Let Ignorance Remain Bliss for Justice Katju

  Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Abhay Thipsay have got eggs on their faces from the District Judge Sam Gooze of Westminster Court of London, who rebuked them for their ill-thought advise in the case of the fugitive Neerav Modi. These two gentlemen reposed more faith in the British Court than in the Indian Courts by advising that Modi could not get a fair trial in India. But now when they have got raps on their knuckles, they must think of improving the judiciary in India rather than playing to the gallery in a foreign land. One wonders how and why at all, persons like Katju were elevated as the judge of the High Court? He is a braggart by nature, uncouth by behaviour and indecent by habits, he was a publicity-hungry judge. Once he had to tender an unqualified apology to the three-judge- bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, UU Lalit and PC Pant when contempt of court proceedings was initiated against him. He has hardly delivered any judgement of any consequence to be cited as the precedent for future cases.

   He claims that he is more popular in Pakistan than in India for his judgments replete with Urdu poetry and many other reasons. He is on record to have stayed the extradition of more than two hundred Pakistanis, who came to India on tourist Visa and overstayed in India with their relatives. Some of them got married in India, made families, and died in India. It was a common joke in those days that no Pakistani citizen could be sent back from Uttar Pradesh till Justice Katju was a judge in Allahabad High Court. The height of his perversion was limitless. Once he was making fun of a very senior lawyer in the Supreme Court by saying that ‘Mr Counsel when I was an Advocate in Allahabad, I used to come to the Supreme Court to listen to your argument but now as a Judge, I find them very frivolous’. The entire courtroom was taken back by his uncouth behaviour.

   There is nothing wrong to subscribe to any political philosophy. After all, judges are also the part of the same society but when they have served the judiciary as the member of the Bench they cannot behave in an eccentric manner.   Justice Thipsay is now a member of the Congress Party. His predilections as the Judge of the Bombay High Court were also known to everybody. Be that as it may, he has, as the former High Court judge is not expected to run down the judiciary of his own country vis-a-vis the foreign judiciary.  Once, it has happened earlier also, when Jack Anderson of Union Carbide fled out of India, some money-spinning, the so-called great lawyers had suggested the Government of India file the cases of damages/ compensation for the victims of the Bhopal tragedy in the American court because they thought in that case victims would get more compensation, but they had no face to conceal when the American Court told them to file the case in any Indian court only.

  There is no doubt, that the Indian judiciary suffers from many flaws as all is not hunkidory, but it does not mean that we should outsource our judicial system to other countries. The less said about Justice Katju, the better. He has said many times that 95 per cent of Indians are fools. When he was the Chairman of the Press Council of India, he used to say that 90 per cent of journalists were idiots. Nobody knows what yardstick he applies to know or fathom the depth of foolishness of others. Anyway, it is good that he is oblivious to the opinions that others hold about him. Let Ignorance remain Bliss for him.

 

 No Disrespect is Intended to ‘Your Honour’

On 23rd February, two incidents have happened in two different courts of Delhi. One relates to the Supreme Court of India and the other one has come from the court of an Additional Sessions Judge. In the first case, the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India has asked a law student not to address the judges of the higher judiciary as ‘Your Honour’. This has left the community of lawyers in a quandary because the Bar Council of India, an Apex Body of the lawyers amended the rules many years back that the judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court should be addressed as ‘Your Honour’ not as ‘Your Lordship’ and ‘My Lord’ because it is a British legacy.

It is really very perplexing as to how ‘Your Honour’ could be demeaning or disrespecting, merely because this is how the judges of the US Supreme Court are addressed.? It shows that we are still warped in the time zone of British slavery. In the US Supreme Courts (there are many Supreme Courts in the US) the same respects are accorded to judges and the majesty of law as it is in other democratic countries including India. The way of addressing the courts should be respectful without showing even a trace of servility. The term ‘Your Honour’ is certainly highly respected and is free from the vestiges of servility. Then why has Justice Bobde, who is immensely decent and courteous to the lawyers, felt that ‘Your Honour’ is not the proper way of addressing the judges of the higher Judiciary in India?

It is mentionable here that Justice S.Muralidhar, who is now the Chief Justice of Odisha High Court, as the judge of the Delhi High Court had the specific instructions that he should be addressed as ‘Sir’ and not as ‘My Lord’. For which he earned the laurels of the advocates. The Bar Council of India should now again take the call and settle this matter once for all that judges of all courts, irrespective of lower or higher courts, should be addressed in a respectful manner as ‘Sir/Madam’ or ‘Your Honour’ and the term ‘My Lord’ or ‘Your Lordship’ should be dispensed with for always.

The second case relates to granting of bail to a young woman activist by an Additional Sessions Judge of the Delhi court. The wise words of the late Justice Krishna Iyer that Bail is the norm and Jail is an exception has now become a cliché mantra. The primary objective of the bail is not to detain and arrest an accused person but to ensure his/her appearance at the time of trial and to make sure if the accused is held guilty, he/she is available to suffer the consequence of the offence.

Every citizen of India has a fundamental right to freedom guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which specifically states that "No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law." Any individual, who violates the law of the land, is bound to face consequences as per the law and in such a case, his/her freedom may be restricted depending upon the gravity of the offence. Therefore, a balance has to be struck between the right to individual liberty and the interest of society.

