Bhandari bows to reality
IT is a denouement nobody scripted but many feared. When Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari was named Governor of Bihar his brief was to ease out the RJD government, and he enthusiastically accepted it. That was the genesis of the regular skirmishes between the determined Mr Bhandari and the non-governing Mrs Rabri Devi.

Missing fear of law
NORMALLY, Delhi should have been the model in the maintenance of law and order to be emulated by other States and Union Territories. But it is the other way round. Murders are becoming so rampant in the nation’s Capital that the day is not very far when people would start saying that they would be safe anywhere but not in Delhi.

LIFE IN URBAN PUNJAB
by Surinder Singla
ALL major cities and towns in Punjab are in such a pathetic condition that nobody can escape the full view of filth and garbage everywhere. This poses a serious threat to public health. This is so when we have appropriate technology and skilled manpower to tackle the problems of public health and provide a cleaner and better life in urban areas.

Fifty years of the Commonwealth
by Derek Ingram
ONE spring day nearly four years after the end of World War II seven men and three of their wives pose in the fitful London sunshine for a photographer on the lawn behind Ten Downing Street. In the centre sits British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his alertful terrier dog.

Justice Shivappa: an ‘age old’ question
by Anupam Gupta
MS Jayalalitha’s bete noire, Madras High Court Judge C. Shivappa bowed out of office ten days ago following receipt of a fax message from Union Law Minister Thambidurai. Having already overstayed his tenure by 84 days — he ought to have retired on December 10 last year, if the Government of India is to be believed — Justice Shivappa’s forced exit, particularly the manner of it, has left a bitter taste in the mouth.

Naresh Kapuria’s works
on display
by Humra Quraishi
NO change in the pace of events here. Last weekend saw the opening of Naresh Kapuria’s exhibition. In keeping with the practice of the last few years he had spread his works all along the Trivani expanse, to be followed by a food spread at artist Manju Narain’s home-cum-studio.

To cross or not to cross
by R. K. Murthi
I SPOT an acquaintance, a middle-aged man, waiting at the crowded footpath. I greet him with the polite words: “How are you?” “In a dilemma,” he says.

75 Years Ago

Orphan children killed
AN American, Colonel Low, Director of the Relief Orphanages at Corfu, who has arrived here from Corfu with Greek officials and 60 expelled Greek soldiers, in a statement declared that the number of those killed had now gone very high. Some 50 others had received wounds.

Bhandari bows to reality

IT is a denouement nobody scripted but many feared. When Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari was named Governor of Bihar his brief was to ease out the RJD government, and he enthusiastically accepted it. That was the genesis of the regular skirmishes between the determined Mr Bhandari and the non-governing Mrs Rabri Devi. Justice demanded that he won and she went. Political blunders and lot of skulduggery combined to see him go and her stay. A public man all his life, his tumultuous tenure in Patna has ended on a personal note of retreat. “I sought a transfer and am happy my request has been accepted,” he told reporters. It is no secret that he wanted to resign on the day the Centre revoked President’s rule. The BJP leadership feared that it would be a double blow to its image and asked him to continue. The situation changed once it became clear that the state government was set to include highly critical remarks about himself in the Governor’s address. That would have meant that he had to either read it in the assembly or get into a constitutional tangle, something that Governor Dharam Vira did in West Bengal three decades ago. Plainly he had no stamina left and decided to vacate the Patna Raj Bhavan.

One thing is sure. He has earned the sympathy of even those who violently disagree with his politics and the way he conducted himself as Governor. Never before has a senior political leader been subjected to so much frustration, and that too compressed in a few months as Mr Bhandari has been. Part of his troubles arose out of his gross misreading of the Bihar situation, but much of it stemmed from hasty and ill-thought out decisions of the Centre. Sadly he had to bear the cross. Such is the pitiless logic of the Indian brand of politics. He would have liked to quit in September last after the President returned the recommendation of the Cabinet, but was prevailed upon to change his mind. He is now gone when he had no option. The Indian concept of prestige has won, with the western concept of honour having no takers.

