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On
Record Ensuring
speedy and affordable justice |
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Profile Reflections Diversities
— Delhi Letter Kashmir
Diary
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On Record
An aide of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, D.P.
Tripathi, 54, brings rare academic depth to politics. A former
president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union, Mr
Tripathi later taught at Allahabad University. Corneal opacity has not
come in the way of Mr Tripathi knowing several Indian and foreign
languages. He has lectured in several universities abroad. Opposed to
Congress President Sonia Gandhi becoming Prime Minister because of her
foreign origin, Mr Tripathi joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)
in 1999. A key strategist of the NCP, Mr Tripathi has been handling
delicate negotiations with the Left over seat sharing in Maharashtra. Excerpts:
Q: How is the NCP preparing for the Assembly elections in
Maharashtra? A: We have worked out the seat-sharing formula.
There is complete understanding between the NCP, the Congress and the
RPI (Gavai). The NCP and the Congress will campaign jointly. We have
reached limited understanding with the Left and the CPI (M) having
been given four seats. The Left will contest nearly 20 seats and there
will be friendly contests in about 16 seats. On the other seats, they
will support the alliance candidates. We have been largely successful
in minimising internal dissidence. Compared to the Cong-NCP,
dissidence in the BJP-Shiv Sena combine is acute. Our campaign will be
positive but efforts also are being made to counter the negative
propaganda by the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. They have a negative
political line and their political mobilisation is communal, based on
divisive orientation. They are trying to derive political mileage from
the Tiranga. They circulate wrong information and such rumour-mongering
has sometimes damaged us in the past. We are cautious. Q: What
will be your campaign issues? A: We want to restore Maharashtra’s
pre-eminent position in the country’s socio-economic life. The
Congress-NCP government has in the past five years rectified the
mistakes of the previous BJP-Shiv Sena government. We will generate
more employment and evolve special plans for the downtrodden. The
Agriculture Ministry recently gave a package to the farmers of
drought-prone areas of the state. Focus will be on development of
underdeveloped areas in Marathwada and Vidarbha. We need an atmosphere
of social harmony to progress as tensions create problems. Q: Will
the demand for separate Vidarbha figure in the Congress-NCP
manifesto? A: The NCP has already supported the demand. If the
Congress has reservations and does not want it in the joint manifesto,
we won’t press for it. Q: How much is Veer Savarkar an issue in
the elections? A: It is not an issue. Every individual has a
right to express an opinion just as others have a right to disagree.
Veer Savarkar was a freedom fighter, but he was also an accused in the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The Congress and the NCP do not agree
with Savarkar’s ideological approach of using Hindutva as an
instrument of politics. Since the BJP-Shiv Sena combine lacks issues,
it is raising Tiranga and Savarkar issues. Q: Do you agree with
the remarks of Union Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar about
Savarkar? A: Yes and No. Certain facts have to be kept in mind.
No one can deny that Savarkar was a freedom fighter. Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh has also said this. But we also say that he was an
accused in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case and we disagree with
his ideology of Hindutva. Q: Do you think the plaque containing
Savarkar’s name should be restored at the memorial in the Andaman
cellular jail as demanded by the BJP? A: It is a small matter.
The plaque should be replaced. Savarkar spent nearly 11 years in the
cellular jail and was a prominent prisoner. In a democracy, we have to
be tolerant. Q: Will the NCP ask the government to restore the
plaque? A: The government will take its decision. We have
expressed our opinion. Q: What are your strengths in Maharashtra? A:
We have built the party structure in the state in the past five
years. The NCP has 23 out of 35 zilla parishads and 60 per cent
municipalities. Prominent people from all sections of society have
joined us. The NCP has promoted younger leadership. Q: With the
Samajwadi Party contesting a large number of seats in Maharashtra,
will it affect your prospects? A: The Samajwadi Party seems to
have some understanding with the BJP-Shiv Sena. It is behaving like
the B-team of the BJP. It is also fielding candidates according to the
choice of the BJP-Shiv Sena. It is a serious matter. We will tackle it
with people’s support. We will expose those who express faith in
secularism but help communal parties. Q: The Bahujan Samaj Party
damaged the NCP-Congress combine in the last Lok Sabha elections,
specially in Vidarbha. How will the Congress-NCP fare in the
elections? A: The difference between the BSP and SP is that the
former is bent on harming the secular alliance while the latter seems
to have an understanding with the BJP-Shiv Sena. The BSP is trying to
gain strength perhaps, with financial and tactical support from our
main rivals. Its performance in the Lok Sabha elections has to be seen
in the context of those having been held when the NDA was in power at
the Centre. Now it is the UPA at the Centre and there is a qualitative
change in people’s perception. Q: The ruling alliance failed to
keep with it parties like the Lok Janshakti. A: We had appealed
to all secular parties to assess their strength and then field
candidates. We are partners at the Centre and wanted similar ties at
the state level. The main aim is to defeat the communal forces. Q:
What is the difference between the NCP and the Congress? A: In
India, it is an era of coalition politics and plural polity. The
secular alliance was not forged for the Lok Sabha elections but
emerged from it. In the USA, Europe and several other democracies,
there are many parties with little ideological difference. The
difference in us and the Congress is on emphasis on certain issues.