However, the pontification of the judge that ‘the offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister the vanity of governments’ is highly uncalled for. Further to say that ‘the evidence is scanty and sketchy’ amounts to not only interference in the investigation of the case but is also akin to the acquittal of the accused, while the investigation is still at the primary stage. Such observations do not cover the judiciary with any glory and therefore, must be avoided.

 Phoney Protest against Petrol and Deisel Prices

   The demonstrations against the rise in diesel and petrol prices at some places are like a déjà vu. Decades ago, there was an agitation of students of law faculty of the Delhi University against the rise of the tuition fee of nearly five Rs. Students were asked by their leaders to march to the office of the Vice-Chancellor, which was less than a Kilometre away from the law faculty. There was full volume sloganeering against the exorbitant (?) rise in the tuition fee. Some of them sat on a dharna, they were goaded and supported also by some disgruntled teachers.

   The Vice-Chancellor was a gentleman, he came out of his office and asked the students about the reasons for staging the demonstration. He patiently heard some of the student leaders and then asked some questions to them like how much they spent every month? In those days, a cup of good ice-cream or a piece of chocolate was costlier than the whole month tuition fee of students. But no rich boy or girl student was ready to give up even one ice cream or a piece of chocolate to help support any other needy student. Here also no one is willing to stop burning petrol in fancy cars or asking the so-called farmers to help needy peasants by their tractors.  

  Even during lock down the sale of cars of all categories registered a big rise. Car purchasers were fully in the know of the fact about the imminent rise in the petrol prices, yet they did not baulk for a moment. An increase of Rs 50 per cylinder is being projected as if heaven has fallen on them despite knowing the fact that crores of poor people are being provided heavily subsidised cooking gas cylinders every month. More than eighty crore people were given five kilogrammes of rice/ flour and one kg dal/ chana every month for eight months in addition to Rs five hundred per month in cash. Not even one person is reported to have died of starvation during this biggest epidemic in the known history of mankind.

  The massive management of resources and their proper distribution with the help of technology is a historic feat of the central government. The distribution system has wonderfully worked with almost negligible corruption. The famine of Bengal of 1943 at the time of the Second World War sends a chill down the spines, which took a toll on more than three million people. It had happened when the combined population of East and West Bengal was only six million. Now the population of the county is above1350 a million and, that too, when the entire country, nay the world has been in the grip of the Corona pandemic.

  Manufacturing and business activities had come to standstill in the COVID time and yet there has not been any shortage of essential commodities. Prices remained almost stable. The country could proudly boast of producing COVID vaccination and enough medicines to supply scores of other countries. An enemy like China was beaten hollow on the border. The morale of the country remained very high. After all, when the help is being freely provided to the vulnerable section of the society, its cost has naturally to be passed on by those, who can afford it. 

  The consumption of Petrol and diesel has gone manifold in the last few years. The increase in their cost is but natural. So, the well-fed persons, who are seen protesting against the marginal rise in the prices of gas cylinders, petrol and diesel are politically motivated perverts and they must be rebuffed with the contempt they deserve.     

So-called Farmers’ agitation is bound to fizzle out.

The so-called farmers’ agitation is destined to fizzle out sooner than later because it was started by wrong people for an absolutely wrong cause. It is inexplicable why persons like Rakesh Tikait fell into the trap of those people whose hostility to India and their inveterate opposition to Narendra Modi, regardless of any merit is well known. One fact, however, became clearer that Jats can never work against the interests of the country. They did not cause any damage to the national property either on 26 January or 6^th February despite instigations from perverts.

   The vacuity of agent provocateurs can be understood from the fact that they are depending on the support of some international bimbos, who have no understanding of the agriculture in India. Now a name of Meena Harris has come up in support of these Jonnies. Till yesterday nobody knew who she was? But today we have come to know that she is an American lawyer whose cause-celebre is that she is the niece of USA’s new Vice -President Kamala Harris.

   This Meena Harris must, therefore, be having easy access to her aunt Kamala Harris, who has now become a powerful woman by virtue of the office that she holds. Then the first thing she should do is to convince her aunt Kamala Harris to enact laws for providing subsidy and MSP to American farmers, which has never been given to them. So much so, the USA even asked India to abandon giving subsidy to farmers. She should also ask her aunt to say the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to extend the subsidy to his own farmers, which he wants to be stopped for Indian farmers. Justin Trudeau is the supporter of the farmers agitation in India for the reasons known to even a dolt.

  It is true that Chinese and Pakistanis are burning the midnight oil for fomenting trouble in India in the name of farmers agitation but there is no need for the government to be disturbed over the tweets of the porn stars and pop singers, who are always prepared to tweet on any or every topic for a fee. So far, the so-called Kisan agitation has not got any official support from any country. In fact, the new administration of the USA under President Joe Biden has even appreciated the new farm laws of India. Therefore, there is no need for the Government of India to take any note of the non-state actors. 

   The suggestion of the BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is also worth considering that the implementation of three laws should be left to the state governments. If that is done, the state governments will soon realise the importance of the new laws.