 |
|
ON RECORD Will Communists blunder once again? |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
PROFILE Comments Unkempt Diversities — Delhi Letter
|
ON RECORD
Q: How do you see your 17-month tenure as CJI? A: I have retired as a satisfied man. I have worked to the best of my ability and integrity. It is for the people to judge my work. The pendency of cases in the Supreme Court has been brought down to less than 20,000 from 50,000 cases. Q: Is everything perfect in the higher judiciary? A: Of late, an impression has gained that the subordinate courts are not up to the mark. Of course, there is "corruption" in the lower judiciary. Unfortunately, the High Courts have also been exposed to "corruption" but it varies in degree. In my view, the judges are not "infallible", their integrity should be above suspicion. Q: What action did you initiate to improve the image of the judiciary? A: When I took over as CJI, the judiciary’s image was at its lowest ebb due to the allegations of misconduct against judges in the High Courts of Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab and Delhi. I took corrective measures to restore the people’s faith and confidence in the judiciary. A judge each in Rajasthan and Delhi had to resign. As regards the Punjab and Haryana High Court case, it was deplorable. Q: What about changing the present system of selecting judges? What happened to the National Judicial Commission proposal? A: I think the present Collegium of senior Supreme Court Judges, having primacy in selecting the Judges for appointment is doing well. As an improvement, the Attorney-General can be made a part of it. Q: Don’t you think the Collegium system has "failed" to discipline the erring High Court Judges, especially when their "conduct" had come under the scanner or to avoid a Punjab-like situation? A: We have an in-House procedure for correcting every judge. Most High Courts have adopted it. I am told that the Punjab and Haryana High Court has not adopted it. But it does not have the sanction of law, Constitutional or statutory. In a way, a judge can say that he is not bound by it. Q: Will that not leave the field wide open for erring Judges? A: In a way yes. Therefore, there is an urgent need for some one to judge the judges. At present the Supreme Court and the CJI have no power of superintendence over the High Court Judges. There should be a law giving the power of superintendence to the Supreme Court. Q: What is the reason for corruption in the lower judiciary? A: It appears that the High Courts due to pressure of work or some other reason are not able to tackle the malady. Since the High Courts have the power of superintendence over the subordinate courts, they perhaps have not been using it effectively. Q: What is the remedy? Have you made any recommendation to the government about improving the judicial system? A: During several meetings with the Union Law Minister, I had suggested that the CJI should be given some power to tackle errant judges. It may require Constitutional amendment. The government should think over it seriously. Improvement of the justice delivery system is needed urgently as the judiciary is an important pillar of democracy. If it gets weakened, the entire system would collapse. Q: With your experience in dealing with the government, did you find its response lukewarm? A: They should provide more judges and infrastructure. In our country there are 13 judges for a population of 10 lakh, while in the US and other European countries it ranges from 120 to 135. Unfortunately, during the past 20 years no government has given serious thought to it. In states I found that vacant posts of judicial officers are not filled up. Q: Do you think an all-India Judicial Service could improve the quality of the justice delivery system? A: Certainly. I have been advocating that there should be all-India Judicial Service like the Indian Administrative Service. I raised the issue with the Prime Minister and he apparently was agreeable to my views. The judiciary is not in the plan list of the government. The funds for it are sanctioned on an ad hoc basis every year. Q: Considering the very low conviction rate in the country due to low quality of prosecution, should there be a system of appointing impartial and competent prosecutors? A: To avoid Gujarat-like situation where prosecutors were accused of colluding with the accused persons, or not doing their job properly, the prosecution should be free from the state governments’ control. It should be an autonomous entity, supervised by a body like the Central Vigilance Commission. Q: Was the Gujarat situation abnormal in your view? A: When the matter came before us, it was found that the prosecuting agency had not done its job properly. Perhaps for the first time the Supreme Court, which otherwise has to play the appellate role, had to step in to do the dual duty of an appellate court as well as to monitor the the prosecution process. Q: Don’t you think that excessive judicial activism will expose the judiciary also to a non-performing entity as its decisions will have to be implemented by the executive, which is accused of inaction? A:
The Supreme Court is entertaining the public interest litigations only
when it sees that the government is not performing its obligations
assigned to it under the Constitution. It is a duty cast upon the
court to ensure that the rule of law prevails and injustice is not
done to the common man. The court’s job is not to assess the
