Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan cautioned against criminalising everyday activities, observing that eating chicken over the Ganga is not an offence. He also expressed concern over delays in granting bail to persons arrested in protest-related cases.
Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjwal Bhuyan flagged what he described as a growing tendency to criminalise ordinary, everyday activities, remarking that there is no law that forbids a person from eating chicken over the River Ganga, while voicing concern over the delayed grant of bail in cases arising from protests.
Justice Bhuyan made the observations while delivering the 4th Justice G.P. Singh Memorial Lecture at the National Law Institute University (NLIU) in Bhopal.
To illustrate his point about the reach of the criminal law into the mundane, the judge referred to an incident in Varanasi in which a group of young men had eaten chicken biryani on a boat during an Iftar gathering and thrown the bones into the river, and were arrested as a result.
Underscoring that no offence was disclosed by such conduct, Justice Bhuyan said,
“I am sure consuming chicken biryani is not an offence. It can’t be an offence. There is no law prohibiting consumption of chicken over the Ganga river. They were arrested for that very reason, and they had to remain in jail for 3 months”
The example, he suggested, exemplified a wider problem in the way ordinary activity is increasingly being drawn into the criminal justice system.
Justice Bhuyan turned from the fact of arrest to the manner in which the courts deal with the applications that follow, particularly in matters connected with protests. He observed that bail in such cases, when it comes, tends to come only after considerable delay, and is frequently hedged with restrictive conditions.
The concern he articulated reflects a principle the Supreme Court itself has repeatedly affirmed that bail, not jail, is the norm, and that the prolonged incarceration of an accused pending trial, especially where the offence is not grave, sits uneasily with the personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Where individuals spend months in custody for conduct that may not amount to an offence at all, the delay in securing release becomes, in effect, a punishment imposed without trial.
Justice Bhuyan also addressed the wider climate around protest and freedom of expression, affirming that peaceful protest is a fundamental right of citizens.
His remarks locate the right to dissent within the constitutional protections of free speech and peaceful assembly under Article 19, and align with a consistent line of Supreme Court authority recognising that the expression of disagreement, so long as it remains peaceful, is a legitimate exercise of constitutional freedom rather than a matter for the criminal law.