📰 Delayed release from jails after bail order ‘is just too much’: CJI
SC announces ‘FASTER’ scheme
•Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Friday said “it is just too much” that people given bail by courts, even by the Supreme Court, have to wait for days before the prison authorities released them.
•The CJI, heading a Special Bench, voiced the court’s exasperation at the prison authorities who insisted on receiving by hand the “authentic” hard copy of the bail order regardless of the fact that the personal liberty of people suffered. “In this age of information and communication technology, we are still looking at the skies for the pigeons to communicate the orders,” he remarked orally.
•So, as a solution, the Chief Justice, flanked by Justices L. Nageswara Rao and A.S. Bopanna, announced in open court the rolling out of a new scheme called ‘FASTER’ or ‘Fast and Secure Transmission of Electronic Records’ by which the court would instantly, directly, securely and electronically transmit bail and other orders to the jail authorities, district courts and the High Courts.
•Attorney General K.K. Venugopal appreciated the court’s initiative.
•When Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said orders anyway were uploaded on the court website, Justice Rao said “the idea behind the scheme is to transmit orders securely”.
•The Bench asked the State governments to file their reports about the Internet connectivity in jails to prevent technical glitches in future. The Secretary General of the Supreme Court was directed to submit a comprehensive report formulating the scheme within two weeks.
Suo motu case
•The hearing was based on a suo motu case, ‘In Re: Delay in release of convicts after grant of bail’, registered on the initiative of the CJI to confront the problem that affects the liberty and dignity of prisoners.
•The immediate trigger for the registration of the suo motu case seemed to be the delay shown by the Agra Jail authorities to release 13 prisoners who had suffered imprisonment for up to two decades despite the Juvenile Justice Board declaring them ‘juveniles’ at the time of commission of their crimes. The Hindu had reported that the prison authorities took nearly four days to release them despite Supreme Court granting them bail on July 8.
•Another incident was the inexplicable delay on the part of the Indore Central Jail authorities to release stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui following grant of bail by the Supreme Court.
•Again, Pinjra Tod activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal and Jamia Millia Islamia student Asif Iqbal Tanha walked out of the Tihar Jail nearly two days after the Delhi High Court granted them bail.
To decongest prisons
•The apex court has made concerted moves in the recent months to decongest prisons amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
•In May, a Bench led by the CJI ordered the police to limit arrests during the pandemic to prevent overcrowding of jails, and urged courts to not order detention in a mechanical manner.
The fees for a new registration will be ₹20,000, and subsequent re-registration will cost ₹5,000.
•For the first time, India is set to have rules regulating the registration process for vintage cars.
•The Law Ministry has given its nod to an amendment to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, that are expected to be notified by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways soon, according to a government official.
•According to the rules, all two-wheelers and four-wheelers, which have not undergone any substantial overhaul, will be defined as Vintage Motor Vehicles 50 years after the date of first registration.
•Vehicles that already carry a registration number will be allowed to retain it. However, classics that are registered afresh, such as those that are imported into the country, will be assigned an identifier “VA” in the registration number.
•Vintage vehicles will neither be permitted on roads for regular purposes, nor will they be used for commercial purposes. They will be allowed only during exhibitions.
•The fees for a new registration will be ₹20,000, and subsequent re-registration will cost ₹5,000.
•All such antique vehicles will be exempted from the provisions of High Security Registration Plate, recently made mandatory by the government.
•The sale and purchase of such registered vehicles is permissible, provided the buyer and seller inform the respective State Transport Authorities, the rules say.
📰 Don’t seek surrender of those on interim bail, Supreme Court tells States
Orders NALSA and States to submit detailed report on criteria/norms considered by respective panels to release prisoners on interim bail
•The Supreme Court on Friday directed the States to not, for the time being, ask for the surrender of prisoners released on interim bail during the second wave of the pandemic to decongest prisons.
•“For the time being, they should not be asked to surrender until further orders,” a Special Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana ordered.
•The CJI Bench ordered the NALSA and the State governments to submit a detailed report on the criteria/norms considered by the respective High Powered Committees for releasing prisoners on interim bail. Copies of the report should be served to the Union government and amicus curiae, senior advocate Dushyant Dave.
•The court listed the case for hearing on Friday.
May order
•In early May, the court turned a humanitarian eye to the over four lakh prison population trapped inside overcrowded jails even as a surging second wave led to huge loss of lives. Then, a Bench led by the CJI observed that “India has more than four lakh prison inmates. It is observed that some of the prisons in India are overburdened and are housing inmates beyond optimal capacity…. The requirement of decongestion is a matter concerning the health and right to life of both the prison inmates and the police personnel working”.