The brief spell of President’s rule has caused more harm to the prostrate state. In the wake of the central rule, nearly 50 senior officers belonging to the administrative and police services were shifted and a similar number was brought in. A second lot of about 45 officers were transferred but the revocation gave them a breather. They are staying put, hoping that the orders would be rescinded. Those who were moved in have become suspect in the eyes of the political masters and are expecting a witch hunt. This is hardly conducive to reviving the anaemic administration. The reverse process of packing the administration with favourites will start after March 17, the day Chief Minister Rabri Devi will seek a confidence vote. Whatever little doubt there was about her majority vanished when the CPI, with 26 MLAs, announced its support to her.Come to think of it, it was the CPI decision that prompted the Governor to seek a transfer.

Missing fear of law

NORMALLY, Delhi should have been the model in the maintenance of law and order to be emulated by other States and Union Territories. But it is the other way round. Murders are becoming so rampant in the nation’s Capital that the day is not very far when people would start saying that they would be safe anywhere but not in Delhi. Here the number of cases is not important. What is important is the blatant manner in which killers go about doing their job. The fear of law is totally missing! An alarming situation, indeed! Just two recent examples should suffice. On the night of March 10 a student leader was shot dead at a wedding reception in North-West Delhi in full view of the public by members of a rival group. The victim was Delhi University’s Satyawati College (Evening) Student Union President. The suspected killers then went to teach a lesson to the victim’s friend (the Cultural Secretary of the union), who happened to be a key witness in the gory drama. The assailants reached the witness’s house and gunned down his father at point-blank range. They are yet to be arrested. The sequence of the incident shows that they had no fear of the law. The same evening four members of a family were done to death in the Nagloi area in West District, but this incident falls in a different category. On February 23, a man knocked the door of a flat at 11.30 in the morning, posing that he was from a courier agency to deliver a packet. He, however, turned out to be a robber and caught hold of the housewife to deprive the woman of her valuables. When her 13-month-old baby began crying, the robber threw the infant in a bucket full of water to die in front of the little one’s mother, who remained immobilised. The criminal would not have thought that he might have to pay for this inhuman crime as there was a thing called law. If this thought had entered his mind he could never have committed the crime he did. This is the crux of the problem. The criminal-justice system must be overhauled to focus on this aspect of the law.

But this is impossible so long as the police does not shed its indifferent and callous attitude. The latest case that can be cited in this regard is that of well-known cartoonist Irfan Hussain, who had been missing since last Monday evening and whose highly decomposed body was found on Saturday morning. Now associated with Outlook magazine, he had been earlier on the staff of The Pioneer. He contacted his wife on his cellular phone at 10.45 in the evening on the fateful day while he was on the way to his place of residence (Sahibabad, Ghaziabad district). He could have reached his house within 15 minutes, but that was not to happen. The police was alerted when the wait for Hussain became unending. His body could be found by the police on the sixth day, and the killers remaining at large with his Maruti and other belongings. The way the police had been handling the entire case it seemed nothing so serious had happened. To cap it all, the head constable who leisurely passed through the area where the cartoonist’s stinking body was found a day later was rewarded by his bosses for his “excellent performance.” This is the police way of looking at things when indifference and callousness amount to doing a “good job”. And don’t forget, this is the Delhi Police. Whichever government is there, Delhi’s march towards becoming the crime capital of India is getting faster. Earlier, it had a BJP regime when the Congress used to be the most vocal critic of the administration, though law and order in the national Capital is the responsibility of the Centre. Now the Congress itself is in power. Blaming anybody will not do. Something must be done to change the system itself with a view to not only preventing the Capital from acquiring the dubious distinction of being the most unsafe place in the country, but also instilling the much-needed fear of law among the criminals and others. No system can be successful in the absence of this prerequisite.

