NEW DELHI: After numerous postponements under one pretext or another, on the morning of May 12 the Supreme Court of India, with Justice S.R. Pandian and Justice S.N. Ray presiding, gave a preliminary hearing to the writ petition filed by former cabinet secretary and governor of Punjab, Nirmal K. Mukherjee, former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice R.S, Narula, well-known journalist Patwant Singh, political and social activist Inder Mohan, and Professor Rajni Kothari, author and founder of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies challenging the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the illegal detention of Justice Ajit Singh Bains.

Justice Pandian said that the   prayer in the writ petition asked for the repeal of TADA as unconstitutional and since there were already other writ petitions before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionally of TADA, there was no need for this petition. Regarding the second prayer in the petition that all those detained under TADA be released, Justice Pandian said that the Supreme Court could not order this unless TADA was repealed. Advocate R.S. Sodhi argued that the petition also demanded the immediate release of Justice Bains, but Justice Pandian said that although this may have been mentioned in the petition, it was not specifically mentioned in the prayer and hence could not be considered as part of the main prayer. The Attorney General of India Ramaswamy, said on behalf of the government that the petition was not maintainable. At this point, Justice Rajinder Sachar, a former judge of Supreme Court and a civil rights activist, intervened and said that the matter was urgent.

He pointed out that writ petitions challenging TADA had been pending for more than five years, He asked the Supreme Court to accept that a verbal prayer from him be included in the prayer specifically asking for the release of Justice Bains, Justice Pandian did not agree, and said there was no time to carry on the case before the Supreme Court recessed on May 15 and that the next hearing date would be after the recess in the latter half of July, at which time it would be argued that the petition is not maintainable,

Article extracted from this publication >> May 22, 1992