Rename High Courts after their States

 The PIL lawyer and my friend Asok Pande (this is how he writes his name) from Lucknow has been campaigning for the change of name Allahabad High Court and redetermination of the territorial jurisdiction of Allahabad and Lucknow Bench of the High Court. His demands are absolutely logical, and the Parliament must take up this issue in all seriousness, not only with regard to the Allahabad High court but also about other High Courts to change their names so as to bring about consistency and uniformity.   There are three High Courts- Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, which are the chartered High Courts. In all only six High Courts, which are named after the cities and not after the states over which they have territorial jurisdictions. Allahabad, Patna, and Guwahati are the other three among the six.  Other 19High Courts are named after the states they exercise their territorial jurisdiction. Goa is, of course, an exception, which has a bench in Panjim but that

comes under the Bombay High Court. Punjab and Haryana High Court has its seat in Chandigarh, which is a Union territory. Why the names of the High Courts are not changed even after nearly 75 years of independence defies all logic. Why should the name of Allahabad High Court be not changed to Uttar Pradesh High Court shows the insensitivity of the politicians, who have ruled the state at various points of time, legal fraternity in particular and people in general. The name of Allahabad has rightly been changed to Prayagraj signifying the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and invisible Saraswati. The name of AllahabadHigh Court was given in 1919 by the King of England. Earlier from 1866 to 1919, it was known as the High Court of North-Western Provinces. High Court of Oudhhaving its seat in Lucknow was merged in 1948 after the state of   Uttar Pradesh was created. Way back in1964 when Kesav Singh’s case was referred to the Supreme Court by the President of India under Article 143 of the Constitution to delineate the powers of the assembly and the High Court, theSupreme Court had used the ‘High Court of UttarPradesh’ at least eleven times in its judgment. Our intent here is not to discuss KesavSingh’s case but why should it not be called the High Court of Uttar Pradesh is certainly very ridiculous? In paragraph after paragraph, the High Court of Uttar Pradesh has found its echo. It reverberates in paragraph 14 (1) (2) and (4). Similarly, in paragraphs, 134 (1), (2), (3) and 4,209, 211 and 218, the High Court of UttarPradesh has been mentioned. However, to be fair, the Supreme Court has also mentioned at many places the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court. Therefore, while at the time of removing the anomaly of the skewed jurisdiction of Allahabad and Lucknow, the Parliament must carry out the changes in the names of the High Courts so as to have no anachronism. Judges and lawyers can also, do it on their own as the High Court of Uttar Pradesh has got judicial sanctity from the Supreme Court of India.

 

        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.

 

 Journalism Democratised Through Internet

       Parmanand Pandey 

  As the Gregorian calendar has divided the modern times into parts, that is, BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini), in the same manner, the journalism also now stands divided into two periods, which is journalism Before Google (BG) and After Google (AG). Internet and Artificial Intelligence, which are inextricably linked to each other, have changed the journalism forever. No one can now think of pursuing journalism as was practised even as late as the end of the twentieth century. The internet has not only changed the methods of journalism, but also people’s perceptions of news media. The shifting balance of power between journalism and its readers and audience has indelibly altered its landscape.

The two largest changes in modern journalism strike at the heart of traditional notions and they are the rise of the blogger and user-based journalism and the nature of the internet has given rise to content aggregators like Google News that no longer rely on individual journalists to provide news, but instead, depending on their ability to gather and collect information into a single location where users can access it. Together they are altering society’s traditional ideas very swiftly regarding journalists and news.

Gigantic Progress of Social media 

  The very existence of the print medium has been extremely squeezed. Newspapers, magazines, and books etc are now available on WhatsApp or on other platforms of the internet. Apart from the Print medium, the scope of the electronic medium has also been shrinking amazingly fast. The galloping space is being increasingly filled by the Web medium or portals. Social Media has made gigantic progress during the just gone- by decade. Facebook. Twitter and WhatsApp have now become the part and parcel of the life of most of the people. It has happened more because of the deep, wide, and comprehensive penetration of the internet.

    It is also noteworthy that Social Media, which is also the form of digital media has made it more democratic than it was at any point in time. Now anybody and everybody have got the full freedom to ventilate his or her feelings and views without any barriers whatsoever. Earlier the publication, telecasting or broadcasting was in the hands of the selected few, who were elites by virtue of the resources that they controlled. Now there are no such barriers.

   However, there are many demerits also in this unhindered freedom. Since there is nobody to check or regulate, it has led to enormous anarchy. It has also resulted in a deep crisis of credibility. Therefore, for ensuring the credulity of journalism, it has become essential that some regulators must be at the threshold to ensure that unverified, vulgar, abusive, perverted, and tendentious contents do not find their way in the media.