LIFE IN URBAN PUNJAB
Need for debate on civic Bill
by Surinder Singla

ALL major cities and towns in Punjab are in such a pathetic condition that nobody can escape the full view of filth and garbage everywhere. This poses a serious threat to public health. This is so when we have appropriate technology and skilled manpower to tackle the problems of public health and provide a cleaner and better life in urban areas. A few facts below would give a tremendous insight into the functioning of the elected authorities at the city and state levels.

Historically, the municipal committees have acquired some basic functions which are absolutely minimal, like street-lighting, sanitation, sewerage system and safe drinking water. Punjab’s urban areas provide only less than 40 per cent of the sewerage system in their cities and towns; 55 to 60 per cent of safe drinking water; and woefully inadequate sanitation and street-lighting. A person from the western world would definitely sum up our cities and towns to be shanty and ghettos. The Tribune carries a similar opinion from Mr Umesh Chander Sharma, Mayor of Eling, London, UK. He sums up, “There is poor maintenance of sanitation, parks, street-lights and drinking water supply, etc, which led to poor sanitation and posed a serious threat to public health.”

These problems of urban life are not new, and the Punjab government had been debating for a very long time to address these issues by scrapping old municipal laws and enacting a new law so that it could address the existing problems and future problems of changing times. The Congress government initiated a dialogue by appointing a Consultant and holding various seminars in a few cities. And the present government brought the Punjab Municipal Bill before the state legislature. The Punjab Assembly referred this Bill to a Select Committee for further deliberations. Recently, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President, Mr Amarinder Singh, appointed a committee to look into the Bill and suggest measures and changes if required before it becomes an Act. Let us have a look at the major issues in the Bill.

Immediacy to provide safe-drinking water and a sewerage system which are woefully inadequate is so vital to check the growing danger to public health and spreading pollution. An estimate has been made by the state government that to provide, these two services only a minimum investment of Rs 4000-5000 crore is needed to cover the entire existing population. Investigations into the revenue collection measures suggested in the Bill do not point that the municipal bodies/corporations would ever have this kind of an amount to provide the facilities. It appears that we will never be able to provide these facilities to our population. The present income of Punjab’s municipal corporation and committees is in the range of Rs 500 crore and out of that roughly Rs 320 crore is spent on the establishment and nearly Rs 100 crore on the maintenance of the unserviceable infrastructure and nearly Rs 50 crore of interest on loans raised by these municipal bodies which does not leave any fund for development purposes.

This income of municipalities is split into octroi and non-octroi categories and the octroi income amounts to Rs 70 per cent — Rs 350 crore. The Akali Dal-BJP slogan of abolishing octroi would have left these bodies totally bankrupt, and the employees could not have got their salaries. One wonders whether the state government did have any idea to raise the income of these city bodies and make them self-sufficient even if modern urban life may demand tomorrow more functions to perform. This Bill also does not visualise whether a state government will help its city governments/municipal committees and corporations to any significant level as the state government knows fairly well that they have not been able to give any substantial grant-in-aid to various municipalities and corporations. The State Finance Commission, which was created after the 74th Amendment of the Constitution of India to suggest the sharing of state finances with the local bodies and corporations, has not suggested any major transfer of resources from the state government to corporations/municipal committees. The government knew that the existing and potential avenues of income of these bodies as well as transfer of resources from the state to these bodies are not enough to meet the developmental needs of cities and towns. This conclusion did not force the government to look for an alternative strategy in raising resources in the present municipal Bill.

What one finds most interesting is the growth in the population of the urban areas from 29 per cent in 1991 to 36 per cent as estimated by the government. Mr Parkash Singh Badal, in a speech delivered at the 48th meeting of the National Development Council on February 19 in New Delhi admitted, “due to the influx of a large number of agrarian and industrial workers to Punjab from Bihar, UP, and Orissa in search of work, the state bears an additional burden which increases the pressure on its civic facilities. Our own youth are also migrating in large numbers to cities to look for jobs.” The Bill does not visualise the corporations and municipal bodies for having an independent policy to look for avenues to finance various utilities in the cities. A limited autonomy is offered to the corporations and municipal bodies in the form of auctioning octroi revenue subject to the approval of the state government. This could not be interpreted that these services (sewerage system and water supply) could be privatised. But there is no specific provision in the Bill to invite private capital in these areas and to regulate the pricing of its product/services. As it is sufficiently understood, there is need for private capital to augment these services adequately. This demands a regulatory authority to be a part of the Bill so that discretion and resulting litigation could be easily avoided.