After the Maharashtra elections, we will come out with a draft
"Why NCP." The NCP working committee will tell people why we
need a forward-looking party with internal democracy which does not
believe in sycophancy. Q: Has the NCP given up the issue of Mrs
Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin? A: It is not an issue. Q:
Will you take up the issue again in the future? A: We will see
what happens. It is a speculative question. |
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Ensuring speedy and
affordable justice In
his address to the conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts in New Delhi very recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rightly stressed the need for speedy justice to restore people’s faith in the judiciary. In the USA, 90 per cent cases are settled in the chambers of the lawyers with no cost to the government and no burden on the Bench. Why can’t we too ensure speedy and affordable justice in India? The Bench and the Bar have been recognised as the two pillars on which the superstructure of justice is erected. In the existing system, the Bench shoulders the major burden of delivery of justice, including routine matters like service of notice, filing of reply, framing of issues and record of evidence. A lot of time is wasted on these formalities before the case is ready for the judge’s order. The judges are unable to cope with the increasing burden. Such routine matters should be shifted from the Bench to the Bar through appropriate changes in the procedural law. The Bar should be entrusted with the responsibility of early disposal of cases outside the courts by direct negotiation. This can be done by suitably amending the procedural law both of the civil and criminal side. Under Section 80 of the Civil Procedure Code, serving a 60-day notice to the government is mandatory before filing a suit against it. Sometimes matters are settled on such notice itself. Such a provision must be made mandatory for private litigation as well and the 60-day period must be extended to one year. During this period, the lawyer will ensure that the opposite party is served with the notice of claim, the opposite party will file reply, both will serve on each other’s interrogatories, discover and even record evidence in their chambers. Thus, the lawyers settle most cases. The final settlement is sent to the court by mail and the court authenticates it. It retains a copy for record and sends copies to the parties. In case the parties fail to settle the dispute within one year, the court will decide the matter on the evidence already recorded. This system will result in an increase of the number of courts to deliver justice to one half of the members of the local Bar. For, the counsel for the opposing parties will settle the matter out of the court. At present, about 100 lawyers wait to be heard by one court. The proposed amendment will make available 50 more courts of lawyers. Over 2,00,000 courts of lawyers will come up all over the country, at no extra financial and administrative burden on the state. The present number of judges will be sufficient to administer speedy and open justice. Today the magistrate is overburdened with paper work and day-to-day hearing of a case. This practice should be changed. The police may record the FIR and further investigation may be entrusted to an independent agency by employing competent investigators, detectives and even experts. The arrest and custody of the accused can be entrusted to an agency known as sheriff department. The report of the police, investigators, detectives and experts should be submitted to the district attorney within two months who should decide what offence and against whom is made out and also propose the punishment to be awarded. The accused should be also allowed to negotiate and settle the case if possible, with the district attorney. In case of trial, the judge should ask for the report of the probation officer for imposing proper punishment. In case the Judge/ Prosecuting Officer is not available, the case fixed for the day should not be adjourned. Competent lawyers from the Bar should be designated to work as pro-term Judges/Prosecuting Officers for quick decision of cases. In this context, it is noteworthy that in the USA, cases are not adjourned if the judges are on leave. To eliminate frivolous petitioners, Section 35-A of the CPC ought to be strictly enforced and costs awarded to the winning party in each case that must include, expenses of all the persons and agencies involved in the trial. The ‘abuser’ should pay the expenses and not the government. Similarly, in criminal cases, the victim needs to be compensated. The aggressor must be made to pay. There should be a direct negotiation between the two in a specified case. The convict should be punished with appropriate fine that should include, compensation to the victim, expenses of the witnesses and other agencies responsible for and involved in his trial. The convict should be made to pay either in cash or by getting community service done from him like working on the roads, in hospitals, libraries or other public places like parks and grounds. The ‘wrongdoer’ must bear the expenses and not the government. The state spends a