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A fine balance Defeat after defeat Water, water! |
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The next Gandhi is on offer How the City of Lights is also the city of leaks Delhi Durbar
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A fine balance PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh and Chief Justice of India Justice K.G. Balakrishnan have rightly stressed the need for all the three organs of the State — the legislature, the executive and the judiciary — to work in close concert. They can function in harmony only by appreciating one another’s powers and limits. Problems are bound to crop up if they tend to overstep their limits. Addressing the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts, the Prime Minister referred to the “thin line between judicial activism and judicial overreach”. Apparently, he was alluding to the resentment among the political parties to the various rulings of the apex court over the years (including its recent stay on the Central law providing 27 per cent reservation to the OBCs). He aptly said that the judiciary should check the increasing misuse of public interest litigations for settling political scores by setting some standards and benchmarks. The judiciary would do well to appreciate the executive’s concerns and heed the Prime Minister’s advice on checking the misuse of PIL. One should also understand the judiciary’s duty to protect the Constitution against any arbitrary exercise of power by the legislature or the executive. Parliament can enact laws, but it is the judiciary’s duty to test their constitutional validity. As Justice Balakrishnan said, this power of judicial review should not be treated as a “veto-power over legislation.” If the judiciary stays or quashes any law, the legislature and the executive should, instead of questioning its powers, convince it about its merits. Judicial review in India is based on the premise that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that all organs of the government, whether Central, state or local, owe their origin and derive their powers from its provisions. The constitutional dharma requires that all of them discharge their functions within the constitutional framework. They should not do anything which is inconsistent with the constitutional provisions. Otherwise, the judiciary, as the protector and sentinel of the Constitution, is bound to step in. The doctrine of separation of powers under the Constitution has been so designed that all the three organs work in harmony with a common goal — the public good. |
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Defeat after defeat THINGS are just not going right for the Congress. The results of the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections have been as dismaying as those of the Assembly elections in Punjab and Uttarakhand and civic polls in Maharashtra. The alarm bells could not be any louder. Alas, the hearing faculties of the ruling party are nothing to boast of. As the Congressmen normally do in such circumstances, the tendency is to lay the blame for the defeat in Delhi at the door of the demolition and sealing drive launched by the judiciary. This is too blinkered a view which completely ignores its own contribution to the growing disenchantment felt by the voters. It has been actually done in by the failure to control the rampant price rise and the equally shocking shortage of electricity and water. The runaway corruption menace completed the picture. The system was just not responding to the entreaties of the public, which has hit back the only way it can. As far as the sealing is concerned, if it annoyed those whose illegal structures were targeted, it also won the party the support of those inconvenienced for decades by such brazen encroachments. So focusing on this aspect will amount to barking up the wrong tree. In any case, it was too localised a matter to have affected the party’s fortunes, not only in Delhi but elsewhere in the country. With the ground slipping from under its feet, the Congress will do well to do a reality check and steady itself for the 2009 general election. It has barely about a year to make amends because it will be too late once the country goes into the election mode. Passing the buck just won’t do. Instead of finding scapegoats or taking recourse to gimmicks like quota politics, it must do some serious introspection and apply genuine correctives. The long years it spent in banishment from 1996 till 2004 should act as a grim reminder. At the same time, the BJP should not think that it has already staged a comeback. It should at least wait for the results in Uttar Pradesh. |
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Water, water! THE dismal future predicted by some, in which wars will be fought over water, seems to be inching closer to the present. Even if human beings do not pick up guns to kill each other for the precious fluid, the nature itself might protest against its indiscriminate use in such a violent manner that lives of millions may be under threat. That is the sum total of the predictions being made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its fourth assessment report. On the one hand, the per capita water availability might drop to barely half of the current levels within 18 years. And, on the other, climate change might also hit India hard. Many coastal areas of the country, including the densely populated Mumbai, might be inundated due to rising sea levels. While the coastline may face up to 20 per cent higher risk of cyclonic storms, the cereal production elsewhere might fall by as much as 30 per cent by the year 2050. The overall impact on the country would be nothing less than catastrophic. While the climate change is being precipitated because of the collective follies of the entire human race, the depleting water table all over the country is entirely the handiwork of people like us. We draw on ground water maniacally, little realising that deep aquifers take centuries to replenish. Just because water comes fairly cheap, it is wasted without any guilt pangs. Whether it is because of ignorance, or because of political sparring, precious river water is allowed to go unutilised to the sea. The schemes to harvest rainwater are never implemented fully. This tendency is nothing less than criminal. If it is not curbed, even drinking water will become a luxury in the days to come. In fact, the nemesis is already on us. Whether it is Shimla, Delhi or Chennai, water is always at a premium during the summers. Besides acute water and food scarcity, the shocking consequences of global warming also stare us in the eye. What a pity that we respond merely by closing our eyes. |
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However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it most people will think it wrong. —
W. Somerset Maugham |
