New Delhi (Indian Catholic News) — The All India Catholic Union (AICU) welcomed Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan’s defence of constitutional liberties, saying his remarks reaffirm fundamental rights and warning that criminalising peaceful dissent and minority religious practices undermines India’s constitutional democracy.
In a July 29 press statement, the 107-year-old Catholic organization welcomed what it called the judge’s “clear and principled observations” delivered during the recent Justice G.P. Singh Memorial Lecture at the National Law Institute University in Bhopal.
The union particularly endorsed Justice Bhuyan’s observation “that there is no law prohibiting the consumption of chicken on the banks of the Ganga, and that the arrest and prolonged detention of young men for sharing a meal of chicken biryani while breaking their Ramadan fast cannot be sustained in law.”
It described those remarks as “a much-needed reaffirmation of elementary constitutional principle.”
According to the statement, the episode cited by the judge — “ordinary citizens spending three months in custody for an act that constitutes no offence” — “exposes a dangerous tendency to criminalise the everyday lives of citizens, particularly those belonging to minority communities.”
The organization said that “Both Muslims and Christians have borne the brunt of this tendency under BJP-ruled governments in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, hauled before the law on frivolous charges for nothing more than living their faith.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s governing Hindu nationalist party, heads the federal government and controls almost 72 percent or 23 of India’s 32 state and Union Territory legislatures.
Shrinking space for dissent
The AICU also welcomed Justice Bhuyan’s emphasis on democratic freedoms.
“He deserves our thanks for rightly noting that the space for dissent is shrinking, that students and environmental activists are routinely treated as criminals, and that delayed bail and restrictive conditions imposed by courts themselves risk discouraging citizens from exercising fundamental freedoms,” the statement said.
It added that “These observations speak directly to the lived experience of large sections of our society.”
The organization said it has “repeatedly expressed deep concern” that both the central government and several state governments “have, in recent years, allowed or encouraged an atmosphere of minority-phobia and majoritarian pressure that targets religious minorities through selective enforcement, vigilante intimidation, and the misuse of criminal law and police.”
It also alleged “the systematic prosecution and prolonged incarceration of students, youth and workers who raise legitimate demands concerning education, employment, environment and social justice.”
The statement cited what it called “government brutality, including the Rapid Action Force’s use of pellet guns, in the aggressive response to the students’ and youth protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi,” as well as “the repression of agitators in Assam, Bengal and Bihar.”
Judiciary’s critical role
The union concluded by stressing the importance of constitutional protections and judicial independence.
“A constitutional democracy cannot survive if the State treats disagreement as disloyalty and ordinary acts of citizenship as threats to public order,” it said.
“The Constitution guarantees liberty of thought, expression and peaceful assembly. These are not privileges to be withdrawn when inconvenient; they are the foundation of the Republic.”
The statement added: “The judiciary’s role in protecting fundamental rights is critical, and Justice Bhuyan’s remarks are a welcome exercise of that role.”
Referring to India’s highest court, it said, “Some recent statements from the Chief Justice himself are, by contrast, deeply disconcerting, and people hope the higher judiciary will speak as plainly as Justice Bhuyan has.”
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