The was posted on FB
There is a group of retired civil servants who function like a well oiled cabal. With typical sophistry and sleight of hand, they have now issued a statement under the banner of what they term themselves as—Yes hold your breath—CONSTITUTIONAL CONDUCT GROUP. Wow! Now what is the grouse of these Constitutional worthies? They are deeply concerned at the assault on the Rule of Law in India and on its citizens’ rights to free speech and dissent, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution.
There can be no two opinions that Article 19 of the Constitution must be preserved and protected. What is of concern however, is that this group is very selective in talking about Freedom Of Expression (FoE). They advocate FoE for all those groups that are hell bent on breaking India. But they maintain a very pregnant silence when people have been attacked for expressing their opinions, which did not suit their leftist, islamist, breaking India narrative.
So, who does this cabal support? As per their statement, they are upset about the arrest of eleven activists, including Kafeel Khan, Safoora Zargar, Akhil Gogoi and Sharjeel Imam. They feel that these defenders, many of them students, appear to have been arrested simply because they exercised their right to denounce and protest against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), and their arrest seems clearly designed to send a chilling message to India’s vibrant civil society that criticism of government policies will not be tolerated. OK, so let us see who these four above named people are:
Kafeel Khan was the medical officer in charge of a Gorakhpur hospital, when 70 children died of encephalitis in 2017. He was suspended for negligence of duty. In 2020, this person took part in anti CAA protests and made some outrageous statements designed to stir up communal passion. He said in a speech that Amit Shah was converting muslims into second class citizens and called on the students to carry out violent protests, designed to create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity within the citizens of Aligarh.
Safoora Zargar was detained under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. She was denied bail by the Patiala House Court after the Court had come to the conclusion that there was a prima facie case prevalent against her for being a part of a “larger conspiracy” in creating violence and chaos during the North East Delhi riots. Later, she was given bail as she was five months pregnant.
Akhil Gogoi is under investigation by the NIA, looking into a terror angle behind the violent protests against the CAA across Assam in December 2019. Sharjeel Imam is the infamous person under investigation for sedition. In a speech at AMU, he advocated putting road blocks to cut off the chicken’s neck from India as part of anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests.
The cabal is also upset that some urban naxals have been arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case. They refer to people like Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde as India’s finest social and human rights activists! Sudha Bharadwaj is a hard core leftist, facing charges in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. Shoma Sen, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde are charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) with spreading controversial pamphlets and delivering hate speeches in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence that broke out in January 2018.
The cabal is upset that Siddharth Varadarajan, founding Editor of The Wire, is facing criminal charges. This person is a US citizen of Indian descent, married to a hard core maoist, Nandini Sundar who is facing murder charges. They are shedding crocodile tears for the separatists who have been detained in J&K and for the suspension of mobile communications in the state for some time. They never shed a tear for the thousands killed by the terrorists and the supporters, nor for the genocide of the Hindus in Kashmir in 1990, but now that the situation is finally coming under control after 30 years of radical Islamic violence, they are deeply upset.
And their agenda gets exposed when they claim that Harsh Mander has been named in a charge sheet for a speech, which they claim called for peace. But the speech actually castigated the Apex Court and called for the people to take to the streets. They make mention of the speech by Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur, but are silent on the hate speech of Sonia Gandhi who asked the people to come out on the streets to fight or Rahul Gandhi who compared the Prime Minister to Godse!
It is sad that the cabal did not see it fit to mention the harassment which the Congress party caused to Mr Arnab Goswami, simply because he called Sonia Gandhi by her maiden name, Antonia Maino! Now that was an assault on FoE. But perhaps, the lady is above the law.
The cabal has names such as Shiv Shankar Menon, a former NSA and Shyam Saran, a former foreign Secretary as signatories. Is this the reason why our security establishments have been compromised over the years? Then there are the standard lot who have a typical ideological bent, which makes them blind to reality, like Aruna Roy, Julio Ribeiro, Najeeb Jung, KP Fabian and AS Dulat. And finally, the rest of the motley crowd is a lot of deadwood, who did nothing much while in government and now, are hell bent on being spoilers. India can do without them. Eventually, this lot will be relegated to the dustbin of history, as will their mentors, some of whom having sold their souls for a mess of pottage. Judas lives on.
STATEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONDUCT GROUP Assault on the Rule of Law and Article 19 of the Constitution of India
04 July 2020
This statement by our group of former civil servants arises from our deep concern at the assault on the Rule of Law in India and on its citizens’ rights to free speech and dissent, basic elements of any democracy. The whole constitutional edifice is dependent on the Rule of Law, which implies the subjection of all the organs and instrumentalities of the state to the law and the absence of arbitrary power. The rights to Freedom of Speech & Expression, Freedom of Assembly and the like, guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution, are a corrective to the plight of the poor and the disadvantaged across the axes of income, gender, religion, caste and community. To uphold the rule of law and enforce the rights to freedoms, the judiciary must be the vigilant sentinel guarding the values of constitutional propriety.
Scholars like Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen have established that the elimination of famine, a colonial legacy in India, came from the clamour of the media, the legislatures and the courts as also concerns of political parties seeking re-election. Public Interest Litigation has given voice to the suppressed on issues like bonded labour, child labour and the illiterate without work or food finding resonance in the corridors of power. Article 19 of the Constitution of India guaranteeing freedom of speech is the key in this struggle.
The rampant erosion of the rule of law in evidence today militates against the actualization of the freedom of speech which is the cornerstone of democratic functioning. The gulf between the Rule of Law rhetoric and reality is getting wider and wider. The police establishments across the country appear to have become proxies for the respective ruling parties. Independent experts like Special Rapporteurs and members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions associated with the United Nations, in referring to the arrest of eleven activists, including Kafeel Khan, Safoora Zargar, Akhil Gogoi and Sharjeel Imam, say succinctly: “These defenders, many of them students, appear to have been arrested simplybecause they exercised their right to denounce and protest against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), and their arrest seems clearly designed to send a chilling message to India’s vibrant civil society that criticism of government policies will not be tolerated.” Journalists like Gauri Lankesh, a free-spirited journalist writing in Kannada, have been murdered, shot in cold blood allegedly by right-wing groups.
According to the Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders, India stands at 142 out of 180 countries in 2020, falling 6 places since 2015. Flagrant misuse of draconian laws of sedition and the Unauthorized Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) has led to the arrest of journalists, intellectuals, university students, film-makers, human rights activists and popular figures who dared criticise the present regime. When, as happened in Karnataka, in consequence of a school play critical of the CAA a primary school teacher and the mother of a student are charged with sedition and two young children aged 9 and 10 are questioned by police over many days, this becomes a theatre of the absurd.
Any criticism of government is considered “anti-national” and invites punitive wrath. The law of sedition, itself a colonial relic, is resorted to by a succession of governments, but its application has sharply increased. From 2016 to 2018, 332 persons were arrested under this
law but only 7 convicted, exposing the absence of evidence and exercise of vendetta. The online portal Scroll.in reported that more than “10,000 Adivasis in Jharkhand have been accused of sedition and disturbing public order” in connection with the Pathalgadi movement.
In the case of UAPA, court proceedings drag on while detention continues. In the celebrated Bhima-Koregaon case several of India’s finest social and human rights activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen and Gautam Navlakha and public intellectuals like Anand Teltumbde languish in prison under the malevolent label of “urban Maoists”, which consigns such exemplars of civic life to the reviled category of “anti-national”. Attacks on students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Milia Islamia recently choked the rights of students and faculty to voice their criticism of the existing state of affairs, including the CAA.
The corona pandemic has been an excuse for curbing freedom of speech across States. A report of the Rights and Risks Analysis Group has it that 55 journalists were singled out for writing on the mishandling of the Covid situation: threats, FIRs, assaults and arrests were amongst the intimidatory tactics used. Though the largest number was in UP, such cases also took place in States with governments of different political parties. Dhaval Patel in Gujarat and Rahul Zori in Maharashtra, with FIRs filed against them, and Major Singh Panjabi being beaten up in Punjab by the police are examples. Earlier in the year, one Dr Indranil Khan in Kolkata was interrogated, threatened with arrest and had his phone and SIM card confiscated for commenting online of deficiencies in the supply of PPE to doctors and nurses working with corona patients. In a rare defence of the freedom of speech, the Kolkata High Court in his case said: “Freedom of speech and expression which is granted under Article 19 of the Constitution of India has to be scrupulously upheld by the State. If an expression of opinion brings the government into disrepute, it cannot defend this allegation by intimidation of the person expressing the opinion by subjecting him to prolonged interrogation, threatening arrest, seizing his mobile phone and SIM card and so on.”
