The darkest hour: ADM Jabalpur was a test for SC. Only the dissenter passed it | The Indian Express

The darkest hour: ADM Jabalpur was a test for SC. Only the dissenter passed it | The Indian Express

Written by Seema Chishti |Updated: August 29, 2019 7:34:56 am

The darkest hour: ADM Jabalpur was a test for SC. Only the dissenter passed it

As legal scholar Gautam Bhatia put it in Transformative Constitution, Justice Khanna’s dissent would constitute a “contrapuntal” or something that appears as a counterpoint, often solitary, against the tide at the time, but something that conceals the kernel of the future and the way ahead, which lives on to speak forcefully, another day.

ADM Jabalpur is seen as one of the darkest spots in the history of the Supreme Court. (File)

Costa Gavras’ 1982 film Missing is a haunting story of what a military dictatorship does to its citizens as they go, well, missing. The real-life story set in Chile was also about the actions of the US government, which even had a lawsuit filed against it. The way a society responds to enforced disappearances or “detentions” by the state is often seen as a marker of the health of a democracy.