason why it can't be called a riot simplicity. You see, if you remember, maybe about 50 years ago, there used to be a lot of talk about a foreign hand. Right. So when you talk about an international conspiracy, you're saying the same thing. You know, it's a foreign hand that is involved. Now, how long are we going to keep talking about this foreign hand, you know, or the foreign conspiracy. Right. And it seems, it seems that the idea is you pitch everything very high. You know, the sovereignty of the country is in danger, the integrity of the country is in danger. So, well, you may not be able to prove that. I don't think anybody has been behaving in a manner that is going to, you know, impact on the sovereignty or integrity of our country. So bring it down a little bit, you know, later on, you know, put it in the chart sheet, sovereignty, integrity, this, that and the other. Ultimately, somebody might be held liable for riot. But anyway, we made our point. So I think I would agree with you, Indira. You know, when you say that things are being pitched too high, you know, foreign hand, foreign conspiracy, so on and so forth, just to bring in UAPA. You know, or maybe just to bring in sedition. You know, journalists are being arrested for writing articles or going to write an article. Recently, somebody was going to Atras and they said, oh, this guy is sedition. I think probably UAPA also in his case, I don't know. So yeah, pitch it high and, you know, the famous, the answer to all this is, let the law take its own course. But if you, if you pervert the law, you know, obviously it's going to take a perverted course. Precisely. And the objective has been achieved. You keep that person in jail, maybe for one month, two months, three months, four months. And years in the case of some of those accused in the Bhima Konegao case, definitely. And in this context, I also wanted to of course bring up something which the both of you have talked about written about that is the issue of protest itself. And we talked about conspiracy in the case of a riot, but today what we also see is that many of the so-called conspirators were just people who organize meetings who organize protests, like, like you said, exercise their rights under the Constitution. What you're seeing is also a climate where any kind of protest automatically becomes, there is a possibility that it could be seen as a criminal act because that is a precedent that is being set by the government through its narratives, formally add informally through the various WhatsApp groups, media channels, all of them creating this atmosphere. So could you maybe both talk a bit about also what is happening with the freedom of people to protest right now in the country, given the kind of restrictions the government is placing? Before I make any comments on that, I would like to pose a question, which I hope Justice Loko will come in on. Justice Loko, I find that when the ruling establishment which lodges FIRs, they conflate the sovereignty and integrity of India with disaffection for the government. Is there a conflation going on here? I may have no affection for a particular government or I may be very critical of a government. I may have a different point of view, but it doesn't mean that I don't love my country. I might be a supreme patriot and someone who loves my nation and maybe because I love my nation so much, that is the reason why I'm raising my voice. That's the reason why I'm protesting. But here what we are seeing is that the ruling powers seem to equate themselves with their nation. And if there is any kind of calling out of what they're doing, it is as if we are unpatriotic. The word anti-national is thrown at us all the time. So am I seeing over here a complete abuse of even the plain language of Section 124A that is sedition and the law declared by the Supreme Court of India. And is it not time to call this out? Yeah, you're right. If you see the statistics about sedition cases, the numbers are rising. The NCRB apparently started keeping the statistics only from 2014 onwards and every year the numbers are rising. Now, the Supreme Court has said not only in the case of the state of Bihar, the Kedarnath Singh versus the state of Bihar long time back in the 1960s, that there must be incitement to violence or there must be violence. Even fairly recently when the day Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated, some two people raised some slogans. Supreme Court said that it had no reaction, it had no impact to be even raising a slogan, so what? It's not an insight into violence, it can't be sedition. So that is what the Supreme Court has been saying. But today you have somebody who acts in a play as it happened in Bangalore. Oh, you're acting in a play, the play has got some hidden meaning or some scene or some dialogue or something, that's sedition. So the child's mother is arrested for sedition, the teacher is arrested for sedition. Some teenager wants to shout a couple of slogans in a crowd which is definitely not going to incite violence. She's put behind bars and she's there for about four months. You have journalists who have been arrested for sedition. Where is that violence or where is that incitement to violence which is essential to sedition? It's just not there. Some crackpot somewhere, shout something, you say, oh, sedition, can't be like that. And surely our country is not so weak that if a handful of people shout a couple of slogans, oh, it just won't disintegrate. Our country is not like that. And we have our fundamental rights guaranteed under the government. Absolutely. So to answer your question about protest, I would like to link it once again to the issue of sedition because it's an issue which I think the Supreme Court needs to revisit. Yes. It concerns and abuse of the process of law. When you say, if you say you have a right to protest, now you have a right to protest against the policies of any government. Now, I saw this in the judgment of Justice Sudarshan Reddy in the Selma Judam case, where he said, we are each entitled to our own view on what is the best path to development. Okay, we all agree that all of us want development for this country, we want the end of poverty, we want an improvement in the standard of the living of ordinary people. There are different paths to achieve that result and what Justice Sudarshan Reddy said in the judgment was, we are each entitled to our own interpretation of what is the best path for development so long as it's a nonviolent path. Now, when it came to pre-appliate the