•The court had even ordered the police to limit arrests during the pandemic to prevent overcrowding of jails and urged magistrates to not order detention in a mechanical manner in cases involving the punishment of less or up to seven years’ imprisonment.
•It had further ordered special committees or ‘High-Powered Committees’ constituted in most States and Union Territories to screen prisoners and release them on interim bail.
•The order had also taken into consideration those released on interim bail in the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. The court had ordered them to be freed “forthwith”. Ninety per cent of inmates released last year had returned to their prisons in February and March 2021.
•More importantly, the court had also taken into consideration the plight of prisoners too scared to return home, though eligible for release on interim bail or parole, owing to their social circumstances or simply because they were afraid they would get infected with COVID-19 while outside. In such cases, the court ordered proper medical facilities, immediate treatment and regular tests for both inmates and jail staff. It said maintenance of daily hygiene in prisons should be put at a premium.
📰 Overdue review: On the sedition law
Supreme Court’s remarks on sedition cases bode well for its inevitable invalidation
•It is gratifying to note that the Supreme Court, while indicating its intention to reconsider the sedition provision in the Indian Penal Code, has raised the question most relevant to the issue: “Why does Section 124A continue in the statute book even after 75 years of independence?” Chief Justice N. V. Ramana has also pointed to the rampant misuse of the section by the police across the country, and reminded the government that it was a legal provision that the colonial regime had used to suppress the freedom movement. The issues flagged by the Chief Justice of India may set the tone for what would be a comprehensive reconsideration of a section that has been frequently and wrongfully used, especially in the last few years, to suppress dissent, criminalise strident political criticism and taint opponents with the tag of being ‘anti-national’. Even though it is often argued that the misuse of a law alone does not render it invalid, there is a special case to strike down Section 124A because of its inherent potential for misuse. There is a pattern of behaviour among all regimes that indicate a proclivity to invoke it without examining its applicability to the facts of any case. Recent cases show that sedition is used for three political reasons: to suppress criticism and protests against particular policies and projects of the government, to criminalise dissenting opinion from human rights defenders, lawyers, activists and journalists, and to settle political scores, sometimes with communal hues.
•It is not to be forgotten that the section was upheld in 1962 by a Constitution Bench mainly by reading down the import of the terms “bring into hatred or contempt”, or “to create disaffection towards the government established by law” and limit its scope to only those instances of speech or writing that show a pernicious tendency to create public disorder. Without this attenuated interpretation, the restriction imposed on free speech by Section 124A would have been declared unconstitutional. The court is now seized of several cases that seek a reconsideration of the 1962 verdict, citing more recent judgments expanding the scope of fundamental rights and doctrines that have been subsequently evolved. In particular, the “chilling effect” that a law may have on free speech and the vague and ‘overbroad’ definition of sedition that renders both provocative and innocuous speeches or writings equally liable for prosecution are points to be examined. In 2016, the government itself admitted in Parliament that the definition of sedition is too wide and requires reconsideration. The Law Commission also released a consultation paper in 2018 that said “In a democracy, singing from the same songbook is not a benchmark of patriotism. People should be at liberty to show their affection towards their country in their own way.” While issuing fresh guidelines and safeguards is one way of quelling the potential for its misuse, it will be more helpful if Section 124A is struck down altogether.
📰 An irrational draft population control Bill that must go
The Uttar Pradesh government should understand that evidence backs the principle of informed free choice
•Many of us working in the field of public health and social development have been taken aback, if not downright shocked, by the recently announced draft Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilization and Welfare) Bill, 2021 that focuses exclusively on making a two-child norm a law, specifying various incentives and penalties for contravention. The burgeoning negative reaction to this proposal derives from a variety of inherent dangers, but also because most experts would agree that the conceptual clarity on ‘development being the best contraception’ and the irrationality of incentives-disincentives had been, ostensibly, long settled.
•As early as 1994, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (UN 1994); to which India is a signatory, strongly avers that coercion, incentives and disincentives have little role to play in population stabilisation and need to be replaced by the principle of informed free choice.
•This principle is also echoed in the National Population Policy 2000, which unequivocally supports a target-free approach and explicitly focuses on education, maternal and child health and survival, and the availability of health-care services, including contraceptive services, as key strategies for population stabilisation. The logic and rationale for this global and national articulation against incentives and disincentives, and in favour of the developmental measures mentioned above applies as much to Uttar Pradesh and other States today as they did when these policies were formulated.