lot of money and efforts in keeping the accused/convict in jail. So much so that 60 per cent of police arrests that consume 43.2 per cent jail expenses are unnecessary and unjustified. This exercise of unbridled power of arrest should be made accountable. The suggested system will create a lot of employment opportunities. Since there will be an agency involved in the investigation, apprehension, prosecution, sentencing and execution of the sentence, many avenues of employment will come up. Court reporters are needed for record of evidence. There will be job opportunities in the law firms. The suggested system will work to the benefit of the litigant as he/she is not forced to wait for years to get justice. The Bench will not have to spend time in summoning and recording evidence. The Bar will have gainful employment opportunities. The ‘user’ will share the state’s financial burden. And the government will no longer be required to open over 60,000 courts as sought by the Chief Justice of
India. The writer, a senior advocate of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Chandigarh, is presently Administrator, Indo-American Law Centre, California (USA) |
Profile After preliminary enquiry, Swami Agnivesh decided to intervene and contacted the District Collector of Gwalior. As a result, the stone quarry being illegally operated about 12 kilometers on forest land was raided and victims were rescued. The quarry owner absconded as the bonded labourers came out to narrate their suffering and exploitation. This was not the isolated case. Agnivesh has saved many from clutches of slavery. In recognition of his service as a social reformer, Swami Agnivesh has now been decorated with Right Livelihood Award. It was instituted in 1980 to honour and support people who valiantly uphold principles of right livelihood. Their work often entails personal sacrifice, opposed by powerful forces. The award has become widely known as the Alternative Nobel Prize and there are now over 100 laureates from 48 countries. Outspoken, fearless and looking for change, Swami Agnivesh firmly believes that bonded labour system is one of the most virulent and prevalent contemporary forms of slavery. In most developing countries including India, the informal money-lending system coupled with usurious rates of interest, sometimes as high as 200 per cent, give birth to a phenomenon called debt bondage. Here the employer entraps a labourer by offering an advance to be paid off through earnings. But since the wages are low and the employer frequently makes deductions from accommodation and tools, the workers cannot repay. As the debt mounts, the employer insists that it be passed from parent to child or even grandchild. Cases have been found of people slaving to pay off debts as old as eight generations. Swami Agnivesh has also done commendable work in rescuing children from bondage. He has often been quoted as saying that children are the worst victims of bondage and servitude. In spite of committed reformists like Agnivesh, the evil of child bondage and labour seems to be on the rise. These children are made to work for 14 to 16 hours a day. Their working places are unhygienic, poorly ventilated and dimly lit. Born in a Telugu speaking family in 1940 in a village now in Orissa, Agnivesh’s original name was Vepa Shyam Rao. He was influenced by the teaching of the Arya Samaj while a student in Kolkata, then Calcutta, joining the organisation at the age of 17. He went on to obtain MA degree in law and business management. After a brief stint as a lawyer, he became a lecturer at St Xavier’s College in Kolkata. He was very much impressed by the dedication, simplicity of living and lifestyle of the staff whether they were teachers or missionaries going out into the slums and helping the poor. He asked himself what was it that motivated these people to leave their prosperous country in Europe and live here in squalor to work for a cause? Obviously, they were motivated by something higher. Swami Agnivesh says: “I asked himself; born in India, should I aspire to go to the US or Canada or Europe to lead a comfortable life or should I dedicate my own life to working in the service of the poorest of the poor?” That was one reason, he says, that motivated him to become a Swami. In 1968, he left his home and job in Kolkata and went to Haryana. In 1970, he became a Swami after being a “brahmachari” for two years. He changed his name subsequently. And thus Vepa Shyam Rao became Swami Agnivesh. Simultaneously, along with his colleague, Swami Indravesh, he founded a political party called the “Arya Sabha”. Their objective was to usher in a political order based on the principles of Arya Samaj. Since then, there is no looking back for Agnivesh. He lands wherever cases of social injustice come to light — be it bonded labour or child bondage. The exploiters are scared of him. |
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Reflections Not
