'Clean thana' bail condition for tribals & Dalits degrading: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Castigating Orissa high court and judiciary for imposing "clean police station bail conditions" on tribal and Dalit villagers arrested in cases of violent protest against Vedanta's bauxite mining in Rayagada and Kalahandi, Supreme Court Monday quashed these conditions, terming them "abhorrent, cruel, degrading and unknown to law".

The HC, while granting bail to Laxman Naik, had said, "He shall clean the premises of Kashipur police station in the morning hour (between 6 am to 9 am) for two months from the date of his actual release...". The police station's in-charge will "provide cleaning articles like broom, phenyl and other items to the petitioner so that he can clean the said premises", it said.

Taking suo motu cognizance of news reports about Odisha courts imposing the "clean police station every day between 6 am and 9 am bail conditions" while releasing the arrested tribals and Dalits, a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said such orders negate the apex court's 75-year-long efforts to zealously guard life, liberty, dignity and equality of every citizen.

The bench said, "We are deeply disappointed and express our strongest disapproval of the manner in which the Odisha state judiciary has in fact regressed its mindset by imposing such onerous, degrading and humiliating conditions which are ex-facie violative of human rights."

Such conditions far from advancing the cause of justice strike at the dignity of the accused and proceed on the premise of their guilt, which is totally impermissible in law, it said. "We accordingly declare as null and void all such conditions or similar conditions imposed by the state judiciary while granting bail," the bench said and directed all Odisha courts to forthwith delete such bail conditions.

The bench said that assuming such conditions were imposed inadvertently and without any pre-meditated bias, "the nature of the bail condition is so abhorrent, cruel, degrading and unknown to law that it carries the potential to cast a serious aspersion suggesting that Odisha judiciary is afflicted with caste-based bias. Such conditions are never imposed on accused from privileged class of society, it said.

Cautioning all trial courts and HCs across the country never to impose such conditions while granting bail, the bench quashed the objectionable bail conditions imposed on the tribal and Dalit villagers in Odisha and said appropriate substitution of the conditions would be made without interfering with their liberty.

Odisha advocate general Pitambar Acharyasaid the prosecution will take steps to facilitate alteration of bail conditions.

SC asked HC's registrar general to file a compliance report within four weeks.
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