performance of the executive. Our job is to decide cases and provide
justice. |
|
Will Communists blunder once again? MRS Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister of India? This is the most important question before the people after the elections and the Communist-led Left is in the crucial position of being the only force that can let that probability become a fact. Arithmetically, if the Congress has 216 newly-elected MPs, inclusive of its poll-time allies, addition of the Left’s 60 takes the strength beyond the half-way mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha. Twist the kaleidoscope but you will see no happier configuration for the Congress. Even if Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadis and Mayavati’s BSP fall in behind the Congress, the count does not reach the magic figure of a majority — without the Left. Sonia Gandhi’s craving for prime ministership of India as a kind of inheritance by marriage, is well known. She made a pitch for it not so long ago when, if rumours were correct, her mother flew down from Italy to help her choose the saree she might wear for her swearing in. But Mulayam Singh thwarted her ambition and her claim before the President that she had the numerical strength to form a government proved false. Mulayam does not have the same clout this time: it has passed to the Communists. And going by the statements made many times by Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet, they see nothing wrong in Sonia’s becoming Prime Minister. Their first argument is that under the Indian Constitution and as a citizen of the country, she has as much right as anyone else to head the national government. Secondly, the two Communist leaders argue, it is not for them to question the choice of its leader by the Congress. And, finally, the fact that the Congress has secured the biggest number of seats, the leader of this party has a right to the prime ministerial chair. When Sonia Gandhi was making her first moves towards taking over the Congress organisation for use as nothing more and nothing less than a pedestal for her inordinately ambitious self, Jyoti Basu dismissed her as a “mere housewife”. That seems to have been forgotten. Her takeover of the Congress organisation has made her the leader of a party with whom the Communist patriarchs are anxious to do secular business. They do not have the keenness of vision to be able to make out that Congress as a political party is now only the façade and inside it is all Sonia Gandhi and her children and none else — unless you count the hangers-on. Things have worked out far better than expected for Sonia Gandhi so far. Even before she was nothing more than a “housewife” she came by a fortuitously privileged life. The procession of foreign dignitaries over the years to her residence at 10 Janpath defies explanation. After Rajiv Gandhi’s death by assassination, foreign leaders visiting India called on her to express their condolences in person — Li Peng of China and Prince Charles of Britain, for instance. While from Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, Sonia also became the president of the Indian National Congress and then the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the visits of foreign dignitaries to 10 Janpath congealed in time into a routine. The Russians raised a question about it when Evgeny Primakov, a former Pravda journalist who became prime minister, came to India and they were told that this was a part of the protocol in India. Nobody can show a good reason for this diplomatic de rigueur in New Delhi or Sonia’s clout even in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s days. As soon as it was known that the electoral churning had placed the Congress-led alliance ahead of NDA, servile Congressmen like Ghulam Nabi Azad forgot their pre-poll assurance to the allies on the leadership issue and began arguing before TV cameras about the axiomatic elevation of Sonia Gandhi to presumptive prime ministership. Oscar Fernandes started shooting the line that (unnamed) allies of the Congress had agreed to Sonia Gandhi’s leadership. The leader-worship of the Sonia retinue was buoyed by the strange logic of Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet that in a coalition the leader of its largest constituent should be accepted as the leader. The question is not of the right of an individual or the prerogative of a party but of the interest of the nation. Everyone knows by now what Sonia Gandhi is and is not. Yes, she is the leader of the Congress but as it is proverbially said, an organisation gets the head it deserves. Her foreign origin need not have been an issue but one cannot avoid an inquiry into the other qualifications of the person aspiring to become Prime Minister. Sonia has lived much of her 36 years in India in ivory fortresses with inadequate familiarity with this vast and complex country till now. She came out, surrounded by a battalion of bodyguards, only to tell the people of India to vote her in as their leader. The response she has got this time — a little more than a fourth of the seats in the Lok Sabha — is certainly not a people’s mandate to rule. It may be a mandate for a coalition of parties including the Congress. There can be no ipso facto right of the Congress to impose its leader on the allies. Especially when it is known that the leader of the Congress is wanting in many ways and there are better alternatives, even inside that party — Manmohan Singh, for instance. In any coalition government that may be