Englishविशेषसाक्षात्कार

INTERVIEW WITH VISHAL KUMAR SINGH – ADVOCATE AT PATNA HIGH COURT, LAW OFFICER AT HRLN

  1. You have been associated with Human Rights Law Network since 2015. Can you give our readers a brief idea about how does this network functions?

Human Rights Law Network is an organization which is operated by the socio-legal information centre. I am currently working as a law officer and I am also an advocate at the Patna High Court. I have been associated with HRLN since 2015. I was an intern over there in the first year and afterwards I was continuously in touch with the HRLN. They regularly invited me for their seminars, sessions, lectures and everything. I even conducted a jail visit in Gaya Central Jail in 2017 with HRLN, TISS and Central University of South Bihar where I was the Legal Aid coordinator of the university and in this visit students interacted with the jail authorities as well as the prisoners and got to know the grievances. I have also been associated with PUCL, Bihar and I have served as the Council Executive Member of PUCL in my college days.

  1. You must have observed various cases of violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Rights during this pandemic so what is your opinion on how far has the government been just with the rights of the individuals?

The kind of situation that the people from different socio economic groups are facing currently is not good. People from the marginalized and vulnerable sections of the society are being oppressed time and again by the government because their employment opportunity has been hampered to a larger extent. For example I am an Advocate of the people from the various slum areas in Patna for their cause so I have been fighting for their housing rights and everything. You will notice that most of the people residing in these slum areas are from the marginalized class of the society and they work as construction workers or as daily wage labourers. In these kinds of situations where the economies are crumbling down and the GDP has gone much lower so the people from the vulnerable section of the society have suffered the most. For example I have been regularly coming across such complains that people are not getting the ration through the PDS shops. Although the Prime Minister ShriNarendraModiji has announced that people will get 5 kg ration through Aatmanirbhar BharatYojana. In normal time the rule was that a person from a BPL family having ration card will get 5 kg ration. The new rule which came in April was GaribKalyanYojana which was announced by the Prime Minister that people will get 5kg of free ration for 3 months, April May and June. So now if a person gets benefit then he will get 10 kg of ration. Then again in May Prime Minister announced 5kg of additional ration through Aatmanirbhar Bharat Yojana. This announcement was about the same ration which was being given under the GaribKalyanYojana already. So by the announcement it looked like the government is going to give 15 kg of ration but that was not the case. In the state of Bihar there is a problem of POS machine. In such situations the lowest strata of the society was not able to get even two times meals in a day. This is the reality. Earlier when people used to get 5 kg of ration and their other needs were fulfilled by their daily earning then that 5 kg was substituted. Now if a poor and vulnerable person is getting only 5 kg of ration then how will he survive? As of now lockdown has been imposed in certain districts and certain districts are free from lockdown but in such circumstances when nobody is allowing the workers to get inside their home and work because the people are scared that the infection might come into their houses and that is why the poor people are unemployed and the government is not creating job opportunity. So this is the reality. The poor people in my Idea and in my view are suffering the most in the current situation of the pandemic.

  1. Since you are a lawyer in the Patna High Court, can you throw some light on the functioning of the judicial system amid this pandemic? Has it been difficult?

