Live-Streaming of Court Proceedings is a Welcome Step

   Live- streaming of court proceedings is a momentous and laudable decision of the Supreme Court of India. This will, without doubt, bring about transparency in the courts. Incidentally, the first step in this direction was taken in November 2017, when the bench headed by the CJI Dipak Misra directed that the proceedings of two courts in every district of the country would be video recorded. Now in the first week of July this year a bench consisting of the CJI, Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud handed down an earth-shattering decision for the live telecasting of the court proceedings and the beginning will be made from the court of the Chief Justice itself.

There are many democratic countries where video recording is allowed. In some countries like; the United States of America live telecast of some selected cases is also permitted. Thus the Supreme Court of India will be the first in the world to have allowed for the live streaming of the proceedings.

As far as the Supreme Court is concerned all judges sit in the courtrooms exactly at 10:30 am, without being late even for one minute. However, in most of the High Courts, the condition is not so good. The judges often come late in the courts. Sometimes they come late from half an hour to one hour and they retire to their chambers as per their sweet wills.

The condition of the lower courts across the country is in the total mess. The Judges come and go as and when they desire. It is an open secret that the corruption in the lower judiciary is stinking to the high heaven. A reader/peshkar takes money for the filing of the documents, giving of the dates or providing information about the next date of hearings or for the changing the dates. These employees take bribes from Advocates and their clients in the full glare of the judges.

These peshkars/ ahlmads supply milk, bread, butter, vegetables and groceries to the houses of presiding deities. The situation is not so bad in Delhi and many other cosmopolitan towns but in districts it is rampant. The judges have become so shameless that they do not feel anything bad in it. Many times even if the bail has been granted, the papers will not be prepared till the palms of the concerned Ahlmad are not greased. Peons and employees openly demand money as if it is their right.

The live telecasts of the Court proceeding will certainly help curb the corruption to a large extent. This will make lethargic and incompetent judges more alert and at the same time save the clients from extortion by the non-judicial employees. Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant. This will largely cure the infection of corruption and help the ordinary people in getting the justice relatively fast because the conduct of the judges, advocates, court employees and others will always be in the public scanner. This will also ensure the judges and the advocates to remain prepared during the hearings of the cases because their conducts will be in the surveillance of thousands of people.

No doubt, what has not been achieved by the strictness of the administration will be achieved by the modern technology. Almost everybody knows that there are many advocates, who only seek adjournments to delay the cases. Clients also indulge in highly unethical practices to get the justice delayed. The live-streaming will also go a long way in controlling the witnesses to behave properly because it has been found that they often turn hostile for some considerations.

However, the presiding Judges will be to ensure that the courts' rooms are not converted into the places of theatrics. There are no dearths of such advocates who may adopt the recourse of dramatics to get the cheap popularity. We see that even the live telecasting of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha has not been able to inject a sense of responsibility among the members of parliament. Therefore, the judges will have to take extra care to ensure that some advocates do not hijack the court discipline for cheap publicity.

The technology has come as a boon for the eradication of corruption and we must salute and welcome it with open arms to make the country a better place to live in. This move will also instil a new faith in the judiciary.

Phoney Intellectualism of Congress Pampered Muslims

How can a scientist, a philosopher, an intellectual be prefixed with the community that he or she belongs to? When we say a Muslim/ Hindu/Christian scholar it connotes that the person has the depth only in that particular religion. It is an oxymoron- a contradiction in terms. But when a person is called a historian, then he/she cannot be branded as a Hindu/ Muslim or Christian historian. That is why, it was shocking to know that the Congress President Rahul Gandhi recently met Muslim historians, journalists, economists and intellectuals. 
As a matter of fact, it is the so-called intellectuals of the Muslim community who themselves should have objected to being prefixed with the word Muslim because that makes them narrow-minded. They cannot even pretend to be intellectuals. Their shameless behaviour has totally exposed them that they have been working more on communal lines than indulging into any dispassionate intellectual exercise. If Rahul Gandhi met them for seeking their advice on the religious matters, it is all the worse. The so-called intellectuals cannot arrogate to advise a political leader on the religious matters and if they are doing so, then they would have to cast off the mask of intellectualism, which they wear to get the respectability by dubious means. Verily speaking they are not intellectuals at all but frauds. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their agenda is not to serve the society but to operate for the furtherance of their sectarianism.
These dubious intellectuals reportedly questioned Rahul Gandhi’s visit to different temples during the recent elections. What right do they have to ask about the religiosity of a political person? They did not stop only there but they told him that the perceived image of the Congress has been of a Muslim supporting party but his visits to temples have sent a wrong message among Muslims. This is the height of their hypocrisy. However, what is more, baffling was the apologetic behaviour of Rahul Gandhi towards those dyed-in-wool communal persons masquerading as intellectuals and scholars.
The less said about the despicable conduct of Rahul Gandhi the better. But what has happened to the Congress Party, which is so brazenly alienating the majority community i.e. Hindus without any sense of remorse? Almost at the same time, another ‘intellectual’ Shashi Tharoor declared that if Modi comes to power in 2019 India will become Hindu Pakistan.
Nobody knows the basis of his idiotic prophecy. If it is based on his intuitive feelings, then nothing can be said but the facts speak otherwise. In Pakistan there were17 per cent Hindus in 1948 now it has been reduced to two per cent while in India there were 8-9 per cent Muslims but now their population is more than18 per cent. The number of mosques has increased manifold in India but the temples and gurdwaras have disappeared in Pakistan with incredible speed. The number of Hindu women being raped and converted to Islam is alarmingly high in Pakistan but there has hardly been any case of forcible conversion of Muslim women to Hinduism.
On the contrary, even in India Hindu women are given allurements to marry Muslim men and convert to their religion. It is called Love Jihad that is going unabated even during the Modi regime. So, the prophecy of the writer of ‘why I am a Hindu’ is not based on any empirical facts. The Hindus are, therefore, rightly disturbed by the irresponsible statement of Tharoor. The least that the Congress Party can do is to publicly apologise to Hindus to soothe their frayed tempers for the preposterous statement of Tharoor.

