On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of India delivered a 452-page judgment in the case of Zakia Ahsan Jafri vs State of Gujarat, which has far-reaching implications for our understanding of constitutional morality and the rule of law in a constitutional democracy. The arrests of human rights defender and co-petitioner Teesta Setalvad, and former Gujarat police officer R.B. Sreekumar followed close on the heels of the judgment as if on cue to put all those who had (to quote from the judgment) ‘the audacity to question the integrity of every functionary involved in the process of exposing the devious stratagem adopted (to borrow the submission of the learned counsel for the Special Investigation Team [SIT]), to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design… in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law’ — Ms. Setalvad, Mr. Sreekumar and (another former IPS officer) Sanjiv Bhat (who has been in custody) are named several times with words such as ‘vengeance’, ‘tirade’, ‘persecution’ and ‘disgruntlement’ liberally used to describe them — the ‘aggrieved party’ in this account is the state.
The judgment reproduces at length the assertions of the SIT. Two senior advocates appointed as amicus curiae, advocate Prashant Bhushan and advocate Rohinton Fali Nariman (as he was then) withdrew in quick succession. The third, advocate Raju Ramachandran, submitted a separate report, parts of which are reproduced in the appendix. This report (although given no weight by the SIT with the Supreme Court following suit) nevertheless gives us a window into how constitutional sensibilities might be deployed in a case such as this against the odds. In all this, by deflecting judicial ire onto Ms. Setalvad, Mr. Sreekumar and Mr. Bhat, Zakia Jafri ends up being portrayed as a victim of diabolical activists rather than as a survivor of mass murder.
