The ‘Wire’ Issue Must be Enquired to get to the Bottom of Truth

 

Planting fake and false news is not new to journalism. This practice has been going on for quite a long time but the scale and frequency with which it is being resorted to these days by a cross-section of motivated people and organisations are too much to recount. The sad part of it is that those who claim to be the champions of the cause of truth and objectivity are also indulging in this nefarious practice. Some time ago we have seen that an operator of a Utube channel, who boasted himself to be the fact checker floated a wild rumour about himself having been shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize. Many news channels became a willing and collusive parties to give credence and wide publicity to the wild rumour.
A few years back a TV Channel spread the false news about a schoolteacher running the flesh trade and using the girl students at the school to make money. The said rumour spoiled not only the career of the innocent teacher but brought disrepute to the school and the students. The biggest shock is that many responsible journalists, whose words are taken as gospel truth by the general public, have also been found to be indulging in spreading unfounded and baseless stories. The falsehood spread at the time of demonetisation and Covid by the so-called responsible journalists and TV Channels were nothing more than scandals. Why legal actions were not taken against them by the authorities was really intriguing. In fact, independent and autonomous organisations should have come forward to name and shame of those shameless journalists and media houses.
This underlines the urgent need for an effective regulatory body to curb and control the fakery in journalism, which is posing the biggest threat to the credibility of the profession in the age of the internet. While social and web media has expanded its reach and penetration even in the remote corners, the mischief mongers are misusing this technological boon to spreading innuendoes, canards and lies. Agenda-driven journalism based on cock and bull stories has been causing incalculable damage to the profession which must be stopped at any cost.
Recently a Web portal the ‘Wire’ has proved that some operators have scant regard for the golden principles of journalism, and they plough their furrows at the instance of the forces that are inimical to the interests of the country. This time the Wire and its operators have been caught red-handed because they accused the powerful company, Meta. It exposed them so badly that they did not get even the fig leaf to hide. It has also come to light that some foreign countries are pumping in huge funds to create an atmosphere of distrust and disbelief in the country.
‘Although no registration of any media organisation can be done in India, whose editor or proprietor is a foreign citizen, it is seen that many foreigners are flagrantly violating these statutory provisions with gay abandon. Unfortunately, the government officials turn Nelson’s eye towards these violators and many times extend their clandestine and surreptitious support to offenders and breakers of laws.
In fact, strict and exemplary action must be taken against masked journalists, who indulge in blackmailing in the name of enjoying the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Indian constitution. In absence of strict execution of laws, these hoodlums who dance to the tunes of their foreign masters, will not hesitate to bring a bad name to the country. These so-called journalists wield so much clout that they dictate with authority to the impotent and bogus bodies like the Editors Guild of India and the Press Council of India.
The echo system of these disguised journalists is so entrenched that they feel that they make or mar the image of anyone. It is the time when the general public should rise to wage a relentless struggle against the new avatars of Goebbels to protect the invaluable fundamental rights and safeguard the credibility of the profession of journalism.

Live Streaming of Courts will Help People Judge Their Judges

 Live streaming of the proceedings of some of the High Courts and three Constitution Benches in the Supreme Court has already given an inkling of how the courts (mal) function in India. If one can see the erudition, courtesy and learning of some of the judges and the advocates then at the same time the tantrums and arrogance of some of the judges and bluffs and bragging of some advocates can also be witnessed. Some of the judges look grotesque with their unbecoming attitude and they give off the appearance of a headmaster in the courtrooms. Instead of asking searching and incisive questions from the advocates and clients, their arrogance and ill manners come into display.

  When we were campaigning for the live telecasting of the court proceedings, many used to oppose it tooth and nail. Their only logic was that the judges and advocates should not be exposed to the mockery or merriment of the general public. They came forward with all sorts of asinine logic against live streaming of court proceedings but thankfully the court finally decided to fully telecast the Constitutional Court proceedings. Although many High Courts have started partial live telecasting much before its introduction in the Supreme Court, special mention must be made of the Orissa High Court, where Chief Justice Muralidhar took the bold decision to telecast the proceedings of all courts. In fact, except for the in-camera proceedings, the entire work should be open to telecasting. It is gratifying that the present Government is also supportive of this move.