Greater-Scope of Creativity in Digital Media

   Digital journalism, as also known as online journalism, is a contemporary form of journalism where editorial content is distributed via the internet, as opposed to publishing or broadcast. The main reasons for its tremendous popularity are extremely low distribution costs and diverse computer networking technologies. It has, as already stated, democratized the flow of information that was previously controlled by traditional media including newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.

 Some experts are of the view that a greater degree of creativity can be exercised with digital journalism when compared to traditional journalism and traditional media. The digital aspect may be central to the journalistic message and remains, to some extent, within the creative control of the writer, editor, and/or publisher. Digital journalism is influencing the uprising of citizen journalism. Because digital journalism takes place online and is contributed mostly by citizens on user-generated content sites, there is competition growing between the two. Citizen’s journalism allows anyone to post anything, and because of that, journalists are being forced by their employers to publish more news content than before, which often means rushing news stories and failing to verify the source of information.

  Disadvantages of Unchecked Internet Media

   There are great advantages to digital journalism and the new blogging evolution that people are becoming accustomed to, but there are disadvantages. For instance, people are used to what they already know and cannot always catch up quickly with the new technologies in the 21st century. The goals of print and digital journalism are the same, although different tools are needed to function. The increased interaction between the writer and consumer is new, which can be credited to digital journalism. There are many ways to get personal thoughts on the Web.

   During the time of Corona pandemic, digital journalism has leapfrogged.  Let us hope that the technology will also provide enough strength to journalists to disseminate the good and valuable news to the people and at the same time the employment to more persons.

Leapfrogging of Digital Journalism in Corona Time

  The limitless growth of Social Media has also brought limitless problems and difficulties for the journalists as hundreds of newspapers, magazines and other media houses have shut their shops rendering thousand od journalists and non-journalists working for them jobless. The basic principles transparency of journalism like transparency, trust and inclusion have also suffered a great deal in the time of Corona. The role and need for journalism will, however, never diminish as people will always have the thirst for information as it has become a need like the food, particularly in modern times.  

 One of the basic needs in the face of the global spread of the Covid-19 disease is access by as many people as possible to reliable, credible, unbiased, and understandable information on all aspects of such a crisis. The first need is for public service, medical and health information on the virus and how to protect oneself from it. It is a question of informing, but also of countering the disinformation that is spreading faster than the virus. A journalist cannot afford to ‘dip the pen in the wound’ in times of crisis. Striking the right balance, therefore, between emergency information, public service information, constructive information, and uncompromising investigations into the responses of the governments and administrations concerned will continue to be is always valid. 

 

                            Country Remembers NETA JI, Whose Heart Throbbed for India

                            By Parmanand Pandey

     This is 125th birth anniversary year of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and even after more than 75 years of his death on 18^th August 1945 in a plane crash in Taipei (Taiwan), his death continues to be an enigma, a conundrum shrouded in mystery. Till the early seventies, it was believed by a large section of people that he was still alive although there was no plausible reason for the belief, which was absolutely baseless.   Netaji had caught the imagination of young Indians particularly of those who were against the non-violence Satyagrah of Mahatma Gandhi. He was a legend then and continues to be now as well. Many books have been written on his life, activities, and feats of Netaji. A biographical book of Subhash Chandra Bose and his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose ‘BROTHERS AGAINST RAJ’ by LEONARD A. GORDON throws dispassionate and detached light on them. This book does not suffer from the vice of hagiography, which is commonly found among most of the Indian biographers, which is natural also, because Indians cannot remain uninvolved with the life and times of the person, who is being written about. It is an incontrovertible fact that Netaji could never have allowed bearing the ignominy of not participating in the celebration of the freedom by not appearing in the public and hiding somewhere by the fear of being arrested by the Britishers. This itself is the solid proof that he was not alive at the time of the independence of the country.

    Those who express doubts over the death of Netaji in a plane crash have obviously been blinded with a passionate attachment to him rather than by reality and logic. A person whose efforts for the freedom of the country from the clutches of the Britishers was next to none of any freedom fighters. His heart was throbbing every moment for the mother India, how could he remain, a silent spectator, when the country attained independence on 15^th August 1947? A patriot like him could never have remained hidden if he were alive on that date.  So, there could not be even a shred of doubt about his death because all the available evidence conclusively prove that he died in the plane crash.

