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The ostensible reason for restricting Ayyub and Patel were ongoing investigations by the ED and CBI for their alleged violations of foreign funding rules. But for both, the wider message sent out is chilling. Within the span of a week, look-out notices issued by law enforcement agencies were used, or misused, to stop two citizens from leaving the country for speaking engagements abroad. Both individuals challenged the circular in court, and the courts stepped in to right the wrong — the apparently illegal cramping of the fundamental right to travel abroad and to exercise the freedom of speech and expression. Journalist Rana Ayyub was cleared to travel abroad by Delhi High Court on Monday, subject to certain conditions, while for former chair of Amnesty International India Aakar Patel, stopped twice at Bengaluru airport from taking a flight to the US, the theatre of the bizarre goes on. This, after a Delhi court held on Thursday that the CBI must “immediately” drop the airport alert and hand over a written apology to him given the “mental harassment” he suffered, and for upholding “trust and confidence of the public in the premier institution”. The ostensible reason for restricting Ayyub and Patel were ongoing investigations by the ED and CBI for their alleged violations of foreign funding rules. But for both, the wider message sent out is chilling.
Lookout notices are usually issued when a person accused of a cognisable offence is deliberately evading arrest, is likely to leave India to avoid it, or in exceptional cases, when an individual’s departure is deemed detrimental to due process in the case. From available evidence, Patel and Ayyub have been cooperating with the investigating agencies. It would take conspiracy theorising of a very high order indeed to see the participation of either in seminars abroad as a national security risk. Incidentally, look-out notices have proved spectacularly unsuccessful against powerful industrialists who actually fled India — be it Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi. In the past, the courts have also set a high bar for restricting the individual’s right to travel abroad. The Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi versus Union of India (1978), for instance, held that it is included in the right to personal liberty: “The mere prescription of some kind of procedure cannot even meet the mandate of Article 21. The procedure described by law has to be fair, just and reasonable, not fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary”.
The restrictions sought to be imposed on Patel and Ayyub speak of a disturbing pattern. That renowned anthropologist from the UK, Filippo Osella, was deported on arrival at Thiruvananthapuram recently — the scholar on Kerala was to attend a conference on the state’s coastal communities — was also part of it. Episodes such as these only make the government look like a bully. It would be deluded if it sees them as shows of strength.
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