It is tragic that exaggerated claims have been made in presenting the Bill to the State Assembly — that it will broaden the democratic base of the local bodies. The 74th amendment clearly lays down the functions and powers of the municipalities and other local bodies. The major function listed is that the control of land use in cities and towns should be vested in the local authority. But under the present Bill, in Punjab, the rights and powers of the local government are just taken away and the state is the sole authority. The very haphazard and unplanned growth of the cities and towns in Punjab speak volumes of the state authority, PUDA. But this power is not given to the municipality. There is a separate Act under PUDA which deals with the utilisation of land in the cities and towns.

Invariably, PUDA, which is created to plan new urban settlements in the state, is in direct conflict with the municipal bodies and corporations. The formulation of a master plan for cities and towns is the sole and exclusive preserve of PUDA, and the municipal corporations and committees are not part of the consultation. One wonders if new colonies are coming up in a city without the consultation or the active participation of the municipalities, whether it is possible to plan water supply, street-lighting, sanitation and other utilities when they are absolutely ignorant about them. The Bill is eloquently silent as to how the other pieces of legislation of the state government would cooperate not confront leading to litigation. This is the most serious concern of the people of urban areas and the citizens of these cities and towns will have no role to play in planning and expanding their cities and towns.

Thus, my point is the vital issues of cities which people confront every day are not given to the city administration under the present Bill and this needs an answer from the state government as to whether it considers the local representation and the local bureaucracy to be incapable of tackling this problem, thus leaving the entire area of problems of the city to the state authority. This also means, that the state refuses to abandon certain powers to the local bodies’ governance, thus rendering local governments incapable of comprehending the problems in a wholesome manner. And the piecemeal and limited function does not make local self-government adequate.

The Punjab government, in presenting this Bill, has completely ignored the basic factor of political life — horse-trading among corporators and municipal members has led to unstable governance which affects badly the day-to-day utility services. The Bill does not address this at all. Is it possible to put a minimum term of two and a half year or 3 years before any no-confidence motion could be moved, that an elected administrator or a president could be directly elected so that there is no horse-trading as well as resultant underdevelopment of any other area represented by non-ruling group takes place? Is it possible to have a foolproof system to ensure the stability of the municipal administration? It has taken a long time for Parliament and legislatures to think of disqualification of defecting members to other parties. It seriously needs a debate so that frequent changes in the local government do not happen.

The Municipal Bill also indulges almost blindly in every matter from carving out a new park to a tax proposal, and these are subject to the approval of the state government. This strikes at the root of democratic functioning. This will not only delay any final position on policies but will also provide opportunities and avenues for people to move courts for unending litigation.

Finally, the Bill provides ample scope in every provision for discretion which is so bad in law. An Act which gives the practitioners of law such abundant powers to decide on whims and fancies will mock at the rule of law, and people will profit out of such discretionary powers. There is need to look at the entire Bill so that discretionary powers are taken away. This Bill needs to be debated so that before the State Assembly binds the Punjabis for another 100 years by this legislation, the required amendments are brought.

The present Act took nearly two decades to prepare us for its final repeal. Let the State Assembly add a few more months for a final debate so the people of Punjab could not be trapped for various ills this Bill can inflict on them.

The new Municipal Act must address the present issues of city life as well as new issues so that the legislature can provide a legitimate legal framework for citizens to conduct its business to live happily.

(The author is a former member of Parliament.)

Fifty years of the Commonwealth
by Derek Ingram

ONE spring day nearly four years after the end of World War II seven men and three of their wives pose in the fitful London sunshine for a photographer on the lawn behind Ten Downing Street. In the centre sits British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his alertful terrier dog.