See, I will tell you the statistical thing. On 7th of March, the holi vacation started. The holi vacation continued till 13th of March. On 16th of March, the Court was reopened. Meanwhile, there were rumours of coronavirus in the state of Bihar. The notice was issued by the registrar of the High Court that only important and urgent matters will be taken up. This situation continued till 21st. On 22nd, Janta Curfew was announced and on 25th, entire country was under the lockdown. This situation continued till 15th or 16th of April in the High Court. There was no single filing was going on in this entire time period. Meanwhile, we sent 6 letter petitions to Hon’ble High Court of Patna on different issues, basically PIL, letter petition on which we got the order as well. So High Court was functioning but not in a normal way, but it was somehow functional. After 16th of April, the normal filing was allowed through online medium. We had to email the petition and after receiving of the email, you will get an auto-generated mail of confirmation. But only 5 to 10 cases were being taken by the Hon’ble judges during that period. We started workingthrough video conferencing. Now there were much technical errors in connections. In such circumstances, the disposal rate of cases was very low. Now I will tell you very interesting fact that this e-court project was started in the year 2005 and it started functioning recently very vibrantly under the leadership of Hon’ble Justice D Y Chandrachud. We must recognise his effort and I as an advocate am thankful to him that he introduced such system which is very beneficial. The only problem that we are facing currently is the disposal rate and the speed of justice. Everything else like filing, mentioning, argumentation; everything is fine through video conferencing. So this is a very good initiative. I feel it should continue even after the pandemic. We must adopt a system in which there will be permanent virtual court and permanent physical court as well. Both the court should go simultaneously. Also when we will adopt this system then the rate of disposal will be increased because half of the burden will be on virtual court and half on the physical court.

  1. Your activities are not restricted to your profession as you have been working in the field of Human Rights as well. So what is the driving force behind this?

See, I have been in active life since 2015 I guess. Since 2015 my life has been active in the field of public dealing and in everything. I was associated with the HRLN as an intern, and then I was also an intern in the PUCL. Then I was given responsibility on various positions in both the organisations. And I have also been associated with media groups likeYouth kiAwaaz. My public life began in 2015. As far as I can remember for the last five years not a single day has passed in my life that I have not heard the grievances of anyone or have not been able to provide solution to them. So it is like self-motivation you can say or you can just say that the driving force by the Almighty. Actually, when you see the grievances of the people, you can feel that. For example if I am fighting for the rights of the students, that is also a kind of human rights violations. I have been fighting for the rights of the students since 2104. People should know that this is the right that we must exercise. My jurisdiction is the entire state of Bihar. Any wrong and illegal shall be punished and must be brought to the law and justice.

  1. You have constantly been raising your voice in support of the students against the arbitrary collection of fees by the colleges and universities especially amid the on-going pandemic. What is your take on it?

The demand of fee from the students during the time of pandemic is not only unjust but it is barbaric and inhuman. The universities must have the minimum sense of humanity which is expected from the administrative officials. Being Registrar or Vice Chancellor of the university does not make you above the law. People sometimes alleged me that I am misguiding the students. But that is not the case. In my opinion students are wise enough to understand what is good and what is bad for them. As an officer of the law in the state of Bihar, it is my responsibility to take up such issues. At certain points of time people picturise my act as vindictive. But it is not so. For example I can go to an extent and fight for the rights of students of Central University of South Bihar. Now I am fighting for the Patna University as well. I am fighting for almost all the state universities in the state of Bihar. What will you say that? Is that something conspiracy I am doing? No, this is not the case. If they have not anything wrong, they should not fear from me. Moreover, regarding Central University of South Bihar I would say that in what circumstances the university issued the notice on 16th July that students have to pay fees by 31st July even after on 14th July the lockdown was announced in the entire state of Bihar till 31st July. I don’t know under what capacity they did so. After that my client Alumni Association issued a representation letter on 17th of July to revoke the order. But the registrar was arrogant enough to not to reply. And in such circumstances my client was compelled to knock the door of the Hon’ble High Court. I had got the information that about 220 students were not able to pay their fees by 31st July. Not only that I came into contact with an AISF activist. He said that he is filing a case in the NHRC. In that case on 3rd of Aug notice was issued by NHRC to the university and on 4th of Aug the university issued a notice that yes we are giving relaxation and we are going to give instalments for fee payments. So you can easily imagine the situation how much people friendly the administration is. They are not even able to reply an email. I don’t know in what kind of activities they are busy. If they are busy in some activities in Varanasi or in UP then they should clarify. Also, there were many mistakes in the notice issued by the university. If you are operating the university in Bihar, stay in the state of Bihar and go by the laws of the Bihar.

  1. How far has the state government of Bihar been successful in fulfilling its responsibility towards its residents among this grave situation of the pandemic? What is your opinion on this?

