Fresh hope

Justice N.V. Ramana, a mild-mannered, civil liberties champion, takes over as CJI at a difficult time

- SONI MISHRA

IN JUNE 1975, soon after the Emergency was imposed, a young student activist in Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, participated in a public meeting where he spoke in favour of civil liberties. The youth’s father, afraid that his son would be arrested, asked him to leave for his maternal aunt’s house and gave him 010 for the journey. He hitched a ride on a truck for part of the way and then walked all night to reach his aunt’s home.

The student leader has come a long way and is the new chief justice of India. Justice N.V. Ramana, who recounted the anecdote at a book launch a few months ago, said he felt his father should have given him more money. On a more serious note, he said excesses like the Emergency impact generations. Ramana lost an academic year because of it, but he said he had no regrets as he had seen many youngsters sacrificing their lives to protect human rights.

As Ramana takes over as CJI on April 24, he comes with the reputation of having given the utmost importance to civil liberties and fundamental rights. This reputation is justified by his judgments. In the order lifting the internet ban that was imposed on Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370, he said that “access to the internet is a fundamental right by extension”.

A bench headed by Ramana also said that governments must ensure that the press was allowed to do its job freely, and that freedom of speech and expression included the right to disseminate information to as wide a section of the population as possible. In another judgment, the court held that even when a stringent law like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was applied, the accused could get bail when there was no likelihood of trial being completed within a reasonable time.