They are a highly distinguished, soberly dressed group. The bald figure in a dark western suit with a red carnation in his buttonhole is Jawaharlal Nehru. Just 20 months earlier he had become the first Prime Minister of independent India.

Behind him stands a youthful-looking Lester Pearson, then External Affairs Minister and years later one of Canada’s great Prime Ministers. Beside him is Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, and further along is Dr Daniel Francois Malan, architect of apartheid, who had become Prime Minister of South Africa 11 months earlier.

The year is 1949.

Commonwealth summits were leisurely affairs in those days. This one ran from April 21-27. Its main business was critical. India was about to become a republic.

Everybody, and especially Nehru and Attlee, wanted it to stay in the Commonwealth, but the imperial system was still very much in place and all the eight independent member-countries owed allegiance to King George VI and the British crown. There was no way a country could become a republic and stay in the Commonwealth.

In six meetings and 12 hours of discussion the eight reached a pragmatic solution. They produced the little remembered but profoundly historic document known as the London Declaration.

The Declaration in effect created the Commonwealth as we know it today — an association of 54 countries containing a quarter of the world’s population and spread over every continent.

The device agreed in 1949 was simple enough. Many people are credited with creation of the precise formula, but it seems to have been broached first by Patrick Gordon-Walker, Britain’s Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

He floated it in 1948 in a letter to Lord Mountbatten, former Viceroy and by this time Governor-General of India.

Since before independence ideas had been discussed in India by such people as Benegal Rau, a close friend of Nehru, and Sir Girja Bajpai, Secretary-General of the Indian External Affairs Ministry. Sir Zafrullah Khan of Pakistan is also credited with suggesting a formula similar to the one finally agreed.

Several people had worked along the lines of the eventual outcome: that the king, in his person, should become the symbol of the Commonwealth and “as such” (in the words of the Declaration) the Head of the Commonwealth.

Nehru explained to India’s constitutional assembly: “The King has no function at all. He has a certain status.” Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan told a press conference: Allegiance to the King no longer constitutes the essential requirement of membership of the Commonwealth.”

The London Declaration spelled out the new arrangement on April 27 and it marks a watershed in the history of the 20th century.

Most British colonies were to become independent in the next 20 years, and the Declaration opened wide the door for countries to become republics and stay in the Commonwealth. Today only 16 member-countries still have the Queen as their Head of State.

Barbados looks like becoming the latest to turn into a republic and one day Australia, and even Canada and New Zealand, could follow the same path.

The significance of 1949 lies in the fact that if India had left the Commonwealth at that point the association would have fragmented, most probably leaving it as a grouping of the old, white dominions and little else. In that sense India was the founder of the modern Commonwealth and Nehru its father.

Fifty years on it has become an international animal that most of the world — and many citizens of its own member-countries still — do not fully understand. At that cosy 1949 meeting in Downing Street the New Zealand Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, tried to start a discussion on the need to reaffirm the objectives of the Commonwealth. It quickly dried up.

Nothing has changed. Ever since then, Heads of Government have been attempting to define the role of the Commonwealth. It is a largely futile exercise. A changing world will always mean a changing Commonwealth.

Nothing stands still for long in history, and if the Commonwealth stands still it will soon be dead in the water. As a body of 54 countries spread across the world with certain common characteristics it enables them to work together on many levels, government and non-government.

Yesterday’s concerns were South Africa and the ending of Malan’s apartheid. Today’s are human rights, good governance and democracy, debt relief for the poorest countries, the enhancement of trade between its members. For the 21st century problems of ethnicity and religious intolerance seem to be emerging.

The agenda is always full — and will get fuller.
— Gemini

To cross or not to cross
by R. K. Murthi

I SPOT an acquaintance, a middle-aged man, waiting at the crowded footpath. (Foothpaths in Delhi, as much as in most Indian cities, have turned into cheap shopping arcades, thriving centres of small businessmen selling fruits and fruit juices and newspapers and publications and ties and vests and tee shirts and pins and needles and combs and, during December, New Year cards and calendars too. Once pedestrians could foot their way, comfortably, along these stretches. Now walking along these stretches is virtually impossible. Will our benign rulers now refer to these stretches by a different name, one consistent with their present status?). I greet him with the polite words: “How are you?”