formed, every constituent party must have a right to insist that its participation depends on agreements on a common programme and a worthy enough leader. Jyoti Babu and Sardar Surjeet cannot stand by only one of these two preconditions and give the other away. Fortunately, there is opposition till now to the Basu-Surjeet line even inside their own CPM. Jyoti Basu had once thought, not so long ago, that he could be Prime Minister by courtesy of an unpredictable United Front in New Delhi but his own Marxist comrades held him back. The same kind of opposition in the present context seems to be working inside the CPM and the issue this time is the programme plus Sonia. That was what the meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury, one of the Young Turks in the CPM, on Friday was about. The Communists resent reminders of their many monumental blunders in the past. They are on the verge of committing one more with their eyes open. The writer is a senior journalist |
PROFILE
Hell broke loose for Sachin when Rajesh Pilot was killed in a road accident four years back. He was not old enough to contest election and after his father’s last rites were performed, he went back to Wharton Business School in the US to pursue his MBA. His mother, Rama Pilot, having been elected in a by-election, kept the constituency warm for her son. Having completed his education, Sachin entered the corporate world and joined the General Motors. Now he is trying to shake off his corporate image. Unlike Rajesh Pilot, who in his teens, carried milk canes on his shoulders and supplied milk to ministerial bungalows at Akbar Road (years later, he lived in one of them), Sachin was educated at the Air Force School in New Delhi and later at the prestigious St Stephen’s College. Though Sachin is a urban boy, he has rural passion; he understands Indian politics very well. It was only in 1999 elections that he had campaigned for his father in Dausa and knows every bit of the constituency and its voters. The family name matters in politics in India and it gave Sachin a head start in Dausa. Sachin has seen as many as seven elections of the Rajasthan Assembly and the Lok Sabha. In the last ten years, he witnessed political equations made and unmade in his house and associated himself actively with the rough and tumble of electioneering. The young MP says, he has learnt tough lessons in life from his father and they are hard work, humility and patience. Like Rajesh Pilot, he too wants to become a grassroot politician even though he accepts that “it may take time for me to shed my corporate image and look like a rural Neta”. Sachin’s decision to enter politics was a conscious one and not guided by emotions. He considered the pros and cons of entering the hurly-burly of politics for three long years while working in his father’s constituency and finally came to the conclusion that “politics is where I belong”. Having seen his father in action, Sachin is aware of the fact that “politics is demanding and needs total commitment and passion”. He does not mince words in saying that the family name can give one a foothold in politics but ultimately an individual has to put his feet firmly on the ground and create one’s own identity. Sachin, like many other newly elected MPs of his group that includes Rahul Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Manvendra Singh, are like a whiff of fresh air in the polluting political environment. Indeed young MPs like Sachin — educated, dynamic, politically conscious, determined and agile — mark the change of generation; old, tired leadership giving way to the new blood and this cuts across party lines. Youngsters have decided to take the lead and they have a massive vote bank. After all, 65 per cent voters are below 30 and they have given a new meaning to Elections 2004. That was, perhaps, the reason why so many youngsters were given tickets in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Sachin is newly married. His marriage made waves and there were parental protests. His bride, Sarah Abdullah, is former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah’s daughter. That was perhaps the reason why Mr Omar Abdullah choose to campaign for his brother-in-law in the Dausa constituency. The late Rajesh Pilot and Dr Abdullah were close friends and so were their respective family members. On her part, Sachin Pilot’s wife choose to stay away from electioneering. She is known to be “a very private person”. She lived mostly in London before their marriage and yet get used to Delhi’s disorganise and chaotic life. She may take up a job. Sachin and Sarah are happily married. A new chapter opens for the couple with Sachin’s entry into the Lok
Sabha. |
|
