Binayak Sen The law: Section 124A of the IPC (Sedition) The victim: Binayak Sen is a paediatrician and

civil rights activist. He is the national vicepresident of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties. The punishment: Sen was arrested in 2007 for acting as a courier between Naxalite leader Narayan Sanyal and businessman Piyush Guha. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court in 2009. But in 2010, a Chhattisgarh court found Sen guilty of sedition and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court rejected the charge against him and granted him bail in April 2011. The case: Before his arrest in 2007, Sen was accused of meeting Maoist ideologue Sanyal 33 times in the Raipur jail. The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) criticised the Chhattisgarh government and said that Dr Sen became a victim of vendetta for his bold and principled opposition to state-sponsored vigilante operation, Salwa Judum, which has been held unacceptable even by the Supreme Court. Several activists then demanded drastic reform of the criminal justice system to ensure that it is not manipulated by the state to persecute, prosecute and victimise innocent persons. "Even if Dr Sen may be seen as sympathiser of the Maoists, he had always urged them to abjure violence," his supporters said.