Signs of stabilisation
•Consider the rationale below with the facts as they stand:
•The population of India, and Uttar Pradesh is on the road to stabilisation regardless of coercive policies such as the two-child norm. The fertility rate for Uttar Pradesh (National Family Health Survey, or NFHS-4) is 2.7, compared to 3.8 10 years ago (NFHS-3). This trend is correlated with improvements in health indicators for the State, such as infant mortality rate (IMR), maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and malnutrition, in the same period.
•There are many States that have attained the replacement-level fertility rate of 2.1 by NFHS-4 such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, West Bengal (excluding Union Territories and some northeastern States); all of which have much better development indicators. For instance, by NFHS-4, child mortality rate in Uttar Pradesh is 78 compared to seven in Kerala and 27 in Tamil Nadu. Women with 10 or more years of schooling stand at 33% in Uttar Pradesh compared to 72% in Kerala and 50% in Tamil Nadu. Thus, there is much scope for acceleration of population stabilisation through better delivery of health and education services.
Issue of child sex ratios
•Second, one of the greatest concerns with coercive policies such as the two-child norm is their potential impact upon child sex ratios in a society that has such a high preference for male children. That this concern is only too real is well demonstrated by the example of China that had to detract from its stringent one-child norm, first in favour of a two-child norm and then to remove targets altogether, after experiencing a disastrous reduction in its child sex ratio. Considering that Uttar Pradesh is amongst the worst across Indian States, with the lowest child sex ratio of 903 compared with 1,047 in Kerala and 954 in Tamil Nadu, and that; unlike other development indicators, this has deteriorated in NFHS-4 compared to NFHS-3, why it would want to take such a foolhardy misstep is hard to understand.
•The correlation between poor socioeconomic status and family size also impacts the potentially discriminatory effect of the proposed measures upon communities that house the poorest of the poor, such as the religious minorities and Dalits, as already pointed out by many. Leaving these communities out of political and administrative spaces as well as curtailing their access to welfare is hardly likely to advance any kind of social justice or equity.
•In our experience with poor communities that are often blamed for not exerting population control, a vast majority are keen to receive and actively seek contraceptive services. With an unmet need of 18% in Uttar Pradesh (as compared to, for example, 10% in Tamil Nadu), it is the State that is failing to provide a service at all to almost a fifth of its people that actively seek it, and services with quality to a far higher percentage. If the law has to be used to correct the situation, why do we not see a move to enact ‘the Right to Healthcare’ as being demanded by health groups for decades? And why do we not find penalties upon the State for failing to provide services on demand within a reasonable period of time within this law itself?
•We still have memory of hundreds of lives needlessly lost and human rights violations in almost criminal sterilisation ‘camps’ that the Supreme Court of India had to step in to regulate (Devika Biswas vs Union of India & Others, Petition No. 95 of 2012). Most recently, a disabled man from a village in Uttar Pradesh was lured into going for a COVID-19 vaccination and was forcibly sterilised instead to fulfil targets.
A wrong path to follow
•Clearly, as is evident in so many antiquated ‘control’ measures the state has been displaying in recent times, the Government has no trust in the ability of its citizens to take well-reasoned steps for their own welfare. Rather than do its job as a supporter of these decisions, and a duty bearer towards their rights, the state visualises itself as a paternal figure that must ‘control’ a recalcitrant immature populace at best, and a policeman wielding the law as an instrument of imperiousness at worst. This irrational and ill-considered proposed Act should be retracted forthwith if the Uttar Pradesh government has any appreciation for the collective understanding based on decades of scientific evidence of what does and does not work for population stabilisation. Instead, we are seeing other State governments displaying signs of following its lead. Clearly, it is easier for our governments to blame the victims of maldevelopment and apply penalties upon them than be held accountable for their own failures in delivering basic services of health and education.
📰 India needs a renewed health-care system
The new Health Minister needs to focus on the core lessons from the pandemic and rebuild trust in public health
•India has a new Union Health Minister after the recent cabinet reshuffle. So, what does the new Health Minister need to learn from previous experience, and what unfinished tasks need to be taken forward? As citizens, how should we expect the Government to perform better on the public health front, given the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic? If the Union Health Ministry acts upon the following health system lessons, this would not only enable improved handling of COVID-19, but would also have widespread positive impacts extending much beyond the COVID-19 situation.
Two States and a comparison
•For any population, the availability of functional public health systems is literally a question of life and death. This is evident by comparing two States which currently have the highest number of COVID-19 cases in India — Maharashtra and Kerala. Their per capita gross State domestic product (GSDP), reflecting the overall economic situation in each State, is similar. However, their COVID-19 case fatality rates are hugely different — this being 0.48% for Kerala and 2.04% for Maharashtra, with the shocking implication that on average, a COVID-19 patient in Maharashtra has been over four times more likely to die when compared to one in Kerala.