 It has been a normal refrain that ‘Bar is the judge of the Bench’. Anybody aware of the court proceedings knows it well that advocates have been expressing their opinions about judges and advocates on the basis of hearsay. Some of them may be true but most of them are like canards. Now the live telecast will facilitate the people to form their own opinions about the judges and advocates. Those who have been watching the proceedings of different High Court will vouchsafe that some of the judges are always discourteous and they have developed the habit of pulling the legs of the advocates instead of trying to know the facts and the legal position to arrive at justice.

 We have Anglo -Saxon legal system of justice delivery system. Our courts have got fossilised. Why should our advocates and judges have to wear high-flowing gowns and bands in the High Courts and the Supreme Court? Nobody will give any satisfactory answer to it, just continuing as lakeer ke faquir. We have many judges who wax eloquent for the Swaraj model of justice, but they have never taken any initiative to do away with this abhorring dress code. Why did they not do anything for removing such a dress code as could not be suitable for the climes of the country? Now the people will be the judge of the judicial system and what our political leadership and the Executive could not do, hopefully, the pressure and the outcry from the public will force the judiciary to change its uniform so as to conform to the county’s climate.  After all, our judges are also parts of society, and they cannot be allowed to be living in a room of hallowed virtue and free from criticism even if their conducts are not beyond reproach.

 Our judicial system is such that in the High Courts and the Supreme Court, the Advocates are expected to be always docile and servile. Even if they have not to say anything, they are expected to grin and say, ‘My Lord, My Lord (s)’. Not saying so is considered to be a bad court craft. It is said that once the late socialist leader Dr Ram Manohar Lohia personally argued a case in the Supreme Court and he refused to address the judge as ‘My Lord.’ He invariably addressed a ‘Mr Judge.’ But no advocate howsoever senior he/she maybe now has the courage to say ‘Mr or Madam Judge’ in the courtroom. Sometimes the judges take it as an insult and start rebuking even the aged and senior lawyers.  Shockingly, these lawyers become so spineless that they show no unhappiness.

 There can be hardly any doubt that Presiding officers or judges should be given full respect but not addressing them as my Lord(s) is no disrespect. Saying ‘yes sir, yes sir’ to any officer is not an indicator of respect but a sign of servility. This practice must go lock stock and barrel, especially from the courts. And there is no other way to ensure it than to live to stream the court’s proceedings. It will also keep corruption in check and all functionaries of the courts including the judges to be cautious of their responsibilities.

Reduce Printing of Currency Notes and Boost Digital Transactions for next Generation Reforms