Comments Unkempt By their spin the spin-doctors usually make things look prettier than they are. Perhaps this is true even of formidably qualified doctors. One of their best-heeled — and respected — mouthpieces, the British Medical Journal has in its April issue taken a peek at Health Care in South Asia. Spin makes the cover and the pages written attractive and readable but there is no message of cheer, no new message. Now that the Great Indian Roadshow is at last over — this longest-lasting one started from January — maybe the readers of newspapers and watchers of television will find time to push aside their TV and cast a glance at health care. The BMJ’s South Asia number has been written up by doctors in and from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal and cumulatively, the pressure points they put their fingertips on are just right. The most badly off and neglected care group is maternity and child welfare. Things are going great guns in the private sector with the import and use of state of the art technical equipment and high fees, high in the sense of the affordable paying ability of the 750 million people, quite a lot of whom live below the dollar-a-day level. Private hospitals are going into partnership with groups abroad and, as in India’s hotel industry, building splendiferous hospitals. The situation — whether in medicine or surgery — is really bad in the boondocks. Doctors in government service are most reluctant to go to rural areas. If they are posted there they come, if at all, to their rural hospital or health centre for brief, flashing moments, and then hare off in their mo’bikes or cars for their private practice in villages or small towns. Compared to the affordability of the homes they visit their fees are not low. A while ago I went, along with an FRCS friend who took the morning off from his small town practice to show me around. We went to a rural hospital set among the tall sal and eucalyptus trees of the area which is in Midnapur the largest district in West Bengal. The setting was idyllic and the one-storey building fairly new and painted. But there was not a single resident patient. People didn’t trust the hospital and its services well-enough to enrol. The clash in our world is often not between right and wrong but between right and right. The resident nurses we spoke to proved that. Embedded in a rural area they found it difficult to put their children in a good school and they had no social life at all. We could see that the operation theatre was hardly used at all and had the most elementary facilities. Medicine supply was sparse and we found it unwise to ask where the supply mainly went. In one room we found several refrigerators, all out of order. Electricity supply in rural area is intermittent and unreliable that those refrigerators just could not be work on. If a badly ill patient had to be moved to the district headquarters hospital there was no transport. Hiring a taxi in a rural backwater is an expensive affair. As an example of the victory of the private clinics and hospitals, the BMJ said that where they examined things in Sri Lanka there was not a single scanner in the public hospitals but many in the private ones. Sales person from the manufacturers are constantly travelling in the small towns offering private hospitals and clinics attractive cut rates for equipment. The BMJ points out that pharmaceutical companies often offer all kinds of perks to doctors and practice is not always carried on by ethical means. The medical profession makes quite a lot of money from sex-determination equipment. Female foetuses are often aborted as families prefer boys. Sex determination tests have been made illegal but they go on. If we discuss health care and education in Cuba with our doctors their eyebrows rise to the hairline. They are accustomed to talk about the United States, Britain, Sweden and so on. Yet Cuba (despite the US’ throttling fingers round its neck) has family doctors for every 400 of the population. Some 30 heart transplants have been done by Cuban surgeons. Literacy is 96 per cent as in Kerala and Sri Lanka high-grade technological infrastructure is not required compulsory for health care. There is an International Neurological Centre and a famous Orthopaedic Centre. In fact, the famous achievements of our subcontinent are not always known. In Pakistan, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi of Karachi is a legend. He runs hundreds of ambulance services, some even by air, hospitals, orphanages, all from public funds. He is a totally simple, ego-less man. When I once went to meet him in Karachi he joked that he was one of the three greatest men India has produced, all Gujaratis, “Gandhiji”, he said, “Mr Jinnah and me!” He is from Saurashtra. There is Dr Prakash Karan Sethi who has produced the “Jaipur Foot” for people who have lost limbs in landmine blow ups or in being run over by railways. With his Foot cheap and light people can run, play games and climb trees. The Jaipur Foot is now being used in many countries like Viet Nam and Afgahnistan. But even these achievements do not give India a health care system by which the poor can be looked after. But I think I have found something to give two cheers for. I have not been able to double check but Chennai has given hope. The husband of a couple had a pain in his chest. His wife called a Helpline advertised in the press. Within a very short time an ambulance came with a doctor who did an ECG and also made the patient comfortable. Charge just Rs 200. Then for about three days there were follow up calls for Rs 75. Then, a gap of some days, the doctor called in — this time on his own — no
fee. |
|
