Bail rights of Salman, et al

Decisively after the dust and din has collected and passions are at a low ebb I thought the Salman Khan, Ramalinga Raju and the Jayalalithaa stories needs to be addressed from a going perception that the sieve lets go the rich and the powerful and catch small fish. Perhaps in the larger picture this is not very far from the truth.

This notwithstanding the fact that out there are also those who love to play the giant killer and thus go overboard while dealing with the more well-known persona they are called upon to adjudicate about.There has been an uproar about Salman and Raju getting bail. Unhesitatingly I believe that they deserve bail. That is the law.

A civilised society has myriad challenges and is constantly called upon to do a balancing act. Bail in the course of the court hearing an appeal is an example of a system’s inadequacy. Ideally the citizen in the course of an appeal is telling the appellate court of the many perceived faults in the judgement of the court of first instance and as to why he or she thinks the route taken by the court is wrong. Law gives the accused the right of appeal.

It is his, as a matter of right. He has no problem if the court hears him out and delivers a verdict one way or the other. It is the number game that plays villain and inhibits the court from dealing with the issue in detail immediately and thus pushes the appeal to another queue where he waits his turn to be heard. The question that the uninitiated miss out is: what should he be doing while so waiting and where should he be?

I would believe that he needs the benefit of doubt and the choice that the appellate court could find his pleas correct and therefore keep him out of prison that the verdict attains finality. Therefore bail. It is thus seeming common sense that an accused is on bail pending appeal. Society sometimes takes a peculiar posture of wanting to taste blood. This reflects poorly on where we have arrived collectively from a civilisational standpoint. The criminal deserves what is due to him.

The learned, the saintly, the knowledgeable and the nice are treated well anywhere. That is no big deal. We must learn to treat the criminal well. At least extend to him what is by law his right. This is not to say that Salman or Ramalinga Raju should go unpunished for the offences, when proved with a degree of finality. Take the Jayalalithaa case in contrast.

What if she languished in jail all these months only to be told at the end that she is not guilty? Why should she serve a sentence on a wrong appreciation of fact or law? This is no opinion on whether she is rightly acquitted in the case on hand. The point that requires serious consideration is that the loud protest against bail being granted to a Raju or a ‘Dabangg’ Khan completely misses the central issue. Bail is a matter of right. Bail is the right to be free until convicted.

The conviction in both the cases are under appeal and require to be revisited by a right under a statute and a part and parcel of the same law that permits conviction. To interpret a part of it and let go another would be injustice. Let us not thirst for punishment. We are inadvertently thirsting for a short cut to the gallows. That is not healthy, that is not lawful. That in any case is not the law.

Perhaps the law makers may consider a price to be paid by the accused who is enlarged on bail pending appeal and fails in the appeal- that a part of the said time must be spent on compulsory social service; that could get the rich and mighty to a humbling exercise in life. Wonder why courts impose conditions for bail? It invariably is about bonds and security.

Why should it not be about requiring the accused to clean up a government school or pick water for a colony or clean up a public place under supervision?

By:L Ravichander