“In a dilemma,” he says.

“Of the same intensity as the one that Hamlet once faced,” I use a literary reference.

“Mine is much more intense. The question that nags me now is, Whether to cross or not to cross,” he grins.

“Cross what?”

“Cross this road and get over to the other side,” he says.

“Why don’t you walk up the overbridge, get across safely?” I pointed out the steel frame of the bridge which remains mostly unused by people and has become a haven for urchins and beggars and vagabonds.

“I also know of the subway, a little farther up, which too provides an easy crossing,” the man fixes me with a stern stare.

“So where lies the problem?” I want to know.

“Simple, my friend. I don’t want to become the laughing stock, the object of ridicule,” his reply is enigmatic.

“How could following the safe way expose you to sneer?” I can’t see the logic in his statement.

“Well, have you ever wondered why the gallant people of Delhi shy away from the easy routes, the overbridges and the subways? They want to have the thrill of spinning their way through the mad traffic on the roads. It is their belief that the roads were once theirs, that the vehicles had usurped the space and pushed them out, that they must reclaim the first right to use the road. If they don’t fight for this right, how will they ever get across roads where overbridges or subways are not readily available? See these shops? They have put us out of the footpaths. If we retreat from the roads, hand it over to men and their machines, we will lose even this space. No, my friend. I shall dare the traffic and get across, if God wills, in one piece. I would rather dare and act than be a coward.”

“I admire your courage, my friend. It is truly...” I almost drop the word foolhardy, but replace it, at the nick of the moment, with the adjective, fantastic, and thus avoid the risk of having to cross swords (or words, if you so choose) with him, and take leave of him.

Did he get across? I won’t know unless I run into him, again, by chance

Justice Shivappa: an ‘age old’ question

by Anupam Gupta

MS Jayalalitha’s bete noire, Madras High Court Judge C. Shivappa bowed out of office ten days ago following receipt of a fax message from Union Law Minister Thambidurai. Having already overstayed his tenure by 84 days — he ought to have retired on December 10 last year, if the Government of India is to be believed — Justice Shivappa’s forced exit, particularly the manner of it, has left a bitter taste in the mouth.

Disputes over the date of birth never reflect well on holders of public office and Judges are no exception. Judges, especially Supreme Court and High Court Judges, must never be seen to be wrangling about when they came into the world with an eye on the longevity of office. The majesty and dignity of the judicial office forbid any attachment to it. And if the mystique and awe that surrounds that office is to be maintained, Judges must keep scrupulously away from the ambitions and motivations which drive ordinary men.

Nor has Justice Shivappa, however else aggrieved, a moral right to protest against his being called upon to answer a pseudonymous complaint. A complaint to the President of India by a fictitious, non-existent person from Bangalore, where Justice Shivappa was first appointed a High Court Judge in 1991.

For is that not what High Court Judges round the country have been doing in the guise of public interest litigation? Entertaining pseudonymous complaints or letters by the dozen, converting them into PILs, summoning governments and officers to answer and conducting open-ended and endless enquiries into all sorts of things? In how many such cases have the courts cared to verify the credentials of the “petitioners” or enquire into their motives?

What the executive has done to Justice Shivappa, therefore, is (with great respect) not very different from what the judiciary has been doing to the executive all these years, especially the last few years. Lack of respect for procedural proprieties cannot but recoil on the judiciary itself, and this is precisely what has happened in Justice Shivappa’s case.

On first principles, however, Union Law Minister Thambidurai cannot be absolved of his criminal (ir)responsibility in the matter. And of failing to advise the Cabinet and the President of the correct legal position as settled by the Supreme Court.

“We recommend,” said the Supreme Court in 1971 in Justice Jyoti Prakash Mitter’s case, “that even in the matter of serving notice and asking for representation from a Judge of the High Court when a question as to his age is raised, the President’s Secretariat should ordinarily be the channel, that the President should have consultation with the Chief Justice of India as required by the Constitution and that there must be no interposition of any other body or authority in the consultation between the President and the Chief Justice of India.”