•A major reason for such critical divergence is likely to be the huge differences in the effectiveness of public health systems. Kerala has per capita two and a half times more government doctors, and an equally higher proportion of government hospital beds when compared to Maharashtra, while allocating per capita over one and half times higher funds on public health every year. Despite Maharashtra having a large private health-care sector, its weak public health system has proved to be a critical deficiency.
•In contrast, robust government health-care services in Kerala have translated into: a more effective outreach, timely testing, early case detection and more rational treatment for COVID patients, which all together reduce fatality rates. Existing evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic provides a clear message: a neglect of public health systems can mean large-scale, avoidable losses of lives; hence, public health services must be upgraded rapidly and massively as a topmost priority.
Focus on public health
•Talking of priorities, if the ₹20,000 crore or nearabout allocated for the Central Vista project were to be utilised instead to set up oxygen plants, two-thirds of the over 25,000 government hospitals across India could acquire their own oxygen source, thus helping to save the lives of lakhs of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. A larger programme which requires the immediate attention of the Health Minister is the National Health Mission (NHM); since 2017-18, Union government allocations for the NHM have declined in real terms, resulting in inadequate support to States for core activities such as immunisation, while systemic gaps affect the delivery of COVID-19 vaccination.
•Although urban people across India have experienced major shortages of public health services during COVID-19, the condition of the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) remains pathetic. This year’s Central allocation for the NUHM is ₹1,000 crore, which amounts to less than ₹2 per month per urban Indian. This situation must change, and as recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, for reaching National Health Policy targets, the Government must allocate ₹1.6-lakh crore for public health during the current year. This would amount to a doubling of the present central health Budget, which could enable major strengthening of health services in rural and urban areas across the country.
Private sector regulation
•Another clear priority that has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to regulate rates and standards of care in the private sector. Massive hospital bills have caused untold distress even among the middle class; COVID-19 care often costs ₹1 lakh to ₹3 lakh per week in large private hospitals. The ‘Remdesivir panic’ was significantly linked with major overuse of this medicine by unregulated private hospitals, despite the drug lacking efficacy to reduce COVID-19 mortality. Although various determinants have contributed to the Mucormycosis outbreak, irrational use of steroids in COVID-19 patients, especially diabetics, appears to be an important factor.
•Yet, despite accumulating evidence on the need for comprehensive regulation of private hospitals, the central government is yet to take necessary steps to promote the implementation of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act (CEA).
•Passed in 2010 and presently applicable to 11 States across India, this Act is not effectively implemented due to a major delay in notification of central minimum standards, and failure to develop the central framework for regulation of rates. Responding to public distress, around 15 State governments invoked disaster-related provisions to regulate rates for COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals. However, initiatives from the central government to promote regulation of private hospitals during the COVID-19 situation are conspicuously inadequate. Learning from stark market failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, comprehensive regulation of private health care in public interest now must be a critical agenda for the new Health Minister.
NITI Aayog prescriptions
•A logical corollary of the first two lessons is that health services should not be further privatised. However, flying in the face of health-care distress faced by ordinary Indians during the last 16 months, NITI Aayog has recently published the document, ‘Investment Opportunities in India’s Healthcare Sector’. This promotes further privatisation of health care in a country which already has one of the most privatised health systems in the world.
•Published in the midst of widespread experiences of large-scale overcharging and irrational care by private providers during the COVID-19 epidemic, the report fails to acknowledge the negative aspects of unregulated private health care; neither is there any mention of the need for regulation of private hospitals. Instead, the document celebrates the COVID-19 epidemic as a prime business opportunity to be exploited, stating that ‘in the hospital segment, the expansion of private players to Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations, beyond metropolitan cities, offers an attractive investment opportunity’. Proposals for handing over public hospitals to private operators, who would presumably now run these key public institutions on commercial lines under the ‘Viability Gap Funding’ scheme are deeply worrisome, especially since public health services which were hitherto free of cost, would begin to be charged for.
•Assuming that the Union Health Ministry has a primary mandate to shape national health policy in India, the Health Minister must assert his authority to stop such moves for further privatisation, which might benefit health-care corporates but would be damaging for ordinary people.
•To conclude, this is a time when it is critical to rebuild people’s trust in public health systems. This would help in overcoming COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy while strengthening the promotion of healthy behaviours necessary to deal with the current wave of COVID-19 and prevent a third wave. This would be done best if the new Health Minister acts on three core health system lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic — a need for strengthening public health systems; regulating private health care, and preventing further privatisation of the health sector. It is not unjustified to expect our new Health Minister to present an example to the people of India, by acting decisively for public health systems.
