Eminent civil servants urge Attorney General to stop ” witch hunt” of Zubair

A number of former eminent civil servants have expressed concern over the ” witch hunt” of fact checker Mohammad Zubair, and urged Attorney General to intervene to protect the personal liberties of citizens of India from ” illegal and arbitrary actions of the executive.”

The letter has 72 signatories, including former IPS and IAS officers, who have grouped themselves as the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG).

They said that Zubair is being unnecessarily hounded by the Police. The CCG referred to the arrest of Zubair as a deprivation of his civil liberties that would not stand the barest of legal scrutiny. It cited the article of Justice Madan B Lokur, retired judge of the Supreme Court, which spells out the wrong application of the law by the police as well as the judiciary.

The letter said, “We have been watching with dismay the cynical overzealousness of not just the law enforcement agencies but also the law officers under you to manufacture cases day after day to deliberately deprive individuals, identified as inconvenient by the Government, of their basic freedoms. As votaries of the Constitutional precept of equality before the law, it is deeply disturbing to see the patently discriminatory treatment meted out between Nupur Sharma and Mohammed Zubair. Such selective application of law flies in the face of justice as we understand it.”

Citing the recent Supreme Court ruling that has stated that indiscriminately arresting people and putting them in jail is making India a ‘police state’, the CCG also questioned Solicitor General taking up these kinds of cases opposing bail.

The CCG called on the Attorney General to quickly take action, saying, “As the highest law officer of this land, having earned the respect of so many across the legal and political fraternities as also the discerning public, we feel you have an obligation to rectify the situation. If this moral imperative is left unheeded, we fear that there will be disastrous consequences for the country.”