O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Justice Variava’s disclosure
The culprit must be punished
Tuesday’s disclosure by Justice S.N. Variava in the Supreme Court that someone from the Patna High Court had called him up a day earlier to know whether the trial judge in the fodder scam case could be replaced is shocking and deeply disturbing. Whoever has called up the Judge will have to be hauled up for contempt and given severe punishment.

Chinese new law
It steps up pressure on Taiwan
With China’s National People’s Congress passing a Taiwan-specific law on Monday, the communist giant has sent out two clear messages to the world. One, it will be legally justified to use its military might to unify the island of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland if it fails to achieve the objective through all other means.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Jharkhand and after
Out of the frying pan into the fire
by Pran Chopra
Six months ago I convened a high-level seminar in New Delhi to consider the following proposition by me which I put before the participants:
“Indian federalism faces the risk of a constitutional impasse between the Supreme Court and the constituent power of Parliament. In the past, such conflicts could be resolved by referring to the Constitution. But this may not always be possible in future in view of a challenge the Supreme Court has posted to the Constitution itself.”

MIDDLE

Fair exchange
by Raj Chatterjee
He was a small, compact man, with thinning hair, a round face, a short nose and a well-trimmed, grey moustache. We were at the Delhi, inter-state bus terminus, both waiting to board the night, “de luxe” coach to Mussoorie.

OPED

Political perfidy in Jharkhand
The majority that never was
by A. J. Philip
NOW that Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda has "proved" his majority on the floor of the House, it is time to reflect on the role played by Governor Syed Sibtey Razi, who has been universally berated, if not condemned. But is he all that guilty? It is difficult to sift fact from fiction but once this is done, he will emerge like the fictional King Lear, who was more sinned against than sinning.

Country’s first penless, bagless school
By Annu Anand
Udaipur: In a pioneering effort to take literacy to a higher technology medium, a school in Rajasthan has replaced pen and paper with computers. The Central Public Senior School in this tribal belt here relies almost completely on computers, reports Grassroots Features.

From Pakistan
Order in rape case stayed
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday suspended the acquittal of five people convicted in the high-profile gang rape of a woman. 

• New PU college opposed

• Call to lift ban on wheat

• Pak’s biggest scheme

 

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Justice Variava’s disclosure
The culprit must be punished

Tuesday’s disclosure by Justice S.N. Variava in the Supreme Court that someone from the Patna High Court had called him up a day earlier to know whether the trial judge in the fodder scam case could be replaced is shocking and deeply disturbing. Whoever has called up the Judge will have to be hauled up for contempt and given severe punishment. Significantly, Justice Variava heads the three-member Bench which is hearing a petition seeking the cancellation of bail granted to Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife, Mrs Rabri Devi. Interference in the working of the judiciary by anyone must not be tolerated at any cost as it will not only have a deleterious impact on the administration of justice but also erode people’s confidence in it. Clearly, the only motive of the caller in question was to influence the highest court and scuttle justice in the Rs 900-crore fodder scam case. This is a grave offence and calls for a thorough probe, notwithstanding Solicitor-General G. E. Vahanvati’s assurance to the court that the public prosecutor of the case at Patna will not be changed.

Normally, if a Judge reveals that someone is interfering with his duties, he himself can initiate action against the offender for contempt. Ordinarily, Justice Variava’s statement can itself serve as a warning, discouraging further attempts to influence the course of the case. But the people who are insensitive to the values that are important to the judiciary do not understand the meaning of grace and do not deserve mercy from the Supreme Court. The country would like to know the name of the caller —howsoever well placed he may be — and also see him punished for his call which smacks of mala fide.

There has been undue delay in the trial of Mr Yadav and his wife in the fodder and disproportionate assets cases. The trial is in the CBI Special Court in Patna but the High Court regulates the judges’ postings and transfers. As many as three judges have already been transferred from the CBI court, proving the extent of nefarious attempts to scuttle justice. The apex court’s firm resolve to expedite the cases is encouraging, but interference in the judiciary cannot be allowed to go unpunished.