When Siddharth Varadarajan, founding Editor of The Wire, faced criminal charges for reporting that the UP Chief Minister attended a religious event after the lockdown was announced, more than 4600 signatories protested, amongst them eminent academics, a retired Supreme Court Judge, a former National Security Adviser, a former Chief of Naval Staff and well-known persons connected with the arts. “A medical emergency should not serve as the pretext for the imposition of a de facto political emergency” they wrote.
The detentions in Kashmir of hundreds of political activists and the suspension of communications for several months after the revocation of its special status is a blot on India’s democracy, with Kashmir described by the International Press Institute as amongst the “world’s most repressive spots for the press.” In many parts of India, Section 144 is imposed for extended periods of time to prohibit the assembly of people despite the Supreme Court ruling that such curbs be restricted to emergencies.
Finally, the investigations into the riots in north-east Delhi have betrayed an institutional bias against the minority community. Dr M.A. Anwar, the proprietor of Hind Hospital in New Mustafabad, whose prompt action in providing help to injured people during the targeted violence in North East Delhi in late February 2020 was praised by many, including the Delhi High Court, is now named in a charge-sheet filed in a murder case and for instigating local people against the government on the issue of CAA-NRC. The UAPA has been used against activists who opposed the CAA through peaceful protest. People like Harsh Mander
and Yogendra Yadav have been named in charge sheets even though they are not amongst the accused. Harsh Mander’s speech, which called for peace, was made in December, 2019, weeks before the outbreak of any violence. Yet there are rumours of his intended arrest which, were it to occur now, would make a travesty of the law. Meanwhile, Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur, BJP leader and Minister respectively, who had openly called for violence, widely projected in the media, which followed almost immediately thereafter, face no action.
All Indians must unite in defence of the Rule of Law and Article 19, the repository of the democratic right to freedom of speech and to dissent.
SATYAMEVA JAYATE
Constitutional Conduct Group (99 signatories as below)
Anita Agnihotri
Salahuddin Ahmad
S.P. Ambrose
Anand Arni
G. Balachandhran
Vappala Balachandran
Gopalan Balagopal
Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan
Sharad Behar
Aurobindo Behera
Madhu Bhaduri
Ravi Budhiraja
Sundar Burra
Rachel
Chatterjee
Kalyani
Chaudhuri
Anna Dani
Surjit K. Das
Vibha Puri Das
P.R. Dasgupta
Pradeep K. Deb
Nitin Desai
Keshav Desiraju
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
R&AW (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IPS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IES (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Department of Social Justice Empowerment, GoI
Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan
Former Additional Secretary, Ministry of Shipping & Transport, GoI
Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
Former Special Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal Former Secretary, Coal, GoI
Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Odisha
Former Ambassador to Portugal
Former Chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, GoI
Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
Former Special Chief Secretary, Agriculture, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI Former Chairman, Food Corporation of India, GoI Former Secretary, Deptt. Of Sports, GoI
Former Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, GoI
Former Health Secretary, GoI
M.G. Devasahayam
Sushil Dubey
A.S. Dulat
K.P. Fabian
Prabhu Ghate
Gourisankar Ghosh
Suresh K. Goel
S.K. Guha
Meena Gupta
Ravi Vira
Gupta
Wajahat
Habibullah
Deepa Hari
Sajjad Hassan
Siraj Hussain
Kamal Jaswal
Najeeb Jung
Vinod C.
Khanna
Rahul Khullar
K. John Koshy
Ajai Kumar
Brijesh Kumar
Sudhir Kumar
P.K. Lahiri
Aloke B. Lal
Subodh Lal
Amitabh Mathur
Lalit Mathur
Aditi Mehta
Dalip Mehta
Shivshankar Menon
IAS
IFS IPS
IFS IAS
IAS IFS IAS IAS IAS IAS
(Retd.)
(Retd.) (Retd.)
(Retd.) (Retd.)
(Retd.) (Retd.) (Retd.)
