The Supreme Court has expressed serious displeasure over the Gujarat HC listing the hearing of activist Teesta Setalvad's bail petition after 6 weeks. It observed that the State was making "this lady an exception" even when she had not been booked under any stringent law like UAPA.
Unlike UAPA or POTA there is no offence under the IPC that comes with a rider that bail should not be granted, and the alleged offences are offences of documents, they are not bodily offences.
In such matters the normal procedure is that after the initial period of police custody, there is nothing which stops investigating species from conducting a probe without custody.
Muzzling would be too mild a word a word to describe this throttling of democracy by the state and the Centre, we have been thrust too far deep down the rabbit hole.
If citizens are jailed for such alleged offences then the day is not too far when we would be requiring more prisons than houses in India.