Delhi High Court through Justice Shakthar said she cannot be stopped from going abroad in order to give evidence because before the British parliament that in her opinion, her opinion was destroying the adivasis. So, we are entitled to our opinions and we are entitled to protest in support of our opinions. If we cannot protest in support of our opinions, then our right to protest has no meaning. After all, what's the meaning of the word protest. I'm saying loud and clear, I disagree with you, right? And I want to be heard loud and clear. Now, there are ways and ways of doing it. One is to go to court and challenge any action, but it's not the only way. We have a right to protest in public spaces and this is what I think is being compromised by filing cases against us when we protest for so-called sedition or for writing or anything else. Yeah, you know, I would also say that the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Constitution Ben Judgment in Kedarnath Singh is pretty clear, right? Now, when a person is charged with sedition because he or she has given a particular opinion or has expressed a particular opinion, I think it's the duty of the trial court where that person is produced to say that I want to know how this is sedition. You know, and because it does not amount to sedition, therefore, a police demand is declined or bail is granted. You know, I think the law judiciary, the trial courts have to be alive to the fact that there is a judgment of the Supreme Court and you have to implement it. That's it. You know, and if the police brings somebody and says, well, this man is committed sedition, all right, on what basis are you saying he's committed sedition? He's committed sedition because he's written an article. So, is that amount of sedition? It doesn't amount to sedition, so therefore, I decline to give police remand or if he's applied for bail, I grant him bail. You know, if the law laid down by the Supreme Court is followed, then all this would stop. But unfortunately, it's not happening. That's one of the main problems. And so, therefore, now you have an increase in UAV. So, you say, all right, this person is a terrorist. By that definition, we would all be terrorists. For even these issues. But just a few words, perhaps you could tell us about this growing tendency of abuse of the process of law, of what we understand by the word malicious prosecution of when a police officer knowingly files a false FIR or false charges against us, we feel helpless, we feel helpless, either as recipients of this FIR or as lawyers defending a person against whom such an FIR. So, can we think of some remedies against abuse of the process of law? I think one is that if a situation like this arises, you know, the courts have to be tough. You know, they, you know it very well that the police and the courts just don't get along. Or the police and lawyers just don't get along. They can't. Right. It is not something that is happening today. It's been there for centuries. So, the courts should question on what is the material that you have. If you don't have any material, I'm not going to help you, you know, just because you think somebody is a terrorist or just because you think somebody is seditious or whatever. The courts have to be tough. The lawyers, if they're given an opportunity, well, they will be tough. We've had instances in Delhi where, you know, things have been manipulated, but the lawyer said, no, we want to go into it. And it was found by an independent commission by a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court that the records had been manipulated by the police. So the legal profession, the lawyers in the fraternity have to be tough. The judges have to be tough. We are not dealing with small things. We are dealing with constitutional rights. We are dealing with the freedom of speech. We are dealing with the freedom of expression. We are dealing with the right to protest peacefully. Right. So if those rights are protected, and they have to be protected by the courts, by the lawyers. And of course, by the state, because if somebody files a false charge sheet, the state should also come up and say that listen, what are you doing? You know, they can't get away with all this. At least they should not be allowed to get away with all this. It does seem like a very long battle that we have to wage. And in that context, if you could tell us a few things about a very interesting article that you wrote recently in the wire on building an accountability jurisprudence. Yeah, we have to. You see now, you know this, the Allahabad High Court had said, when these posters were put up of these 50 people who are supposed to have damaged property. The Allahabad High Court said that the hoarding should be removed forthwith. Here's the word used forthwith the state of UP file an SLP in the Supreme Court, without a stay application. There was no stay application. So the question of the Supreme Court granting a stay against the order of the Allahabad High Court did not arise. But that hoarding was not taken down. Until there were some grains and a storm and all that and that storm took down the movie. So here you have a situation where on the face of it, the order of the Allahabad High Court has been violated. They've sent notices to all these people saying that, you know, you pay for it. Now, one of the items which I read in a newspaper is a very good article written by somebody who said that shoes have also been included the shoes of some policeman or something. Now, what is the value of those shoes? How do you know? You know, is it the value, the price at which it was purchased? Or is it the depreciated price? The shoes two years old? You know, I mean, what's going on? So, how we tempted to say the law has an ass or it's too serious a matter to say that because somebody's life is on the line, somebody's liberty is on the line. Yeah. And people have been asked to pay a couple of lakhs. You know, shoes costing 2000 rupees. I don't know. Maybe they don't cost 2000 rupees. How do I know? I mean, it can just go on and on and on. But look at it from the reverse side, you have the police breaking somebody's motorcycle lights. You have the police breaking a CCTV camera, which belongs to the state. No action taken. Right. When you talk about equality, we've got to talk about equality in every aspect. You can't say that, you know, equality only in some aspect, not in some other aspects. So this accountability, I think is important. And it is becoming more and more important. There was some