Again, said the Supreme Court, “we are of the view that normally an opportunity for an oral hearing should be given to the Judge concerned, whose age is in question ......”, even as it held clearly that Article 217(3) of the Constitution does not guarantee a right of personal hearing.

Inserted in the Constitution by the 15th Amendment on October 5, 1963, with retrospective effect from January 26, 1950, Article 217(3) lays down that any question as to the age of a High Court Judge shall be decided by the President after consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the decision of the President shall be final.

“Notwithstanding the declared finality of the order of the President,” ruled the Supreme Court in Justice Mitter’s case, the court has jurisdiction in appropriate cases to set aside the order if it appears that it was passed on “collateral considerations”, or the rules of natural justice were not observed, or the President’s judgement was “coloured by the advice or representation made by the executive” or, finally, that it was founded on no evidence.

That, as pointed out by the late H.M. Seervai, creates an insoluble contradiction. If the President’s power under Article 217(3) is a power that he must exercise independently of his Council of Ministers, his decision should not be amenable to a judicial challenge in view of Article 361. The President (or Governor), reads the Article, shall not be answerable to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and duties of his office. It is only if the President acts on the advice of his Ministers that the Union of India can be sued in respect of that decision by virtue of the second proviso to Article 361, for the decision then is that of the government and not of the President personally.

Like Seervai (and even before him) Justice Krishna Iyer had doubted the ruling in Justice Mitter’s case. The President means, he said in 1974 (in Shamsher Singh versus State of Punjab), the Council of Ministers for all practical purposes and his “opinion, satisfaction or decision is constitutionally secured when his Ministers arrive at such opinion, satisfaction or decision.”

He spoke, though, for only two out of seven Judges on the Bench and in a much larger context. And added, lest he be misunderstood, that in practice “the last word in such a sensitive subject” must belong to the Chief Justice of India, the rejection of his advice being ordinarily regarded as prompted by oblique considerations vitiating the order under Article 217(3). The other five Judges did not address the point.

These and other related issues will be thrown open for consideration, however, only if Justice Shivappa chooses to go to court. Till that time Law Minister Thambidurai and the party he represents have nothing to fear.

Naresh Kapuria’s works on display

by Humra Quraishi

NO change in the pace of events here. Last weekend saw the opening of Naresh Kapuria’s exhibition. In keeping with the practice of the last few years he had spread his works all along the Trivani expanse, to be followed by a food spread at artist Manju Narain’s home-cum-studio. Along the Satish and Kiran Gujral others to be spotted were S.K. Misra, Lalit and Jyotsna Suri, ICCR’s Himachal Som and his deputy D. Manchanda, Sudhir Dar, Satish Sharma’s Dutch half Sterre, Alka Raghuvanshi, Uma and Aruna Vasudev, Sudhir Tailang, Santo Datta, British Council’s arts and culture manager Sushma Bahl and the well known flutist Brian Finnegan who’d just earlier in the day flown in from the UK. In fact, it was thanks to his intentions of retiring early for the night that dinner was served early (well, early vis a vis Delhi standards) and so along with him some of us, who were also keen to call it a day, joined in at dinner. Others continued to sit on the lawns and hear a Russian starlet sing lustily. (I am not sure whether she was especially flown in for the occasion or lives tucked away right here, in our capital).

Sitara’s views

Midweek there stood arranged an informal dance mehfil at Uma Vasudeva’s home, with Khushwant Singh being the guest of honour. On way he spoke of how he made use of the occasion of Chandan Mitra’s book release function to make L.K. Advani (also present on the occasion of the book release) hear his views on the fallout of the rath yatra and destruction of the Babri Mosque “Advani had even gone ahead and taken to calling it a disputed structure and not masjid.....” and whilst recounting the sway of the communal politics he sounded angry and upset. As my queries move on to his latest novel, this is what he had to say: “It is complete, though I am going through the final draft and I usually spend a lot of time doing it. The story revolves around an octogenarian’s sexual fantasies ...” And pray who is this octogenarian ? “It’s me “he added with a laugh.

