Judiciary on backfoot
by
AJ Philip |
Everybody-is-a-thief syndrome prevails
One recent evening, two beat constables in New Delhi found a person moving suspiciously in their area. When he was intercepted, he tried in vain to run away. The constables were surprised to find him carrying high-denomination crisp currency notes valued at over $55,000.
During the interrogation, he told the police that he and another burglar had broken into a house and stolen the money which they divided equally. The police reached his partner’s house and recovered cash worth another $55,000. The house from where they had stolen such a large sum of money belonged to an upper division clerk of a Delhi government undertaking.
While reporting the burglary to the police, the clerk deliberately undervalued the loss at $2,200. Otherwise, he would not have been able to explain how he had amassed so much cash. He is now in jail for misrepresenting facts and for acquiring assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. If a lowly clerk can have so much ill-gotten wealth, one can imagine the extent of corruption in the country.
Corruption is truly the gravest problem facing India. Twenty five years ago, then Prime Minister the late Rajiv Gandhi startled the nation when he said that out of every rupee the government spent, only 15 per cent of it reached the intended beneficiary while the rest was gobbled up by the corrupt intermediaries, including officials and contractors.
It is a different matter that Rajiv Gandhi himself was accused of benefitting from a huge bribe the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors had paid for procuring a contract for the supply of howitzer guns. While the Bofors payoff continues to haunt the ruling Congress Party, the amount of commission involved was only $10 million, which is peanuts by today’s standards as underscored by the story of the petty thieves narrated above.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is now investigating two scams in connection with the allotment of telephone licences in 2008 and holding of the Commonwealth Games in 2010 in which money worth millions of dollars has been allegedly pocketed by political leaders like Andimuth Raja, who headed the telecommunication ministry then, and Suresh Kalmadi, who organised the Games.
With the ruling coalition and the opposition flexing their muscles, the recent winter session of Parliament could not transact any legislative business. There is no certainty that the next Budget session would be any different. If, under these circumstances, the common man has lost his confidence in the political system, he cannot be blamed.
Even the fourth estate, sections of which have been accused of introducing the new concept of “paid news”, has lost much of its credibility, particularly after some of its star practitioners were found to have been involved in the behind-the-scene manoeuvrings of a corporate communication czar.
Among the three pillars of democracy, it is the judiciary which has so far remained a ray of hope for the people. Its track record has been exemplary except during the Emergency in the seventies when it took some controversial decisions.
Last week the Supreme Court made amends for one of its rulings that during the Emergency even the right to life stood suspended. This has gladdened the hearts of all those who value the judicial system as the bedrock of democracy. But some recent developments concerning the higher judiciary have been causing worries to the people.
One of the Supreme Court benches recently referred to the collusion between “uncle” judges and their “nephew” lawyers in the Allahabad High Court, which has not taken kindly to the aspersions cast on one of the oldest high courts in the country. A judge of the Calcutta High Court is now facing impeachment proceedings because of depositing a large sum of public money in his personal bank account, rather than in the government treasury.
Though nobody has so far accused the former Chief Justice of India and Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission K.G. Balakrishnan of any wrong-doing, he has, of late, been in the news for the wrong reasons. On Friday last, his brother K.G. Bhaskaran, who was a Kerala Government pleader, quit his job following allegations that he had bought a huge plot of land in Tamil Nadu worth millions of rupees.
Two days earlier, Balakrishnan’s son-in-law P.V. Sreenijin, resigned from the membership of the Youth Congress, the youth wing of the ruling Congress Party. Less than five years ago, he contested unsuccessfully for a seat in the Kerala Assembly from Njarackal in Ernakulam district.
At that time he had declared a balance of $500 in his bank account with no landed property. He has recently purchased several plots of land worth millions of dollars. He could not have legally amassed this much of property in such a short time. The Kerala Government has ordered a vigilance inquiry against Sreenijin. Another son-in-law MJ Benny is also alleged to have become suddenly rich.
There are charges of disproportionate income against two nephews of the NHRC chief and his brother. When reports in this regard first appeared in the Press, former Supreme Court judge and Kerala’s “conscience-keeper” V.R. Krishna Iyer asked Balakrishnan to resign and face an inquiry. A former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court JS Verma has also asked him to step down.
Balakrishnan has not defended himself, except stating that he had nothing to say and it was for his son-in-law to defend himself. But Bar associations in several districts in Kerala are not satisfied and they have asked him to face an inquiry. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily has said that the government did not have even a piece of paper about any complaint against the former Chief Justice.
While the truth about how Balakrishnan’s relatives suddenly amassed so much wealth is not known, there can be no disputing that his image has taken a beating. However, there are many like former bureaucrat Babu Paul who point out Balakrishnan’s caste background (he is the first Scheduled Caste, a former “untouchable”, to become the Chief Justice of India) to argue that he is under needless attack.
They do not see it as a mere coincidence that the first Supreme Court judge, V Ramaswamy, against whom impeachment proceedings were initiated also happened to be a Scheduled Caste.
Incidentally, Balakrishnan’s predecessor Y.K. Sabherwal was also alleged to have allowed his sons to run a successful real estate business, worth billions of dollars, from his official residence. While he was not given a post-retirement job in the government, Balakrishnan managed to get one. Whether he resigns to uphold the principle that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion or not, the controversy has, unfortunately, cast a shadow over the judiciary.
(The writer is a New Delhi-based senior journalist)
Oman Tribune
|
Other comment for AJ Philip
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| NEWS UPDATES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