 A constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India is engaged in hearing many petitions filed against the demonetisation of the currency notes of Rs 500 and 1000denominations. One thing is clear the outcome of these petitions will be definitely infructuous at the cost of a huge judicial time. There is no denying that demonetisation largely curbed the flow of black money.  Be that as it may, demonetisation has given a great push to the digitalisation of payments. The Narendra Modi government must be credited to have incentivised and encouraging the Apps like GPay, Payfone and Bhim etc. One can move around without carrying cash. It is the swiftest mode of receiving and making payments without any hassle. Think of those days when a term was used by the newspapers like ‘money order economy ’. It was very cumbersome and a delaying mode of remittance. The Post offices used to tell at the very outset that any complaint for non-delivery of the money ordered amount would be accepted or entertained only a month after its remittance and not before that. In my university days when I was in Hostel, once I had to wait for the money ordered amount for more than a month, which in any case was very paltry. One can easily understand the predicament of a student coming from a lower middle-class farmer’s family, who had to wait for a month to get the money in order to meet the expenses. Similarly, once, I had to send a money order for some amount to my village and it was not delivered for more than a month. In those days one had to pay at least 5% of the remitted amount. Apart from it, the delivery postman used to demand a certain percentage as Baksheesh from the receiver of the money order.  Even a decade ago, cheques could not be sent because everybody was not having a bank account. Even if both- sender and receiver had bank accounts, it could be sent to the registered posts and the crediting bank also charged for the cheque clearance. If it was an outstation cheque from a different bank, the time taken used to be weeks together. Now within seconds, the money is transferred from one account to another and that too, without any payment remittance charges. Thankfully, one of the first revolutionary measures that were taken by the prime Minister was to get a zero-balance account for even the poorest of poor people. There was no dearth of sadists who made fun of the zero-balance accounts. In this festive season of Deepawali, one can do shopping for even a tiny amount with the help of Paytm or Gpay, thanks to the boost given to technology by the Modi government, which was unthinkable only a couple of years ago.   Now the need is to go to the next generation of reforms to allow only the bare minimum use of cash transactions. This will help wipe out the black money to a large extent. The next step will be to drastically cut the printing of currency notes. Maximum use of digital transactions will prove to be the last nail in the coffin of black money. So, what could not be achieved with all strict measures, can be easily got by technology. Those who say that in a diverse country where a large populace is still unknown of the use of technology, it would be too much for them to expect to completely renounce the currency notes and adopt a digital mode of transactions. Such doomsayers are totally mistaken. They were expressing the same and similar doubts about the increased use of the Internet and mobile phones, but they have been proved to be pathetically wrong.

How did two conmen take the whole world for a ride for many days?

           

 Two conmen- Prateek Sinha and Mohammad Zubair- should be complimented for having spread the false news that both of them have been shortlisted for Nobel Peace Prize and many believed them. They also got some congratulatory messages from the echo system of which they have been the part and parcel. The mockery is that they claimed to be awarded for running a fact-checking portal called Alt news, which is more known for the notoriety of peddling fake news. It was this portal which was responsible for creating an atmosphere of communal frenzy in India. These Johnnies were successful in ploughing the hate campaign against a BJP leader, which had resulted in an all-India chorus for ‘tan se juda’ slogan by a section of a community.

  It is said that rumours have no legs but only wings. By the time, the truth is known the rumours already get caused enough damage. It would have been most incredible fiction, even if the names of these liars had been remotely thought of conferring any award, what to say of the Nobel peace prize to them. However, these so-called fact-checkers, instead of finding the reality thought it fit to take the gullible people for the ride not only in India but across the whole world.  The wonder of the wonder was that a so-called journalist of an American journal was also found to be in cahoot with these un-worthies in giving false publicity to them.

  Look at the audacity and the notoriety of these rumour mongers that they gave publicity to themselves for being thought of for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is arguably the top award in the world. Thus, they have proved that they have immense potential to make incalculable damage to the country with the active support of inimical forces, which have no hesitation in spreading absolutely false, baseless and concocted stories about India.  

 They might not be able to get any awards but the amount of publicity which they have got by sheer dint of ugly and false publicity will definitely help them in getting good funds from some organisations, which have been working overtime to paint India with black colours. It is only these organisations which have been coming out with dubious data and dismal reports about education, poverty, or human rights in India. These anti-India organisations normally put the country at the bottom of their fictitious indexes. Therefore, people must have to be on guard not to believe them blindly without getting properly verified. 

 

Untold Stories of the Framing of the Indian Constitution: An Absorbing Book

                ‘Bhartiya Samvidhan Unkahi Kahani’ by the journalist Ram Bahadur Rai is a highly informative book on the making of India‘s Constitution in a very lucid and anecdotal style. What prompted Shri Rai to go for this book has been elucidated in the preamble of his book. It must be mentioned here that the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for the framing of the Constitution took place on 9^th December 1946, more than nine months before the country achieved independence on 15^th August 1947. Obviously, this Constituent Assembly was not elected by the people, yet its legitimacy was beyond any reproach. Initially, there were 389 members of this Assembly out of it, 292 were elected through the Provincial Legislative Assemblies: 93 were the representatives of the Indian Princely States, and four members represented the Chief Commissioners of Provinces. However, as a result of partition under the Mountbatten Plan of 3^rd June 1947, a separate Constituent Assembly was set up for Pakistan and representatives of some provinces ceased to be the members of the Assembly reducing the strength of the Constituent Assembly to 299.