Chinese new law
It steps up pressure on Taiwan

With China’s National People’s Congress passing a Taiwan-specific law on Monday, the communist giant has sent out two clear messages to the world. One, it will be legally justified to use its military might to unify the island of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland if it fails to achieve the objective through all other means. Two, outside powers (read the US) should keep off Taiwan in the interest of peace. To ensure that the world does not consider the legislation as a “War Bill”, the Chinese have used the expression “non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

But what is the immediate provocation for the new law? Taiwanese President Chen Shiu-bian was re-elected in 2004 by making the promise that he would amend his country’s constitution to clearly underline its “sovereign and independent status”. This was enough for the Chinese to act the way they have done, though what Mr Chen said was primarily aimed at winning the election. China too is unlikely to launch an invasion of Taiwan so long as the status quo remains undisturbed. However, by enacting the new law it has stepped up the pressure on Taiwan to shun the path of independence, and given notice to the world to keep its hands off what it regards as One China affair.

The anti-secession law is obviously upsetting for Taiwan. In their anxiety they may take measures to formalise their independence — a prospect China abhors and will not accept. That will mean greater tension in the region. The US will find itself in difficult straits in such a scenario. It may not do anything that jeopardizes its massive economic interests in China. At the same time, it would not like to be seen as ignoring its commitments in Taiwan, with which it has an agreement to defend it militarily if such an eventuality arises. The US may, therefore, do everything possible to prevent the situation from taking an ugly turn. Its use of a guarded language to criticise China and snubbing of Taiwanese leaders for their clamour for independence can be interpreted as a step in that direction. The situation may not go out of control, but Washington may have to prevent Taiwan from doing anything that may disturb peace in the Taiwan Straits.

SEZ for Chandigarh
Need to upgrade infrastructure

THE Chandigarh administration has at last realised that the Union Territory can have a special economic zone (SEZ) with a focus on IT, biotech and electronic units. It has sent a proposal to this effect to the Centre and expects its clearance in two months. Though belated, the idea does deserve a sympathetic and undelayed response from the bureaucrats in charge at the Centre. Chandigarh’s IT Park, boasting the presence of Infosys Technologies, is almost ready, but it has been put on hold in the hope of Central clearance for the SEZ. An Infosys official, who was in the city on Tuesday, painted a rosy future for the UT. He expects IT exports worth Rs 1,000 crore from Chandigarh and the creation of some10,000 jobs in the next five years. That is possible.

But has the administration done the spade work required on its part to establish the special economic zone? Not much beyond setting up the IT Park. An SEZ requires at least 1,000 acres of land with regular water and power supply. The city perpetually suffers from the shortage of both, specially in summer. The local airport also needs to be upgraded. Its upgradation is on the Centre’s agenda, but how long it would take is anybody’s guess. The demand for housing would shoot up once industries come up as proposed. This would mount pressure on the existing infrastructure, already creaking under the burden of the populations of the satellite towns of Mohali and Panchkula.

Mohali is having a separate IT city being promoted by a private firm. There are also plans to locate an SEZ here. If both these projects take off, which no doubt these should, a need would soon arise to have a coordinated plan for the development of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula on the pattern of the Delhi NCR. Chandigarh already has limited space for expansion and real estate prices are on the rise. Therefore, advance planning is better than a fire-fighting approach to likely future problems of urban growth.

Thought for the day

Parents are a curious phenomenon. They seem to live their lives again in their children. — Jawaharlal Nehru

ARTICLE

Jharkhand and after
Out of the frying pan into the fire
by Pran Chopra

Six months ago I convened a high-level seminar in New Delhi to consider the following proposition by me which I put before the participants:

“Indian federalism faces the risk of a constitutional impasse between the Supreme Court and the constituent power of Parliament. In the past, such conflicts could be resolved by referring to the Constitution. But this may not always be possible in future in view of a challenge the Supreme Court has posted to the Constitution itself.”

The seminar was inaugurated by a former Prime Minister, and among those who took part in it were a former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, two former Attorneys-General, a former Chief Justice of India, two Chief Justices of High Courts, a former Cabinet Minister and senior politician for a couple of decades, a former Chief Election Commissioner, about half a dozen senior advocates, and many well-known academics and activists.