Document INspite of efforts having been made and being made, and support provided by the government, it is a matter of concern that there are huge arrears of more than 2.5 crores of cases in courts. Over two-thirds of these are criminal cases. While there has been some progress in reducing pendency in superior courts, the position in subordinate courts has hardly shown any improvement. I have been told that the number of fresh cases is generally more than the number disposed in a given period of time. Unless the rate of disposal improves, the backlog would keep mounting. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve the throughput of cases. If the rule of law has to become a living reality these delays and these arrears have to be effectively curbed. I would also like learned judges to consider another suggestion for increasing the disposal of cases. Courts may consider having more than one shift. You are also aware of the government’s interest in speeding up the process of computerisation and E-enabling our courts. A massive exercise has been taken up to computerise all the district and subordinate courts of the country, linking them with the highest court. The first phase of this exercise is to be implemented very soon. I hope computerisation will help our courts reduce pendency. Fast Track Courts are another answer to dealing with the problem of arrears. Though the initial scheme of Fast Track Courts was to end in 2005, our government has extended it to the year 2010, providing central support to the states. The government has provided Rs.509 crore for this purpose. I have been, however, informed that receipt of utilisation reports from the states in this regard is not very satisfactory and hence, there are delays in disbursal. I sincerely hope State governments will take note of this and speed up procedures to ensure smooth flow of Central assistance for this very important purpose. Fast Track Courts have reportedly established a good track record. I hope your deliberations will help further strengthen this track in our justice delivery system. I look forward to learning about your deliberations. I am sure that under the leadership of the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, we will see the issues raised at this conference being addressed by our highest judiciary. I know that Justice Balakrishnan is committed to the reform and modernisation of our judiciary. During his term of office, I sincerely hope and trust, many new initiatives will undoubtedly be taken to provide relief to the litigants and the faith of the people in the judiciary will be reinforced and strengthened. I am happy to say that our government has been able to extend support to the judiciary by investing more in the development of judicial infrastructure. A Ten-Year Perspective Plan has also been drawn up for construction of court buildings and residential accommodation for judges. This Plan is based on inputs provided by the state governments. We are also discussing this matter with the Planning Commission for deciding the outlays for this purpose during the Eleventh Plan. Another important issue that requires attention is the setting up of Family Courts. I am informed that in a number of states, Family Courts have not yet been set up in accordance with the provisions of the Family Courts Act 1984. I sincerely hope these family courts will be set up at the earliest. I do sincerely believe that the judiciary, the executive and the legislature have an obligation both to our Constitution and to our people, to work in harmony. Each one of these organs of the State has an important and vital role to play in improving the welfare and well-being of our people. Each one of the organs has its constitutionally assigned roles and responsibilities, and these must be discharged in all honesty. Each organ must respect the roles and functions of the other. Powers accorded to each organ must be exercised cautiously. In the context of judicial reform, the primary obligation is to enforce the rule of law, uphold the Constitution and enforce the discharge of obligations by any authority of the State. This confers enormous powers on our judiciary, rightly so. But at the same time it also involves enormous responsibility — in the exercise of these powers. Courts have played a salutary and corrective role in innumerable instances. They are highly respected by our people for that. At the same time, the dividing line between judicial activism and judicial over-reach is a thin one. As an example, compelling action by authorities of the state through the power of mandamus is an inherent power vested in the judiciary. However, substituting mandamus with a takeover of the functions of another organ may, at times, become a case of over-reach. These are all delicate issues which need to be addressed cautiously. All organs, including the judiciary, must ensure that the dividing lines between them are not breached. This makes for a harmonious functioning. So is the case with public interest litigation. PILs have great utility in initiating corrective action. At the same time, PILs cannot become vehicles for settling political or other scores. We need standards and benchmarks for screening PILs so that only genuine PILs with a justiciable cause of action based on judicially manageable standards are taken up. This will also ensure consistency in judicial pronouncements. The Supreme Court could take the lead in framing The article has been excerpted from the speech delivered by Dr Manmohan Singh while inaugurating the Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts in New Delhi on Sunday
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Executive
to blame for delayed justice THE
Founding Fathers of our Constitution placed “justice” at the highest
pedestal and the Preamble to our Constitution significantly noticed
justice higher than the other principles, i.e. liberty, equality and
fraternity. Again, the Preamble clearly demonstrates the precedence to
social and economic justice over political justice. People turn to the
judiciary in quest of justice. The Constitution lays down the structure
and defines delimits and demarcates the role and function of every organ
of the State, including the judiciary, and establishes norms for their
inter-relationships, checks and balances. Independence of the judiciary
is essential to the rule of law. It is quite universally
agreed that the institution of judicial review is a unique contribution
made by the American jurisprudence to the art of government. This
extraordinary legal invention has constituted that feature of the
Federal Constitution. Judicial review seems deceptively simple, but it
is one of the most baffling of legal devices. Sometimes it is described
mistakenly as a “veto” power over legislation. The constitutional
validity of legislation as well as of executive acts is decided solely
as an incident of litigation between individual litigants ascertaining
