Reacting to ACAUT’s statement, questioning the state judiciary, published in local dailies on August 5, 2016, the Dimapur Bar Association (DBA) on Friday said the bar members have taken “strong exception to the same” and were constrained to make a rejoinder for the consumption of the public and “to refrain the entire stakeholders from publishing such irresponsible, reckless and counterproductive statements in the near future.”
In a press release, DBA president Imti Imsong and general secretary A.Hukavi Zhimomi pointed out that the matter of bail/anticipatory bail were provided in the Chapter XXXIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure under Sections 436, 437, 438 and 439. Besides, DBA said several guidelines were laid down by the Supreme Court of India in catena of decided cases on such matters in the light of Articles 19, 21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution.
Further, DBA said the Constitution of India provides for appellate judiciary system wherein any of the party being aggrieved by the decision of the inferior court could always appeal in the superior Courts. As such, the association said the matters of bail/anticipatory bail were granted or denied by applying judicious mind and taking into consideration of the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure vis-à-vis the Constitution of India.
Therefore, DBA said the objection raised by the ACAUT on the issue of granting bails/anticipatory bails to the alleged fuel adulteration kingpins “merely by blaming the system of Judiciary and its functioning without resorting to prescribed parameters of the provisions of law” would amount to interference in the judicial process.
The association asserted that if the ACAUT presumed or sensed that “with the kingpin already out on anticipatory bail, the incident has only reinforced the public opinion that the criminal-justice system in the state is in need of a serious overhaul” than proposition could be made that the concerned individual or group could press the Parliament for amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Constitution of India.
DAB underlined that the criminal justice system was applicable to all the citizens of India, irrespective of status “as such, the same yardstick applies to all and not exceptional or selective.”