Supreme Court judge justice Ujjal Bhuyan on Sunday said that incarceration of citizens for dissent, and continuing atrocities against Dalits “cannot be a model of Viksit Bharat”. Justice Bhuyan was speaking at the Supreme Court Bar Association’s (SCBA) conference in Bengaluru on the judiciary’s role in Viksit Bharat on Sunday.

Speaking at the Supreme Court Bar Association’s (SCBA) conference in Bengaluru on the judiciary’s role in Viksit Bharat, Justice Bhuyan said, “While the government’s vision of Viksit Bharat, or, a developed India by 2047 is laudable and achievable, economic growth cannot come at the cost of civil liberties and dignity.”

“In Viksit Bharat, there should be more space for dissent and debate. Dissent cannot be criminalised,” he said, warning against the growing tendency to invoke criminal law in response to protests, student movements, and even social media expression.

He said the past few years have seen a pattern of “reckless registration” of criminal cases by the State, often in trivial matters. FIRs routinely filed for public demonstrations or online content, pushing individuals into prolonged investigations and incarceration, he said.

“The judiciary is not directing the State to register these cases. For trivial matters such as public demonstrations and agitations, even by students, sometimes even for memes and social media posts, FIRs are registered, investigation goes on, the matters come up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has to constitute special investigation teams,” justice Bhuyan said.

He, however, acknowledged that courts have not always acted as an effective check and said, “Many within the judiciary also suffer from the more loyal than the king syndrome. As a result, people continue to languish in jails for months and months together without bail and without facing trial.”

Justice Bhuyan also invoked the long-standing principle articulated by justice VR Krishna Iyer that “bail is the norm and jail the exception.” He said this doctrine has steadily eroded in practice and several cases under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were prime examples.

Citing data placed by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) before Parliament, justice Bhuyan noted that arrest rates under UAPA remain high while conviction rates are abysmally low, hovering between “1 to 6%” between 2019 and 2023. “This indicates overuse of the law,” he said, adding that when the likelihood of acquittal is overwhelmingly high, continued incarceration for five to six years raises serious constitutional concerns.

On atrocities against Dalits and caste-based discrimination, justice Bhuyan said a developed India cannot tolerate entrenched social hierarchies. “In Viksit Bharat, we cannot have parents saying their children will not eat food prepared by Dalits. We cannot have Dalit men being made to stand in corridors and have other men urinate on them. Respect for the individual must be protected,” he said.

On Gender diversity in the judiciary

Justice Bhuyan flagged the continued lack of women judges in India’s higher judiciary and called for closer scrutiny of the Collegium system on gender diversity in appointments. He warned that subjectivity in the process may be excluding women from constitutional courts, and said the Collegium must answer why fewer women are appointed once selections move away from purely merit-based criteria.

“The moment the process becomes subjective, and not solely merit-based, women don’t make it,” he said.

Citing empirical data, Bhuyan pointed out that women’s participation has steadily improved in the lower judiciary, where recruitment is more objective and exam-based. “Women judicial officers account for anywhere between 27 percent to 50 percent in the lower judiciary rising to nearly 60 percent in states like Telangana. However, this trajectory sharply reverses at the level of high courts and the Supreme Court, where appointments are made through the Collegium,” he said.

Justice Bhuyan added that the judiciary must neither act as an “eternal critic” nor a “cheerleader” of the State, but remain firmly anchored in its duty to safeguard rights and uphold the rule of law. “Judiciray must just remain the judiciary,” he said.