They came to a nearly unanimous conclusion that relations between the two most senior institutions of our parliamentary federal democracy, Parliament and the Supreme Court, were in a serious state of disrepair and, unless repaired soon, could deteriorate into a deadlock.

A deadlock nearly arose a few days ago, in its full ugliness. The Speaker of the Jharkhand Assembly discarded all conventions and norms in deciding to invite a Congress MLA of doubtful credentials to form the government. The Supreme Court responded by discarding the practice of leaving it to the presiding officer to conduct the business of the House. Instead, it sent him a detailed list of do’s and don’ts for an impending confidence vote. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha protested against this “disturbing situation” which violated “a basic feature of our Constitution” and interfered with “sustenance to our parliamentary democracy”. He also urged that “a reference” be made to the President, while others denounced what they saw as “a transgression” by the court. The situation was cooled only by the Prime Minister’s warning against a “confrontation” with the court.

The last of that situation has not been heard yet. The Lok Sabha Speaker has called, and till the writing of these lines had not called off, a meeting of the presiding officers of legislatures (whether including the Rajya Sabha is not very clear) to consider the wider implications of the Supreme Court issuing such directives to a legislature. It is not certain whether state assembly Speakers who belong to the Congress party (or the BJP) will participate in the meeting called by the Speaker, if it is held at all, and it is even more uncertain whether the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha will attend, considering the status of that House and the opposing positions of the respective parties to which he and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha belong.

But what the views of those who participate would be is not difficult to guess. Mr Purno Sangma, a former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, narrated at the aforesaid seminar last September that when he called a similar meeting of all presiding officers some years ago “ a hundred per cent” of the participants expressed opposition to “judicial activism”. Since then the opposition can only have stiffened, even if its expression might be softened in deference to the Prime Minister.

The subject at the seminar I convened, and which I explained in a 30-page theme paper, was not restricted to something so specific as the procedure for forming a government. But it was not less explosive for being less restricted. It concerned a wider and therefore bigger minefield, involving a direct conflict between the position of Parliament as clearly set out in the Constitution, and the position assumed by the Supreme Court in the Keshavanand case and by many judges and some lawyers since then.

The Constitution has said clearly and emphatically that nothing that is said anywhere in the Constitution prevents Parliament from amending any part of the Constitution when meeting in its constituent mode, so long as the amendment is made in accordance with the provisos to Article 368 ( which mainly seek to protect the rights of the constituent states of the Indian federation.)

On the other hand, the Keshvanand judgement has been taken by the Supreme Court, and by others since then, to mean that Parliament, no matter in what mode it may meet, cannot make any amendment to any article of the Constitution which the Court, at that or any other time, declare to be a part of the “basic features” of the Constitution, a term which the court has not qualified or limited by any clarification or definition whatever.

What makes the position more ominous in the context of the Jharkhand case is that events since the Keshvanand judgement, and now in Jharkhand itself, have further disgraced the parliamentary system as a whole and made all parts of it still more vulnerable to the Supreme Court’s further elevated view of its own role. The result is that whereas until now, and even at the seminar in September, a confrontation between the Supreme Court and Parliament was only apprehended, today it has become a glaring event. The country waits to see which will blink.

Cases like Keshvanand had arisen in the Supreme Court a few times before that case itself. In all of them everyone, including the Supreme Court, had accepted what the Constitution says in favour of Parliament’s constituent role. But by the time matters came to be tested again, in the early 1970s, Parliament’s face had been darkened a bit in the public eye by events before, during, and after the Emergency, and much more by the acts of rowdyism which people see happening in Parliament every day in present times. As a result, Parliament has few takers left and the court has filled up that vacuum.

How deep the malaise has gone came home to me in two remarks I heard in connection with the seminar. The first from a very eminent parliamentarian. He said he fully shared my distress over the decline of Parliament, and my desire to see it regain its former stature. But, he added, “this Parliament?”, and his normally very tranquil face curled up in disgust.