And that evening we all seemed generally happy seeing Sitara Devi, Yamini Krishnamoorthy and Uma Sharma dance for the select few. Well happy till I settled down to interviewing Sitara Devi. For the manner in which she spoke, along obscenely communal lines, left one pained and shocked. Imagine a 77-year-old dancer of the level of Sitara Devi sing praises of the communal forces of the land, laud the activities of the Shiv sainiks —“Kyon nahin? woh log hamei musalmanon se bachate hain” (“they protect us from the Muslims”), stress aggressively that in Bombay only Marathas should live, get emphatic that no artiste from Pakistan should be allowed to perform here in India justify the pulling down of the film Fire or the attack on Dalip Kumar’s house. Her blatant views were so shocking that a couple of the invitees commented: “Tonight we will not be able to sleep ...it is so disturbing to hear all this and that too from the mouth of such an artiste”.

The Indian man

Friday evening saw Kaamna Prasad hosting a reception at the IIC in honour of Sandhya Mulchandani’s book ‘The Indian Man — His True Colours’ (Picus). Though the book offers nothing very original but the very fact that a woman of Sandhya’s calibre has gone ahead and taken the trouble to piecing together the various aspects of the man is creditable enough. At least he has been put high up on the shelf, with all his weak colours in full display.

Cuisine, culture, bookcraft!

Haven’t met a more enthusiastic author than Amresh Misra whose book — “Lucknow: Fire of Grace” (Harper Collins) hit the stands a few months back. These days he doesn’t just talk about the erstwhile Avadhian aristocracy, the Lucknavi bourgeoisie or the tales of courtesans and the games they played with the men they entertained but has moved a step ahead. He’s just transported thumri singer Begum Zarina from the lanes of Lucknow’s Aminabad to Maurya Sheraton’s Dum Pukht restaurant. And once inside this restaurant her voice touches a chord, esp when told that in today’s scenario, when nobody wants to keep in tune with the bygones, she finds it difficult to make two ends meet. Probably the harshness of life has produced a certain dard in her voice. And as if to complete the picture a dwindling man sits next to her, on the tabla, who we are told is her (better) half. In fact, just a glimpse of that man is enough to convey to you what remains of the co-called Lucknavi culture. It has indeed been wiped clean, rather ripped apart by the political log who continued to rule this erstwhile Avadhi state. And in doing so, degenerating it day after day.

Delegation from Lahore

News is that on Baisakhi day (this year it will be celebrated on April 14) a delegation could come from Lahore. The rationale behind this is that since marches are being arranged from the five birth places of the ‘panch piaras’ so one such group would come from Lahore, the birthplace of one of the ‘panch piaras’. The other four places where marches would commence are — Dwarka, Bidar, Puri and Hastinapur.

75 YEARS AGO

Orphan children killed

AN American, Colonel Low, Director of the Relief Orphanages at Corfu, who has arrived here from Corfu with Greek officials and 60 expelled Greek soldiers, in a statement declared that the number of those killed had now gone very high. Some 50 others had received wounds.

All the killed and wounded are refugees or orphans from the American and British orphanages who had been housed in the old fortress.

The fact that 16 of those killed are children is due to several shells hitting the barracks used as orphanages whilst shrapnel shells exploded on the water in front of the fortress where 400 orphan boys were bathing.

Colonel Low tells how he hastened down to the quay to protest to the Italian officers against such futile killing, but the firing had ceased before he had carried out his objective.

One of the first Italian officer on landing walked, mopping his brow, to a spot where British and American nurses were attending to the wounded, and asked: “Were any British killed?” He was told they were not, whereupon he sighed with relief, and cried out: “Thank God.”

Colonel Low announces that he has reported to the State Department that the bombardment was entirely unnecessary. A handful of men without a gun could have accomplished the occupation.