    There were two reasons for the confusion about his death in the plane crash, but they were so feeble that they could be dismissed at the threshold itself. The first reason that was being attributed to why no post-mortem was done to the body of Netaji?  The second was that why no death certificate was issued by the hospital?  But at a time when the whole world was in the throes of war, such discrepancies were not unusual. On the other hand, there was definite evidence of his death including the statements of Habibur Rehman and Lakshmi Swaminathan two of the colleagues of Netaji in the INA (Azad Hind Fauj).

    The life of Netaji and his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose could fascinate any person. Both were modern in outlook, a patriot to the core, the epitome of sacrifices, highly educated, supporters of women’s empowerment and arch enemies of the British Raj. The elder brother was certainly more religious than his younger and more eminent brother. While Netaji was more carefree, his elder brother was a person with family-responsibilities. He had earned name, fame, and wealth as a legal practitioner of the Calcutta High Court, but Netaji had a single-minded aim to free mother India from the yokes of the bondage of the British Raj.   

   Government of India had set up many committees and commissions to enquire about the death mystery of Netaji but none of them could give an unambiguous report.  The first Committee was set up way back in 1956 under the chairmanship of INA veteran Shah Nawaz Khan, which consisted of Suresh Bose, the elder brother of Netaji and SN Maitra, ICS, a nominee of the Government of West Bengal. Shah Nawaz Khan was also the Member of Parliament at that time. This committee collected information from April to July 1956 in India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam but never visited Taiwan, which was the site of the plane crash, sating doubts to the truth the report.

   There were three survivors in the plane crash, they were severely injured, but did not succumb to their injuries as they had not sustained the third-degree burns.  Even Suresh Bose, the brother of Netaji had signed on the report of Shah Nawaz Khan Committee but later he retracted and wrote his Dissentient Report, which he published in 1956 itself claiming that the Shahnawaz Committee did shoddy and dishonest work. He said that Committee was directed from the start to find that Subhas Bose had died in a plane crash.  The role of the Committee, as he wrote, was to gather evidence supporting this hypothesis and to ignore other evidence. He indicated that the direction was from the top, that is, from Prime Minister Nehru. After the findings of the Shah Nawaz Committee was published, the rumours about the survival of Subhas Bose did not diminish but, in fact, it got increased. The tale of Shaulmari sadhu was widely propagated saying that the sadhu was no one else but the Subhas Bose himself.

     Other stories were spread that Netaji was in Russia or China. From 1963 to 1965 many rallies were announced at which Netaji was supposed to appear and identify himself, but Netaji could never have appeared because he was not alive.   It was also rumoured that Netaji was seen in the funeral of Pandit Nehru. So much so, even a photograph of a monk with a shaved head, resembling plump and elderly Netaji was published in Bengali newspapers thickening the rumour of his being alive. In 1970 the Government of India set up a second enquiry Committee to investigate the disappearance of Subhash Bose and it consisted of only one man namely, G.D. Khosla, the retired Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, He started his work in 1970 itself but submitted his report in 1974.

    Justice Khosla’s report was mainly based on the hue and cry made by Professor Samar Guha, who was the Member of Parliament at the time and who always insisted that Netaji was still alive. As a matter of fact, Shri Guha also wrote a book- Netaji Dead or Alive in March 1978 but the book did not contain any credible evidence to suggest that he was alive. It was all figment of his imaginations.

    There was also a story that is sadhu at Ayodhya, who was looking like Netaji was living in an Ashram. A news magazine carried a series of articles trying to establish that the sadhu was Netaji but there was no truth in it. This was really an example of irresponsible journalism. Netaji was a genius. He declined to join the coveted ICS because his heat was throbbing for Mother India. He lived for the motherland and died for it. Even during his lifetime, the communalism of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Suhrawardy was at peak but both brothers were always opposed to the vivisection of the country on communal lines. His greatest contribution to the unity of the country was that he had made Hindi be compulsorily used in all walks of life.

  Although he had serious differences with Mahatma Gandhi, who was the supreme leader of the Congress Party and yet he could become the President of the Party defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, who obviously had the support of Gandhiji, showed his immense popularity even among diehard Congresspersons. However, Netaji realised that without the support of Gandhiji nobody could have run the organisation, so he resigned and decided to pursue the path of armed struggle. In this process, he met the fascists and Nazis.

     His slogan was ‘give me your blood and I will give you freedom’.  He used to say that ‘seeds of freedom are sown from the blood of martyrs. That is how Netaji lives in the historical imagination of the countrymen. Netaji and brother Sarat Chandra Bose were bound by love and common cause, they struggled against imperialism with great perseverance and courage. They had their successes and failures, but their central concern was complete independence from the British Raj. We must, therefore, remember to both of them for the zeal and devotion they gave to their country as they tried to fulfil India’s destiny.