THE granting of anticipatory bail to former RSS chief, Subhash Velingkar, after those who protested at Margao against his highly inflammatory utterances had FIRs lodged against them, raises a few questions. One of these is whether anticipatory bail can be granted to a person who has absconded and evaded service of summons? It is true that one of the conditions for granting of anticipatory bail is that a person accused should present himself before the Bicholim police station and cooperate in the investigation, which Velingkar did.
Now contrast this case with that of the Islamic preacher Zakir Naik. who has had several criminal cases filed against him and who filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking that all the cases be clubbed against him and heard jointly by the Supreme Court. The apex court dismissed this transfer application on the ground that Zakir Naik was a fugitive from justice and his application could not be heard unless he surrendered in India.
It is true that both these applications are different in the sense that one was for anticipatory bail while the other was for clubbing of the FIRs. But in both cases, the accused were charged with serious crimes of promoting enmity between groups on the ground of religion. These are serious cases known as warrant cases.
Be that as it may, a single judge of the Karnataka high court quashed an FIR against two men who entered a mosque and shouted “Jai Shree Ram.” The judge said shouting or raising the slogan “Jai Shree Ram” was not wrong which is true. The point is that the slogan was raised inside a mosque which is a place of worship for Muslims who believe in one God whom they call Allah.

MEANING OF SECULARISM
IPSO FACTO, the logic of this judge appears bewildering. Secularism means the freedom to practice the religion of your choice without entering a place of worship of others and shouting slogans which are not acceptable to those who practice and believe in a different God from the one in the holy Vedas or the Bhagwad Gita.
This is why religion is used by politicians like the former RSS chief, Subhash Velingkar, to allegedly incite Goans who after taking to the streets in protest had FIRs lodged against them. These protesters have alleged those who were booked were not from the ruling party but from the opposition Congress.
Be that as it may, the judiciary fails us occasionally when emotive conflicts like the one in Goa was thrown up. We must remember that judges take an oath to uphold the Constitution and not their holy texts. A few judges who were accused of corruption defend themselves in public by saying: “We took decisions according to our conscience.”
These judges who should know better conveniently forget their only conscience while on the bench is the Constitution. After they step down as judges or retire from the judiciary, they are free to practice the ideals of their respective religions — but not while sitting on the bench.
This basic facet of justice has eluded all of us. Judges like government servants have no conscience apart from the Constitution for the simple reason that the values of the Bible, Koran, Bhagwad Gita and the Zend Avesta are not exactly the same. Hence, for Justice Justice M Nagaprasanna to have quashed the FIR against Keerthan Kumar and Sachin Kumar who raised the slogan of “Jai Shree Ram” inside the Karnataka mosque is totally abhorrent.
The Goa Police is not only corrupt but incompetent which is why they could not trace the whereabouts of Subhash Velingker after he allegedly absconded following the outbreak of protests against him for asking for a DNA test to be done on the relics of a holy and revered saint of Goa like Saint Francis Xavier.

RECEIVING END
I MYSELF have been at the receiving end of the Goa Police when a former deputy SP now promoted as SP, Kiran Poduval, allegedly framed me in a false FIR at the instance of a powerful minister in the Goa cabinet. Despite the present SP (South) Sunita Sawant asking for the photos and videos that I furnished to her of those who assaulted me during a site inspection at Salvador do Mundo on |Sept 27, 2018, PI Lovelina Dias of the Goa Police replied under the Right to Information Act saying: “No such report is available.”
So, as the criminal case against Subhash Velingkar meanders slowly through the courts while those who protested on the streets of Margao also face the humiliation of facing a trial for exercising their right to protest, another unseemly episode will be forgotten. Another occasion will arise when intemperate remarks will be made against the saint whom Goans love and revere.
An advocate of the Kerala high court, Jagadischchandran Nair, has written in a coffee table book celebrating 60 years of the Kerala high court that rules are violated frequently by a few judges like the late CJI Ranganath Misra, who met the chief of the Union Carbide in his chambers after the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which is a blatant violation of judicial propriety.
Advocate Jagadischandran Nair also wrote that Indira Gandhi brought Justice Krishna Iyer to the Supreme Court after this erudite judge spent only three years as a judge of the Kerala high court, because of their shared ideology of Marxism, according to the then law minister Mohan Kumaramangalam. There is no doubt that Justice Iyer delivered many erudite judgments while on the bench of the apex court.