Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday criticised former Supreme Court judge Justice BN Srikrishna for his remarks about the lack of freedom of expression under the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.
On Friday, Justice Srikrishna, in an interview with The Hindu, had said the situation in the country is “very bad”.
“I must confess, if I were to stand in a public square and say I don’t like the face of the prime minister, somebody might raid me, arrest me, throw me in jail without giving me any reason,” Justice Srikrishna had said. “Now that is something that all of us oppose as citizens.”
Justice Srikrishna had made the remarks after he was asked whether Telangana Indian Administrative Service officer Smita Sabharwal, who had criticised the release of convicts in the Bilkis Bano case in a personal tweet, was wrong.
On August 15, eleven persons convicted for gangraping Bilkis Bano were released from a Godhra jail after the Gujarat government approved their application under its remission policy.
The 11 men had gangraped Bano in a village near Ahmedabad on March 3, 2002, during the riots in Gujarat. She was 19 and pregnant at the time. Fourteen members of her family were also killed in the violence, including her three-year-old daughter whose head was smashed on the ground by the perpetrators.
“The citizens of this country have the fundamental right of free speech guaranteed to them under the Constitution,” the retired judge had said about the civil servant expressing her views. “But when you undertake a government service, you subject yourself to certain disciplinary rules.”
He then added: “This rule is of the British era. But in a democracy, the right to criticise the government is a fundamental right and nobody can muzzle that.”
In response, Rijiu on Saturday said that those who criticise Modi “without any restrictions” are “crying about freedom of expression”.
“They will never talk about the Emergency imposed by Congress party and never dare to criticise some regional party CMs [chief minister’s],” he wrote in a tweet. “I don’t know if a former judge of the Supreme Court has actually said this. If it’s true then the statement itself is demeaning the institution he has served.”
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