long ago I had learnt that out of a hundred happenings, pleasant or unpleasant, which occur in our lives, 90 per cent of them are self-created. Only 10 per cent are nature generated. To understand this we can always do a self-audit and assess for our own selves. This thought reoccurs in my mind very frequently especially when I see the way things are happening around concerning the majority of our youth in particular and around us in general. How the youth specially is seen to be expending itself. The direction it appears to be taking. I wonder for myself who do they listen to? Who do they follow? Who is today their major influence? What do they value most and why? What do they think about life as such? What do parents and elders mean to them? What is the meaning of responsibility and duty? Does the term morality and decency make any more sense to them? What does religion mean to them? Who tells them and do they respect that? Do they at all want to know the difference between truth and falsehood? Or only results are important howsoever achieved. Then, what is the meaning of marriage, family, parenting and children to them? What is sharing and giving? How important is money? How much of it is enough and its ways of acquisition? Is ethics any more an issue with them? And what about the use of words and speech? How sensitive are they to others’ pain and suffering? What we all get to observe around is a huge wastage of very precious nature-given energy. And the kind and extent of blundering that is going on by our present and future generation is all the 90 per cent being constantly accumulated and stored. The irony is that all the sufferings, which they will be going through, will not be borne alone by them. It will and does equally affect their near and dear ones. There are and will be huge social costs of each of these blunders. And what are the blunders, which will have to be paid for by them and the society as a whole? Killing valuable time by unproductive activities such as gambling, drinking, smoking, extra-marital relationships, excessive (smoke-filled) partying, heavy dependence on emotional relationships, defiance or loss of respect for parents, elders or teachers, greed for easy possession, quick and huge money, excessive attraction towards glamour and hypocrisy, belief in all possible short cuts, loss of trust in ethics and ethical means. The list can be longer. It is becoming tragic for innumerable homes to cope with all the agony being caused within the four walls of almost every home. This would not have happened but for the (90 per cent) self-generated wrong doings. For such families there are no places to go and almost no alternatives to seek. There are almost nil and affordable counselling services. Also who wants help? Instilling sense and reason in closed minds is almost next to impossible. I believe it is still not late to stem the rot, which has and is setting in by various ways. Some of them, to begin with be, homes, schools, colleges, universities, places of discourses, religious teachers, elders, media films, leadership, and also the practice of zero tolerance, to all unethical behaviour. This shall have to be consistent in response, in all cases of rich or poor, powerful or otherwise, if society has to save itself from these 90 per cent self-inflicted punishments. This message has to be voluntarily picked up by families, communities, organisations, groups, institutions, governance, media print or visual, role models and so on. The message has to be that what is fundamentally wrong and unethical ought not to thrive and flourish. And that norm of civil and ethical living is not only about rights but responsible exercise of ones duties to deserve one’s rights. If future generations focus primarily only on rights, me…myself… the 90 per centers will be in majority and so will pain and agony be all pervading and escalating…almost to no
end. |
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Diversities — Delhi Letter
The
haveli in which Khushwant Singh was born in Hadali village of Pakistan’s Sargodha district has become a place of importance. The village elders or the local authorities have put up a board outside the main entrance, with details of the noted writer. The very mention of the place of his roots made Khushwant emotional. He told this writer: “Last I had visited the village was several years back when I was in Pakistan. It was a very emotional experience, with a reception held for me and people coming to meet me. Ours was a large haveli and today it lies occupied by three refugee families who had gone from Rohtak.” “It was touching to see the gurdwara in the village still intact. Even during the Partition chaos, nobody touched the gurdwara though the village population was 90 per cent Muslims and there were few Sikh and Hindu families. Then, this village has the distinction of sending the largest number of men for World War I…” When this writer asked him what more did he remember of the earliest days he had spent in Hadali, he said that he remembered how his grandmother would take him along to the different families she had visited in the village and how she would tell the time of the day. “There was no clock or watch; during the day my grandmother would tell the time by the shadow of the sun on the wall and at night by the stars.” Being an emotional person, the very picture of Hadali still stands strong for Khushwant. Memories of those earliest days come through with the very mention of his village name, taking him down the memory lane via the lanes of Hadali.
