OUR BUREAU
Binayak Sen comes out of jail in Raipur on Monday.
May 25: The Supreme Court today granted bail to one of India’s most famous prisoners, social activist Binayak Sen, who has been in a Chhattisgarh jail for two years since his arrest as an alleged Maoist courier.
There had been a global campaign for the release of the ailing Sen, who says the charges were trumped up, with US thinker Noam Chomsky and 22 Nobel laureates joining rights groups in sending appeals to the Indian government.
“Granted bail subject to furnishing personal bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court,” a two-judge bench ruled today.
The court refused to hear the Chhattisgarh government’s views. “He’s been in jail for two years now,” Justice Markandey Katju told Chhattisgarh counsel Mukul Rohatgi.
Sen, a heart patient in his 60s, is likely to walk free in a day or two, Raipur Central Jail authorities said.
“I am very happy that my sufferings are over. Dr Sen has finally got justice,” said his wife Ilina, who claims her husband was framed because he exposed rights violations by the Chhattisgarh administration in its battle against the Maoists.
Sen, a paediatrician and winner of the Jonathan Mann Award for service to the poor, had for years been treating Adivasis in the poorest areas of Chhattisgarh. He was arrested on May 14, 2007, under the Chhattisgarh Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act on the charge of acting as a courier for jailed Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal.
The high court and the apex court rejected his bail plea last year after the Chhattisgarh government opposed his release. But scholars, doctors, lawyers and activists kept up the pressure, campaigning in the state and outside and writing to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sen’s behalf.
A second bail petition, filed by Ilina, argued that although Sen had made several trips to Raipur jail as a rights activist to meet Sanyal, he could not have carried any letters to him or from him.
“In compliance with jail manuals, both he and the prisoner were thoroughly frisked and the meetings were held in the presence of jail officials,” the petition said.
“The police were resting the charge on an alleged oral disclosure by a co-accused in police custody, which is wholly inadmissible.”
The petition added: “Police have conjured up references to him (Sen) in so-called Naxalite literature.”
Sen’s lawyer Soli Sorabjee said the doctor had always been open and honest in his work as a rights activist. “His concern for custodial rights makes him a regular visitor to various jails.”
Chhattisgarh rights activist Gautam Kumar Bandyopadhyay, convener of the NGO Nadi Ghati Morcha, termed today’s court decision a “victory for human rights” in the state.
“This is good news, but justice was delayed by two years,” said Rajendra K. Sail, president of the Chhattisgarh wing of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, of which Sen is general secretary.
There was no official reaction from the state government.
About a week back I had written about the plight of Dr. Binayak Sen.
I am pleased to report that he has now been granted bail by the Supeme Court.
See the irony in the India.
Rapist, extortionists and murderers are granted bail within one month of being convicted. They then roam about freely to threaten the witnesses to their crime.
On the other hand, a person who is a qualified medical practioner who treated the Adivasis of Chattisgarh is castigated in jail for two years for just trying to help the downtrodden.
His supporters had to approach the Supreme Court twice to grant him bail whilst the scum of society are released by the lower courts within a month of conviction and Dr Sen was not even convicted.
Do you now wonder why people become Maoists?
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