The second remark was made by Fali Nariman. It does him honour that in the matter of Jharkhand he could still disagree with the position of the Supreme Court. But in the matter of amendments to the Constitution he expressed satisfaction at the seminar that with Keshvanand the Supreme Court “has resumed custody of the Constitution which was in danger of being taken over by Parliament”.

One more quote from another kind soul, and I have done. During five-sixths of the time he spoke about my theme paper at the seminar Soli Sorabji castigated it. Then, twice, he agreed with what I had been saying all along, that what is allowed or not allowed regarding amendments to the Constitution should be laid down in the Constitution, not in judgements by courts. So, the progeny of Jharkhand may be as long as it is unpredictable.

The writer is a veteran journalist. A book based on the seminar he has mentioned is under preparation.

MIDDLE

Fair exchange
by Raj Chatterjee

He was a small, compact man, with thinning hair, a round face, a short nose and a well-trimmed, grey moustache. We were at the Delhi, inter-state bus terminus, both waiting to board the night, “de luxe” coach to Mussoorie.

I had bought my ticket in advance and I found myself sharing a seat with the man I have just described. It was a hot and stuffy night in early June and I heaved a sigh of relief when, on the dot, the bus moved out of the crowded terminus.

I am not, normally, a sociable fellow on a journey but as the roof lights were too dim and the bus too shaky. I was unable to read the magazine I had brought with me. ‘It’s no use’ said my travelling companion, “and one can’t even go to sleep with all this rattling and shaking.” I expressed my agreement with him.

He introduced himself and I told him my name. “What do you do?” he asked me. “Nothing” I said. “I retired 10 years ago and just try and make myself useful around the house. I have a pension and a few hobbies.”

“You are lucky”, he said. “I wish I could say the same for myself. I am still at the grindstone and there will be no pension for me when I pack up. I’m a dentist.” I thought to myself that of the two of us, he was the lucky one, collecting his fees in cash and that he would continue doing so as long as he had the strength to yank out a tooth.

It transpired that both of us were going up to Mussoorie to join our families, he for a fortnight (his patients couldn’t spare him for longer) and I until the monsoon arrived in Delhi, hopefully in a month’s time.

One topic led to another. We talked of our children. He had two sons, both of them well-settled in life, and a daughter who was married and had provided him with his first grandchild. I said that I had two daughters, three grandsons but no son of my own. I hastily added that I was happy with what God had given me.

We got down to stretch our legs at Meerut and ordered cold drinks at the kiosk for which he insisted on paying. At Muzaffarnagar I returned the compliment.

We reached the library terminus at Mussoorie at 5 a.m. It was still quite dark but we managed to get two porters to carry our belongings. We said goodbye, exchanged our Mussoorie addresses but knowing that neither of us was likely to visit the other. How wrong we were!

As soon as I reached my little bungalow in Barlowgunj, I discovered that instead of my battered, old suitcase, I had got one the same size but much newer with the initials of my dentist friend on it. The two porters had obviously followed the wrong employers.

I had a bath and my breakfast and then, unshaven, my kit being in my missing suitcase, went in search of the house, up in Mussoorie, whose address had been given to me earlier that morning.

But this time I was the lucky one. I had hardly gone a kilometre uphill when I saw my erstwhile travelling companion coming down the road followed by a porter carrying my suitcase on his head. I observed, with some satisfaction, that my friend too had been unable to shave.

OPED

Political perfidy in Jharkhand
The majority that never was
by A. J. Philip

NOW that Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda has "proved" his majority on the floor of the House, it is time to reflect on the role played by Governor Syed Sibtey Razi, who has been universally berated, if not condemned. But is he all that guilty? It is difficult to sift fact from fiction but once this is done, he will emerge like the fictional King Lear, who was more sinned against than sinning.

To begin from the beginning, the BJP was in power in Jharkhand. It enjoyed a clear majority in the House that allowed it to complete its full term. But in the February elections, it failed to win a clear majority. The BJP and the Janata Dal (U) could together get only 36 seats out of a total of 81. By no stretch of the imagination could this figure be construed as constituting a clear majority. There were as many as 45 MLAs, who won by campaigning against the BJP.