     Making India’s Constitution had, no doubt, been a marathon exercise and it was prepared by the best brains of that time, most of them had undergone and endured the fire of the freedom struggle. Each and every article was debated threadbare by the Constituent Assembly, mainly without any personal rancour by any one of its members. The flexibility of the Constitution can be gauged from the fact that it has been amended more than a hundred times to conform to the wishes and aspirations of the people. Many treatises have been written on it by scholars, researchers and other luminaries and yet we feel that some issues are still unresolved, which require to be settled by the Apex Court of the country. The main source of Ram Bahadur Rai’s book has been the copious volumes of the Constituent Assembly debates but what was needed was the ‘Vision’ to look at them to unfold stories that were hitherto unknown to many of us. Making India’s Constitution was no less than a Herculean task and it has been corroborated by the scholar Granville Austin, who himself had written his celebrated magnum opus: ‘The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a nation’.

Another important role in the making of India’s Constitution cannot be forgotten was that of Shri BN Rau, who was a constitutional advisor to the Constituent Assembly. He was an ICS officer and had also served as the Judge of the Calcutta High Court. and Shri Rai has also rightly mentioned his name in a laudatory manner. There were seventeen committees, which were formed by the Constituent Assembly. Four were headed by Babu Rajendra Prasad, three by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and one each by Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, K M Munshi, GV Mavlankar, Vallabhbhai Patel, HC Mookerjee, JB Kripalani, Gopinath Bardoloi, A V Thakkar and Dr BR Ambedkar. The most important among all the committees was, undoubtedly the Drafting Committee, which was headed by Dr Ambedkar but the role of all the members of the Constituent Assembly was praiseworthy because everybody was immersed in debates head over shoulders. The sterling contributions of Alagu Rai Shastri, Pandit Kamla Pati Tripathi, Seth Govind Das, Purushottam Das Tandon and Shibban Lal Saxena of the Hindi belt were praiseworthy. The writer Ram Bahadur has done well to recall their contributions in his book otherwise, the new generation thinks that the credit for the making of the constitution is solely reserved to Dr Ambedkar, who was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee.

In the last few chapters of his book, Shri Rai has reproduced the summary of the speeches of some of the members, which reveal the thinking of those leaders, whose hearts were pulsating for India and its people. At a time, when a lot of churning going on across the world in the aftermath of the Second world war, the country was faced with imminent partition, Lakhs of refugees had already started pouring in from the other side of the border. and almost all parts of the country were raging with communal inferno, one wonders how our great leaders were able to concentrate on giving a masterly document, which provides equality, liberty and the best possible human rights to the citizens of India.

Having said it all, there is no gainsaying that the present Constitution has largely guided the country. It is an organic constitution and therefore certain restrictions, which have been drawn by the Supreme Court through cases like Kesavanand Bharti needs to be relooked at. In the platinum jubilee year of our independence, it will be highly becoming of our lawmakers to take such steps to frame a new constitution as the same could encompass technological and scientific developments. The rigidity of the American Constitution is of no good to our country. At the same time, the country cannot afford to run the country only on the basis of the conventions and traditions because there will be fair chances of breaking by those in power laying down their own set of conventions if the clear-cut boundaries of checks and balances are not well-defined and demarcated in the Constitution itself.

 Ram Bahadur Rai's book throws light on the mental makeup of the constitution makers, which was by all means, revolutionary. The book deserves to be read by all, particularly by lawyers, law students, teachers, researchers, historians, social scientists, and activists.

Parmanand Pandey

Advocate on Record

Supreme Court of India