L’affaire Tanvi Seth: MEA Must Come Clean

      Caesar’s wife must be above board but what would you say when the judge pronounces the judgement without hearing the arguments? This is what has happened L'affaire Tanvi Seth. By releasing the report of the so-called enquiry after fifteen days after the incident, the External Affairs Ministry has not inspired any confidence in the public. The report has held the passport official of Lucknow guilty of misbehaving and asking irrelevant questions from her, but it leaves many questions unanswered. It may be recalled that hurt by the searching questions of the passport officer regarding her different names and different addresses, the passport seeker Tanvi Seth twitted to the External Affairs Minister Ms Sushma Swaraj, who immediately swung into action and virtually in a jiffy took two decisions. One; the lady concerned was called the next day and the passport officer handed over her passport and apologized for the alleged misbehaviour of the official. And the second was that the concerned passport officer was transferred from Lucknow to Gorakhpur without any enquiry. Although the 'transfer' under the employment law is not a punishment yet the way it was effectuated was certainly humiliating and highly injurious to the honour and dignity of the officer.

Now after a fortnight, it is being told that the passport officer Mishra was at fault, but if it was so, why the country was kept in dark for more than two weeks? This gives enough doubt that the enquiry report is manufactured one to justify the hasty action of the Minister. Such types wishy-washy enquiries erode the credibility of the government and cast serious doubts about its functioning in the eyes of the public.

Even the cursory reading of the report which has appeared in newspapers leads to serious apprehensions. While it tells that the passport officer asked awkward questions from Tanvi Seth but it is absolutely silent on the facts as to why there was hanky-panky in her conduct right from the beginning? Therefore, if some people are raising doubts that she could be used as a pawn in the hands of terrorists, then it cannot be outrightly dismissed and discounted.

There are innumerable examples where Hindu girls have been roped in by the Muslim boys and used for undesirable activities in the country. The case of Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in an encounter in Gujarat, is a burning example of the nefarious design of the anti-national forces. She was born as Pranesh Kumari Pillai, seduced and married to a Muslim extremist and thereafter made to work for the Laskar-e-Toiba. The similar case has been witnessed recently, when Akhila, the only daughter of Ashokan was cajoled and converted to Islam, with the help of PFI activists. This issue has come into so much public glare that now there is little possibility of her becoming a tool into the hands of terrorists. However, the report of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) submitted to the Supreme Court cannot be glossed over, which has said that the girls of other faiths are being systematically converted to Islam, which some term it as the ‘Love Jihad’. Who knows that the way Tanvi Seth behaved herself would not be misused for the purposes that are dangerous to the country? Therefore, this matter should not be swept under the carpet but needs to be thoroughly investigated.

It is also very strange that some people who have voiced against the action of the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj are being dubbed as trollers. Every criticism cannot be trolling. Every public figure should be prepared to face the scrutiny of the public. So, if there is a criticism of her hasty action, she should try to rectify it instead of playing the victim card. Of course, abusing, slandering and making inflammatory statements against her must be denounced by one and all but she should show by her action that if 'justice' has been done to the lady, no injustice should be done to the passport officer.

Social media has now become enormously powerful, which can be trenchant in its criticism of the public figures but, in all fairness, she must give a convincing explanation of this episode instead of becoming unnecessarily touchy.

She must also tell the country as to why she took the unilateral decision against the passport officer without giving him an opportunity to tell his side of the story, which flies into the face of the canons of the natural justice?