A convention has evolved in the country whereby the single largest party is given the first chance. In such a case, Mr Arjun Munda should have been invited to form the government. The little problem here is that Bihar Governor Buta Singh would have followed suit and installed Mrs Rabri Devi as Chief Minister because her Rashtriya Janata Dal has emerged as the single largest party in Bihar.

Her husband and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is so resourceful that he would have in no time split the Lok Janshakti Party of Rambilas Paswan, won over most of the independents and smaller parties and cobbled together a clear majority. If anybody has any doubts on this score, he would do well to remember that at the height of the Mandal agitation, he had managed to split the BJP in Bihar. He proved to the doubting Thomases that caste had greater pull than religion. The man who helped him in splitting the BJP at that time is the one who has just been elected Speaker in Jharkhand, Mr Inder Singh Namdhari.

It is precisely because of this reason that nobody, other than the RJD MLAs, wants Mrs Rabri Devi to be given a chance. What is poison for Bihar cannot be sweet for Jharkhand. If the verdict in Bihar was against the Laloo-Rabri regime, the verdict in Jharkhand was against the BJP regime.

The Governor could have invited the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP to form a government and prove its majority within a few days. But a problem arose when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) also staked its claim to form a government. The NDA paraded five independent MLAs before the Governor. The practice of parading of MLAs was deprecated by no less an authority than the Sarkaria Commission, which said the only forum where the majority could be proved was the floor of the House.

In other words, it was not mandatory for Syed Razi to take cognizance of the so-called parading. He got two lists of MLAs from the UPA and the NDA. While the former had 42 names, the latter had only 41 names. It was obvious that one name was common. The Governor had no other option but to use his discretion. As a result, JMM chief Shibu Soren was sworn in as Chief Minister. When discretionary power is used in such situations, it is more than likely that a disputant would not like it while the other would lap it up.

It was, therefore, quite natural for the NDA to feel upset but to accuse the Governor of "supari killing" as BJP chief Lal Krishna Advani did was quite unjustified. While the Governor was within his rights to give Mr Soren a chance if he was convinced that he had greater support than Mr Munda, he erred and, grievously at that, when he gave him 21 days to prove his majority.

A maximum of one week would have been justified in the given situation. After all, the Sarkaria Commission had specifically mentioned that such a trial of strength should be completed within the shortest possible time. But by being liberal, the Governor exposed himself to charges of partisanship. It is not for no reason that it is said that Caesar's wife should be above suspicion. Alas! Syed Razi could not measure up to the yardstick the Bard had laid.

Unlike in the past, this time Governor bashing came from certain unexpected quarters also which condemned him without as much as hearing him. The good soul that the President is, he took the unusual step of summoning Syed Razi to New Delhi to advise him to advance the date for the trial of strength. The Supreme Court found it necessary to advance the date even further!

All this while, what was the NDA doing? It spirited away the five independent MLAs in a cloak-and-dagger style, which would have done a Houdini proud. Worse, it made a public announcement that all the five MLAs would be made ministers. This has wetted the appetite of one of them, who has demanded that he be given no less than the Deputy Chief Minister's post.

True to the NDA's promise, all the five were sworn in as ministers. But to win the Speaker's election that preceded the trial of strength, it needed one more MLA. So, all attempts were made to force the lone NCP member, Mr Kamlesh Singh, who was an honourable minister in Mr Soren's cabinet to support the NDA government. He preferred to get admitted to a hospital again than to appear in the House.

Initially, the NDA wanted the trial of strength on Monday. Since it had not sewed up the arrangement with the NCP member, who happens to be a close relation of a top BJP leader by then, it was forced to postpone it to Tuesday. Finally, the NDA managed to persuade two more UPA members not to attend the House and take part in the voting resulting in a 40-37 victory for the Arjun Munda ministry. In the end, it got only 40 votes in a House of 81. So, where was the so-called majority that the BJP claimed all along?

In other words, inducement, force, trickery and emotional blackmail were liberally employed to cook up a majority to rule Jharkhand. And what has the tribal-dominated state received in return? It has been saddled with a ministry in which six members are greenhorns. The NDA can justifiably take credit in defeating the UPA, but does that amount to a moral victory? Now, in retrospect, was not Syed Razi more sinned against than sinning?

