write an imaginary story based on the theme of fundamental rights
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Answer:
Explanation: NAME OF STORY
fundamental rights or just privileges?
The Constitution of India, guarantees all citizens with the Fundamental Rights. These rights include, among other things, right to life, freedom of expression, equality amongst the citizens, equal protection of laws etc. The state cannot pass any laws that take away the Fundamental Rights of its citizens, it has a responsibility to ensure that no one’s Rights are violated. In case any citizen feels his or her rights have been violated, they can approach the High Court or the Supreme Court to enforce the Fundamental Rights. While this is the promise guaranteed by the Constitution to the people of India, the reality is far from what it should have been. As Ronald Dworkin rightly said [in his book Taking Rights Seriously], more often than not, it is the government in power that decides what an individual’s rights really are.
In reality, what the Constitution guarantees is not really rights, they’re merely privileges that are given to the upper class of the society. For example, say the government passes a law tomorrow and a citizen feels that this law violates one or more of his Fundamental Rights, he decides to file a writ in the High Court requesting the court to declare this particular law as unconstitutional. The probabilities of this writ petition being successful depends on various aspects. The government would argue that, the law is passed as a matter of public policy, it is the need of the hour that the law be passed in view of development and that it has the power to do so. In the alternative, the government can also argue that the law so passed, does not violate the fundamental rights at all. Now, your exercising of your Fundamental Rights is contingent on the Court deciding whether the law which has been passed violates Fundamental Rights or not. As it has always been happening, Indian Courts often reflect the philosophy of the government in power.
There is another aspect to be considered here, in a recent survey conducted, it was observed that, of all the Special Leave Petitions granted in the Supreme Court of India, 66% were represented by a senior counsel. This means that, more the money you have, better are the chances of you winning your case in the court. The Constitutional guarantee that all citizens will be equally protected under law probably is a farce, it is a promise that the state has failed in fulfilling.
A study conducted by the NLU Delhi, Death Penalty Project shows that most of the death penalty convicts are from backward classes, dalits and minorities. Most of them were arrested out of the confessions made in a police station which are not admissible in a court of law. Most of them were tortured and the obvious fact is that most of them are poor. There is vital data regarding the type of evidence used in these cases, the legal assistance provided for these convicts and their treatment in prisons. The constitution guarantees a right to fair trial and a right to be heard. And in case a person is unable to afford a lawyer to fight a case for them, the state must make provisions for a lawyer to represent them.
The Supreme Court in Hussain Ara Khatoon v State of Bihar [(1980) 1 SCC 98], noticed that, there were a large number of convicts under trial in various jails in Bihar who have remained in custody for a period more than what they would have, if they were sentenced for the particular crime they were being tried for. Needless to say, these were convicts who were very poor to afford a lawyer or furnish a bail. Although, there were orders passed to make sure that this problem is rectified, how much if it is rectified is something I would leave to the imagination of the reader, considering the state of affairs.
Justice H R Khanna, in his dissenting opinion in the notoriously famous ADM Jabalpur case [1976 AIR 1207], mentioned that Fundamental Rights are something that an individual is born with and no one can take away an individual’s Fundamental Rights. But this reality is very much contingent on which class of the society an individual is born into. A rich male Hindu politician is more likely to have better rights than a poor female Dalit daily wage worker. Both of them are citizens of India and they must be protected equally under law. Rights are for men with money and this is the reality one has to face. Rights are not really rights, they are privileges.