I am telling you very practical situation what the government of Bihar has done. During the lockdown period, like we the people were sitting at home and doing nothing, the government were doing the same thing which they were not supposed to do. They should have prepared themselves for the upcoming challengers. The registration portal for COVID-19 situations in the state of Bihar was not working. And the ruling party was busy in doing there virtual rally. You can easily imagine the priorities of the government. On 1st of June all the quarantine centres were shut down. Due to which people stated moving freely to their villages and the virus got spread over. Due to the spread of virus, the people who were already in some kind of illness got more affected in such circumstances. The number of patients increased too much. And we came to know the condition of NMCH, the only COVID dedicated hospital of that time. Thankfully, now the number of COVID hospitals has increased. And the People are being able to cure themselves in the home isolation as well. The government also fails to deliver its promises on the health ground and in the crisis management. So, in my opinion our CM Nitish Kumar is not able to work in the crisis. We can see how the government collapsed in the pandemic. The deputy CM stated in press conference that we do not have resources. He was lying. We have resources but we have incapable CM and government. They are not able to utilize the resources. So, in my opinion the government of Bihar has failed to deliver its promises and responsibility.

  1. What is your opinion on the conduct of state government of Bihar during the pandemic towards its migrant workers?

First of all, for the last fifteen years the rate of migration from the state of Bihar has increased. On one hand the government promises that it is the government of ‘sushasan’ or ‘good governance’ and on the other hand it fails to generate the employment opportunities for its residents. So in such circumstances people have to go to other states. We are well known that what treatment our people get in the state of Maharashtra. In such situation it was the responsibility of our government to work on the issue of migrants. Once an ally of the CM of Bihar had said that DNA of Bihari is pollutes. So what kind of treatment a Bihari can expect. Secondly, I guess around 40-50 lakh labourers have come back to our state in this pandemic. In such circumstances government of Bihar must develop employment opportunities for them. But government has failed. Without focussing on these issues the government is now focusing on elections and everything. Initially the government of Bihar was not willing to take back its migrant labourers. Then the state faced harsh reactions and criticism. Afterward the state of Bihar was not even able to send 100 buses to the other states. What the government is doing that can be easily analyse by the situation of migrant labourers. Government is not doing even a single thing for the migrant workers and also for the workers who are in the state of Bihar.

  1. Since you are also a part of the judicial system, what is your opinion on the recent judgement in the Prashant Bhushan contempt of court case?

See, in the case of Prashant Bhushan, I personally think as an advocate that the court should have understood the situation of Bhushan in a better way and could have refrained itself from giving punishment to Mr Bhushan. I support Mr Bhushan and I also like to say that we must appreciate the role of our Attorney General K. K. Venugopal in the case. He did not repeat the same thing that Niren De, who was Attorney General at the time of ADM Jabalpur case during the emergency situation, had done. One very interesting thing I would like to tell you that though the court has imposed the punishment of fine of rupee 1 but that symbolic punishment is something which could have easily refrained from giving. The court should not indulge into such practices as well as the advocates also should not go to an extent of commenting on personal remarks of any individual. As a Chief Justice of India, I respect Hon’ble Justice Bodbe and as a senior advocate I respect Mr Bhushan and Attorney General K. K.Venugopal. But we must be aware that the example that we as a member of judicial team will setwould be followed by the upcoming generations. Our act must nor encourage the indiscipline. In my personal opinion one should refrain from passing any personal comment or remark to any individual.

  1. What message would you like to give to our readers?

Yes, firstly it is requested to all the readers of this interview that kindly try to critically analyse the things which are going on in your surroundings. For example, if the readers are from student class, I should say that they should come into RTI activism. An RTI seeks reply from the public authorities. Secondly, the readers must be aware of the actions and inactions of the governments. Thirdly, the citizens during this pandemic should follow the government guidelines. And fourth and the foremost which I would like to say that kindly stay at home and stay safe.

Thank you Samacharline for inviting me for this interview.

Interviewer : Rajeev Ranjan @ Samacharline