Wallah
ustads, amid smiles Last weekend was one of the ‘Smile India’ evenings at the Radisson hotel. It was simply ‘smile India’ and not to be mixed up with political slogans akin to ‘smiling’ or ‘shining India’. In fact, Smile India is a beautiful concept started by a group of dentists here, with a view to reaching to the “underprivileged” through modern dentistry. Pioneering this concept — to take oral health care and dental awareness to those who can’t afford — is senior dentist Sushant Umre. In just one year, he and his team of dentists have seen and treated few hundreds of Delhi’s underprivileged. It is to promote this concept and to raise funds for this cause that a Smile India concert is arranged regularly. The last one had two well known artists — ghazal singer Anita Singhvi and sitar maestro Shujaat Hussain Khan. It’s one of the evenings I really enjoyed. Both the artists were in their element and right till the end not one in the audience moved. |
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Kashmir Diary A white Maruti van drives into a market area, a banner announcing the name of a prominent bank draped across the front grill and a blaring loudspeaker perched on the roof. That might sound like a bank resorting to direct marketing of a loan scheme or some other service, but that is far from it. Indeed, almost as soon as the van rolls into the market, most of the shopkeepers down shutters and the market hubbub melts away — for as long as the van remains in the vicinity. This uniquely Kashmiri scene has become commonplace in Srinagar over the past few months. The concerned firm, the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, is not trying thus to sell its latest interest rates or its consumer services. Quite the opposite — it is trying to recover loans. Of course, the neighbours know just how real the borrower’s difficulties are and whether the person is actually in a position to return the borrowed money. Since the typical Kashmiri community is often infused by gossip-driven salaciousness, the information these vans make public becomes the chief topic of discussion over the next several days. And izzat (respect) in the community being extremely dear to the Kashmiri heart, the bank has calculated that the tactic will shame borrowers into coughing up at least a portion of the amount due. Indeed, the tactic has apparently met with a degree of success in residential colonies, where it is difficult for those within the houses to avoid the blaring announcements. In markets, however, the Kashmiri mind has come up with an effective response. So many traders in just about any market have taken loans that, as soon as any shopkeeper sees the bank van rolling into the market, a cry goes up and every shop begins to pull down shutters. In a matter of minutes, the entire place is deserted but for bystanders and those who come out to watch the fun. This system highlights a couple of significant aspects of the Kashmiri psyche. One is the unfortunate tendency to take advantage of any situation for personal benefit, focusing on societal rights to the exclusion of duties. Few Kashmiris would bother to think of the health of the banking system overall, or about the fact that a bank which must routinely cope with bad debts would be bound to collapse. Getting money out of a bank and then thinking of ways to avoid returning the amount is far too often the only issue in blinkered focus. The second aspect of Kashmiri life that this system of loan recovery highlights is the small town mentality of the place. Even in Kashmir’s big city, Srinagar, everybody tends to mind everybody else’s business, frequently discussing, finding fault with or poking fun at, the lives or even the misfortunes of others. There is little private space and even a large, government-owned bank sees fit to try and recover loans through the tactic of public humiliation. There are of course honourable exceptions to these patterns of behaviour but they are just that — exceptions. It is important to understand these aspects of Kashmir’s behaviour patterns, for they go a long way toward explaining the continuing imbroglio here. The tendency of individual Kashmiris to exploit a situation for personal gain with no thought to the public weal is as much a factor in causing and perpetuating Kashmir’s trauma as the salacious, small-town attitude to whatever happens in the vicinity. Events of this sort are material for entertainment rather than for moral judgement. They are excuses to slight other individuals rather than to worry about how society as a whole might be
improved. |
Lord grant
That I may not so much seek To be loved as to love. — Saint Francis of Assisi Do not be cross with the Lord and drink His nectar, as you are not to stay in the world permanently. — Guru Nanak People of this age care for the essence of everything. They will accept the essentials of religion and not its non-essentials (that is, the rituals, ceremonials, dogmas and creeds). — Sri Ramakrishna Everyone has an opportunity within the limits of his present development of making himself better. — Swami Vivekananda A noble part of every true life is to learn to undo what has been wrongly done. — Rivarol |
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