(Retd.) (Retd.) (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana
Former Ambassador to Sweden
Former OSD on Kashmir, Prime Minister’s Office, GoI
Former Ambassador to Italy
Former Addl. Director General, Department of Tourism, GoI
Former Mission Director, National Drinking Water Mission, GoI
Former Director General, Indian Council of Cultural Relations, GoI
Former Joint Secretary, Department of Women & Child Development, GoI
Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI
Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India
Former Secretary, GoI and Chief Information Commissioner
Former Commissioner (Planning), Govt. of Manipur Former Secretary, Department of Agriculture, GoI
Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI
IRS (Resigned) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IFS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
Indian Forest Service (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IPS (Retd.)
IPoS (Resigned) IPS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IFS (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.)
Former Former
Former India Former Bengal Former
Former
Technology, GoI
Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal Former Executive Director, Asian Development Bank Former Director General (Prosecution), Govt. of Uttarakhand
Former Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications, GoI
Former Director, Aviation Research Centre and Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI Former Director General, National Institute of Rural Development, GoI
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan Former Secretary to GoI & Dean, Foreign Service Institute
Former Foreign Secretary and Former National Security Adviser
Lieutenant Governor, Delhi Additional Secretary, MEA, GoI
Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of State Chief Information Commissioner, West Director, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI
Secretary, Department of Information
Sonalini Mirchandani
Sunil Mitra
Avinash
Mohananey
Deb Mukharji
Shiv Shankar Mukherjee
Pranab S. Mukhopadhyay
Nagalsamy
Sobha Nambisan
P.G.J. Nampoothiri
Amitabha Pande
Mira Pande
Niranjan Pant
Alok Perti
R.
Poornalingam
R.M.
Premkumar
T.R.
Raghunandan
N.K.
Raghupathy
V.P. Raja
C. Babu Rajeev
K. Sujatha Rao
Vijaya Latha
Reddy
Julio Ribeiro
Aruna Roy
Manabendra N. Roy
Deepak Sanan
G. Sankaran
Shyam Saran
S. Satyabhama
N.C. Saxena
Ardhendu Sen
IFS (Resigned) IAS (Retd.) IPS (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.) IFS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IA&AS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IPS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IA&AS (Retd.)
GoI
Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI
Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Sikkim
Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh and former Ambassador to Nepal
Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
Former Director, Institute of Port Management, GoI
Former Principal Accountant General, Tamil Nadu & Kerala
Former Principal Secretary (Planning), Govt. of Karnataka
Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Gujarat Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI
Former State Election Commissioner, West Bengal Former Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General, GoI
Former Secretary, Ministry of Coal, GoI Former Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, GoI
Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
Former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI
Former Chairman, Staff Selection Commission, GoI
Former Chairman, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission
Former Secretary, GoI
Former Health Secretary, GoI
Former Deputy National Security Adviser, GoI
Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & former Ambassador to Romania
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh
Former President, Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal
Former Foreign Secretary and Former Chairman, National Security Advisory Board
Former Chairperson, National Seeds Corporation, GoI
Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
IAS IAS
IAS
IAS
IAS
IAS
IAS IAS IFS
IPS
(Retd.) (Retd.)
(Retd.)
(Retd.)
(Retd.)
(Retd.)
(Retd.) (Retd.) (Retd.)
(Retd.)
IAS (Resigned) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IC&CES (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
Abhijit Sengupta
Aftab Seth
Ashok Kumar
Sharma
Navrekha
Sharma
Raju Sharma
K.S. Sidhu
Padamvir Singh
Sujatha Singh
Tirlochan Singh
Jawhar Sircar
Narendra Sisodia
Thanksy Thekkekera
P.S.S. Thomas
Geetha Thoopal
Hindal Tyabji
Ashok Vajpeyi
Ramani
Venkatesan
IAS (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.) IFS (Retd.)
IFS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.) IFS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.)
IRAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
IAS (Retd.) IAS (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI
Former Ambassador to Japan
Former Ambassador to Finland and Estonia
Former Ambassador to Indonesia
Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh
Former Principal Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra Former Director, LBSNAA, Mussoorie, GoI Former Foreign Secretary, GoI
Former Secretary, National Commission for Minorities, GoI
Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI, & former CEO, Prasar Bharati
Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Minorities Development, Govt. of Maharashtra
Former Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission
Former General Manager, Metro Railway, Kolkata Former Chief Secretary rank, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir
Former Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi
Former Director General, YASHADA, Govt. of Maharashtra
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