Country’s first penless, bagless school
By Annu Anand

Udaipur: In a pioneering effort to take literacy to a higher technology medium, a school in Rajasthan has replaced pen and paper with computers.

The Central Public Senior School in this tribal belt here relies almost completely on computers, reports Grassroots Features.

For the students learning geography in a class, all information on the “earth and rocks” chapter is accessible at a click of their mouse.

Mathematics, Hindi, general knowledge — all subjects are gleaned from the computer.

Even nursery children learn “A for Apple” on their PCs. As soon as the pictures fill the screen, the class reverberates with their sounds.

The school, well on its way to becoming the country’s first pen-less and bag-less school, was started in 1998 and has about 1,200 students on its rolls.

School Principal Alka Sharma had wanted to free children’s shoulders from the burden of schoolbags. She mulled different ways of doing so before finally hitting upon the use of computers to translate her idea into action.

To introduce computerised education, she used software to transform syllabi of different subjects into computerised modules.

The whole class is introduced to a new lesson with the help of a liquid crystal display (LCD) and projector.

In a recorded voice, the teacher talks of the lesson’s main points as in a normal classroom. The children then do their academic assignments on computers.

For homework and class exercises, the children are also allowed to take computers home by rotation.

The head of the computer department, Sunil Bawel, says: “With help from the technical staff, teachers prepare question papers by using special software packages such as `Karo Karo’.”

The “answer sheets” are checked on computers and marks are allocated to the students instantly. Tests for Classes 2 to 12 are also conducted over computers.

Sharma says: “We would also like to have the final Class 12 examinations on computers, but parents are not ready for it. Moreover, the state examination board has to agree to the change.”

However, about half the final examinations of the school are conducted over computers while the rest are taken the traditional way - with paper and pen.

In 2003, the school received a second prize for excellence in computer education from President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

“Initially, when I used to talk about a pen-less school, people used to be surprised. But now my dream has taken shape. After we got this recognition, parents are also encouraged about the experiment and are helping the school in conducting all exams on computers,” says Sharma.

Most children in the school are happy with the new teaching system.

Showing pictures of different rocks on his computer screen, Mayank of Class 7 says one could explore different subjects creatively this way and also get practical information. — IANS

From Pakistan
Order in rape case stayed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday suspended the acquittal of five people convicted in the high-profile gang rape of a woman.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Nazim Hussain, has ordered that “the proceedings initiated at the Federal Shariat Court as well as the Multan Bench of the Lahore High Court are stayed,” court officials said.

The Islamabad-based Federal Shariat Court had on Friday summoned the five men whose death sentence passed in August 2002 was overturned earlier this month by a high court. A date for a new hearing will be fixed later. — The Nation

New PU college opposed

LAHORE: The newly created Punjab University College of Earth and Environmental Sciences is facing opposition by some of the faculty members of the Institute of Geology.

Sources told The Nation that in a recently held meeting, the faculty members urged the PU administration to keep the earth sciences separate from the environmental sciences as it was related to the field of geology instead of environmental studies. — The Nation

Call to lift ban on wheat

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Food, Agriculture and Livestock has called upon the provinces to lift the ban on the inter-provincial movement of wheat so that farmers could freely sell their produce wherever they got the maximum price.

Presiding over a meeting of the committee at the Parliament House on Tuesday, Syed Ahmad Alam Anwar asked the ministry to fully exploit the potential in the horticulture sector which would generate employment as well as earn foreign exchange for the country. — The Dawn

Pak’s biggest scheme

KARACHI: The Water and Power Development Authority’s “Vision 2025” programme is aimed at developing 65 million acre feet (MAF) of additional water storage capacity in the Indus Basin and adding 27,000 megawatts (MW) of hydro and thermal electricity-generation capacity to the national grid to meet the country’s growing water and power needs.

At current prices, the cost of the Vision 2025 programme is estimated at $ 45 billion, making it the biggest development scheme in Pakistan’s history. — The News

REFLECTIONS

— The Buddha