gathering or something in Delhi. The railway station, the metro stations were blocked. They were closed under the orders of the state. Barricades were put up, right, so that people can't go. Now you inconvenience everybody. You inconvenience hundreds of people who are using the metro, thousands of people maybe who are using the metro. And you say, no, no, no, it's perfectly okay. Why? Because some people and every time we are told, you know, a handful of people who are protesting. If it's a handful of people who are protesting, 20, 30, 40 people. So you can't control them. So therefore you inconvenience, you know, a couple of thousand commuters. What logic is there in this? I find this whole thing very strange actually. I got the impression reading the article that you were suggesting that these are ways and means of curbing protest. Yeah. It happens through what looks like an innocuous measure. But the intent of the measure is actually to, you know, block people from gathering or block people from protesting at a particular point of time in different ways. So an administration doesn't even have to announce that they are going to stop a protest. They can just do it by withdrawing transport. But that was the impression that I got on reading the article. Yeah. Also, you know, these protesters, they're put into a truck or into a bus or something. They're taken to the Delhi border and they're left over there. How are they going to come back? You know, nobody thinks about that. So from the Delhi border, they have to start walking back home. You know, if they're able to catch a bus or something good, if they're not able to catch a bus or a scooter or a taxi or something, walk back home. You know, so these are ways and means of, you know, which are being employed, putting up those barricades. You know, we've got intelligence report that there's going to be, you know, a problem. So we put up barricades. So there's a huge traffic jam. On one particular day, guys were stuck in traffic for two hours. Why? Because they said, oh, some intelligence report is there. There's going to be a problem. So ways and means and, you know, I mean, every day new ways and means are coming up and show that protests don't take place. You know, so you now have protests confined to Jantar Mantar. My understanding is that the capacity over there is maybe about 1000 or 1500, right? What is the use of a protest like that? Supposing a lot of people want to protest. Farmers, for example, they're doing rail roco. Why are they not being arrested? They're stopping trains. So it can't be selective. And if you tell farmers that listen, you just go to Jantar Mantar, only 1000 of you. I am fast getting the impression that we in the judiciary in this country is silent for want of a better word. And so far as I know, the only means that are available to citizens at the end of the day is to approach the judiciary. If a relief in situations of this kind, and if the judiciary goes silent, hear no evil, see no evil, speak nothing. Then do we have a way of reclaiming the judiciary for ourselves and for the people of this country? I'd like to ask you this funny question. How do we reclaim the judiciary and bring it back to its core function of delivering justice? You see, I have expressed a view on more than one occasion that our judiciary should introspect. There should be a dialogue. If the judiciary thinks what they're doing is right, perfectly okay. Have a dialogue, have an introspection. If you come to the conclusion that what we are doing is okay, a lot of people are talking a lot of nonsense, fair enough. If you think on introspection and dialogue with amongst themselves or amongst others, lawyers and so on, that something more needs to be done, fair enough, do it. But not doing anything or apparently not doing anything because I don't know if something is happening or not. But apparently not doing anything is not helping anybody. I very strongly think that the time has come. There is a lot of criticism so to speak about the judiciary. It may be valid, it may not be valid, I'm not going into that. But as long as it is there, it is time for the judiciary to sit down and introspect. I'm not only talking about the Supreme Court, it could be the High Court. Maybe some strange decisions have come from a particular state or the district judiciary of a particular state. The High Court judges need to sit down and say, why are we getting these strange orders? It could be any state. But I think that introspection, trying to find out are we on the right track. I think that's very, very important. Very interesting suggestion. I think some kind of a self audit by the judiciary of its own functioning from the point of view of rule of law. Which is, in my opinion, the core function of the judiciary. How do you maintain the rule of law? If there could be a judicial audit, even if it is a self audit, even if, as you say, the judiciary introspect even within themselves, if they could come up with some understanding of where do they stand on the issue of rule of law. That for me is a very interesting suggestion that you're making. Take sedition for example. Why is bail being denied to people on the ground of sedition? Now it is something which I think a lot of people in the legal profession are talking about. Is it not possible for the judges of the High Court or of the Supreme Court or whatever to sit down and say that, listen, why is it happening? Is it right? Should bail be declined? If they come to the conclusion that yes, bail should be declined, fair enough. But if they come to the conclusion that bail should not be declined and it is being declined, some corrective steps will need to be taken. Introspection is necessary. Unfortunately, Justice Locour, an impression is grain ground in the media and among the public that judges have become executive minded. What they deliver is what the ruling parties or the governments of the day want them to deliver. This is the sad reality that we are faced with after having devoted our life to the judiciary. You as a judge, me as a practicing lawyer, and it makes me at least hang my head in shame. People have said that the judiciary has been executed, but then think about it. Thank you so much Justice Baran Locour, Senior Advocate Indra Jai Singh for this conversation, for taking us through some of the problematic aspects we see today, some of the possibilities ahead and like the both of you said, may there be better days in the future as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching NewsClick and the Defint.