Diversities — Delhi Letter Sunil Dutt and his charged brigade of the so-called “Sadbhavna Sipahis” have been working for the last several months not from high-flown air-conditioned environs but at the grassroot level .Yes, they have been working in the villages of the country. One of them confided that this was their way of promoting universal brotherhood and peace. “Dutt sahib infused a great sense of duty in me”, he said. Another social activist told me that after he read Khushwant Singh’s book, “The End of India” (Penguin), he sat worried that whole day and the next day he spoke to his close friends and associates about the need to promote religious peace and harmony at any cost. In fact, as election results started pouring in, there was a mixed response from Delhi-ites — one of disbelief and the other of relief. Jokes galore Another one. Nafisa Ali, the defeated Congress candidate from Kolkata would get back now to the capital after weeks of campaigning. Her friends say, whether she’d be able to switch back to English from the fluent Bengali she’d begun to speak with her constituency people. And not to miss this one, chefs’ vying with each other on pasta pastes, along this one-liner “Mama mia pasta please!” Then, this one designers of the just-concluded Lakme Fashion Week are hopping mad. None of the winning new political brigade seem to believe in outlandish designer wear — right from Rahul Gandhi, Dushyant Singh, Manvendra Singh, Sachin Pilot, Akhilesh Yadav to Jitin Prasad — they have one thing in common — they wear (at least so far) the traditional kurta pyjama. Wrong timings The Punjabi Academy’s festival of the traditional music of Punjab took off on May 13. The two-day festival at the Habitat Centre couldn’t have been worse timed, keeping in view the election results and the aftermath. Going by the rather elaborate invite and together with that these lines “Punjabi is the only other language apart from Braj Bhasha in which kheyal bandishes have been composed. Shah sada rang and ada rang, creators of kheyal style of classical music, have also composed kheyal bandishes in Punjabi which were presented in this festival. Over the last 200 years, these have been sung by musicians from all over the country and it is our effort through this festival to revive them”. It is a pity that they hosted this festival at this juncture. Another not-so- well-timed event is the symposium, “New Age Mantras in cardiac fitness and nutrition” organised by Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre on May 15. Another book release that seemed to have got lost in the election hungama is the English translation of poet Shahryar’s poems. Published by Rupa, the translations have been done by Rakshanda
Jalil. |
He who keeps my commandment loves me; and he who loves me shall be loved by my Father and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. — Jesus Christ With eyes covered with the film of Maya, you complain that you cannot see God. If you wish to see Him, remove the film of Maya from your eyes. — Sri Ramakrishna Know it for certain that there is no greater Tirtha (holy spot) than the body of man. Nowhere else is the Atman so manifest as here. — Swami Vivekananda By making faith your bowings and knowledge of mind the aim of your life, you will find God present wherever you look. — Guru Nanak A real teacher is one who is the best among the knowers of Brahman, who has withdrawn himself into Brahman, and is calm like the fire that has consumed its fuel. — Sri Adi Sankaracharya |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Former Chief Justice
of India Justice V.N. Khare, who relinquished the office recently,
dealt with many complex issues like the Gujarat government’s apathy
towards the riot cases, "misconduct" of some High Court
judges, corruption in the judiciary and, above all, the unprecedented
protest by the Judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Known for
his simplicity and integrity, he spoke to The Sunday Tribune about the
"malady" in the judicial system. Excerpts:
“Kisan” lunch was a popular annual event at the late Congress leader Rajesh Pilot’s residence. His wife Rama Pilot played host to Delhi’s media persons on the New Year eve. Later, when Pilot became Union Minister of State for Home, senior officers of the ministry including the Secretary and the CBI Director joined the lunch, laid down in rural setting. The menu too comprised typically village delicacies. His two children — Sachin and Sarika — personally looked after the guests, serving them Urad dal, bajra and makki ki roti, an assortment of vegetables, cooked in customary village style and curds preserved in earthen pots; gur, carrot, radish and guava were served as desserts. The guests were greeted with a glass of pure butter milk as drinks. Sachin was coming out of his teens then, but impressed the guests with his courteous and affable manners. Resembling his father, he looked more intelligent and sharp than his age. Nobody then thought that Sachin will one day carry on the legacy of his father and become, perhaps, the youngest member of Parliament. Just elected to the Lok Sabha from Dausa in Rajasthan, he is now 26.
I would be sounding outdated and could be stacked along the lines of the proverbial Rip Van Winkle if I talk of the Lok Sabha elections. But one aspect stands out. In these elections, the role of the social activists has been profound. On Friday evening at a get-together, I was amazed to see the number of social activists who have worked untiringly in these elections. This group of 32 teenagers had toured 40 cities of the country, spreading awareness among the people on secularism. They later gave an account of their experiences during
Jokes have sprung up overnight. How would the Samjawadi Party winner Jayaprada (who has won from the Muslim belt of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh) greet the defeated Telugu Desam leader and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu, who has also been her old-time friend till they parted ways? In chaste Urdu or Telugu? After all, the Samjawadi Party’s Azam Khan wrote Jayaprada’s speeches every morning which she mouthed the day long.