The family and acquaintances of a person who is affected demand justice but there is rarely a demand for justice for the victim from the larger society, said satirist, political commentator and former journalist Akash Bannerjee and other speakers at the Calcutta Debating Circle presents The Debate 2025 in association with The Telegraph.
Bannerjee who was speaking against the motion Justice is Often Demanded But Seldom Delivered represented a side that questioned whether the public was asking for justice often enough.
“Ask yourself, do you honestly ask for justice for others or does it pinch you when it is only justice for yourself?” Bannerjee said on Saturday evening.
He had on his side former chief justice of Meghalaya High Court Sanjib Bannerjee, journalist Barkha Dutt and researcher of legal policy Arghya Sengupta.
Speaking for the motion, senior Supreme Court advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vrinda Grover highlighted the vacancy of judges in high courts as well as lower courts.
“The data published by the ministry of law and justice on January 1, 2025 shows that the sanctioned strength of judicial officers, judges in the high courts in India is 1,122, of which 371 or roughly 33 per cent judicial posts are lying vacant... at the district court level, about 4.53 crore cases pending,” said Grover.
The two advocates had senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and junior doctor at AIIMS Kalyani Reekanya Bagchi on the team, speaking for the motion.
References to the RG Kar protests, the demand for justice and whether the demand would sustain came back in the debate again and again.
Moderator Kunal Sarkar, a cardiac surgeon by profession and debater by passion, flagged off the debate by referring to the RG Kar protests. The city was angry and the state was outraged by the rape and murder of the junior doctor at RG Kar, he said. “But is anger enough for justice?” he asked before inviting the first speaker.
Sardesai underlined the denial of bail to Umar Khalid, the denial of a sipper to octogenarian Father Stan Swamy in prison, how the Supreme Court sat on a Saturday to reverse the “acquittal” of G.N. Saibaba and the granting of bail to journalist Siddique Kappan after more than two years as examples of how justice was seldom delivered.
“Siddique Kappan was arrested while on his way to report on the gangrape of a Dalit girl at Hathras. He was released more than two years later from his day of arrest,” said Sardesai.
Dutt asked the audience how many had heard demands for justice for journalist Mukesh Chandrakar whose mutilated body was found in a septic tank in Chhattisgarh. He was reporting on corruption in a road project.
The motion was carried after a show of hands from the audience on the Calcutta Club Lawns.