specific rights. The process of constitutional interpretation is thus an integral part of the ordinary legal process, controlled by precedent and standards of judicial objectivity and propriety, although actually constitutional questions usually raise explosive political issues. The application to judicial review to determine constitutionality of the legislation and to review the executive decision sometimes creates tension between the judge and the legislative and executive branches. Such tension is natural and to some extent desirable. The principle of separation of powers are kept in the forefront and the judge should make sure that each of the other branches operates within the boundaries of the law and the judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation and of administrative actions realises democracy. The function of the Supreme Court is of vital importance and it is the anchor which holds us to the constitutional government-ever watchful guardians of the liberty of the people against transgression by legislative or executive action. The balance wheel holding it in equipoise reflects the true relationship of the various parts of the complex system. We are deeply concerned with the great responsibility devolving upon the courts. Of course, the judicial review of legislative and administrative actions has given the right to some criticism of the way in which the courts are functioning. It is essential in a country governed by the rule of law that every decision must be made under the rule of law. Like any other public institution, the judiciary can be subjected to fair criticism if and when occasion demands, but if the criticism is illegitimate and irresponsible, it may leave to incalculable damage to the institution of the judiciary. The experience of the Indian judiciary shows how inseparable the struggle for judicial responsibility, accountability and independence has been. Yet, there are serious concerns about the efficacy and ability of the justice delivery system to dispense speedy and affordable justice. Questions on the credibility of judiciary are being raised due to the mounting arrears of cases, delays in disposal and high cost of obtaining justice. The growing population, increasing awareness of rights and abiding confidence of the people in the judiciary saw a litigation boom which our judicial set-up was not sufficiently equipped to handle. With the enactment of a large number of laws, the volume of work in courts has increased enormously without any increase, let alone a corresponding increase, in the strength of Judges at all levels. People have become more and more aware of their rights and are no longer willing to submit to arbitrariness anywhere. The natural fallout was an overburdened system, too choked to be able to provide expeditious or inexpensive justice. We can rightly take pride for the quality and effectiveness of our judicial system. Yet, we cannot deny that it suffers from serious deficiencies, requiring immediate steps to improve its performance, so as to render prompt and inexpensive service to its consumers. The courts do not possess a magic wand which they can waive to wipe out the huge pendency of cases nor can they afford to ignore the instances of injustices and illegalities only because of the huge arrears of the cases already pending with them. If the courts start doing that, it would be endangering the credibility of the courts and the tremendous confidence they still enjoy among the common man. It is high time we make a scientific and rational analysis of the factors behind the accumulation of arrears and devise a specific plan to at least bring them within an acceptable limit, within a reasonable timeframe. Whenever new legislation is passed it should be accompanied by a budgetary estimate of its impact and necessary financial allocation should be made in the Bill itself to meet the expenditure likely to be incurred on setting up additional courts required to deal with an increase in the workload and providing infrastructure for them. So far the backlog in the subordinate courts is concerned, additional courts must be created and additional judicial officers must be appointed till the backlog is cleared. Ad hoc judges under Article 224A of the Constitution should be appointed to clear the backlog in the high courts for a period of five years or till the backlog is cleared. All the cases pending in the high courts for two years or more can be allocated to these ad hoc judges. Since the annual institution in high courts as well as in subordinate courts exceeds their respective annual disposal, additional judges in high courts as well as in subordinate courts should be appointed on a permanent basis to deal with the increase in institution over the disposal. The inadequate judge strength is a major cause of delay in the disposal of cases. Thus, the main cause for judicial delay lies not so much with the judiciary as with the executive and administrative wing of the The article has been excerpted from the address Justice K.G. Balakrishnan delivered at the Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices on April 8
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The next Gandhi is on offer TRUE to form, the Congress is grooming Rahul Gandhi to be the country’s leader. After being elected from Amethi, the Nehru-Gandhi family’s traditional constituency (the other is Rae Bareilly), he has been largely in the background, despite the expected calls to jumpstart him as a national party general secretary. Campaigning for the long, phased UP assembly elections was an appropriate occasion to launch him for the leadership stakes. He has already had limited exposure in campaigning in the two family constituencies and, given the dismal state of the party in Uttar Pradesh, any significant improvement he can bring about in augmenting the party’s assembly seats will win him kudos. The party is hoping that he can double the score. Ever since Independence, the Congress has relied on the party leader to an extraordinary degree to win elections. But the party was then underpinned by a grassroots structure of workers going down to the village level. Over time, long years of power bred complacence and a popular desire for change, but the landmark destruction of the party came at the time of Indira Gandhi. She wanted to be her own boss as Prime Minister and split the party twice to achieve her objective. The splits were a traumatic experience for the party, but a more immediate setback for it came with the anointing of her younger son Sanjay as the future leader. Imposition of the Emergency had already introduced an extraordinary routine of the son throwing his weight around. And Indira was a leader in a hurry, starving the party at the grassroots to patronise wheeler-dealers who could deliver. The compact between the party and the humble worker was broken, never to be fully restored. The Congress continued to rule for a time. Indira’s defeat was followed by the fractious Janata Party government and other short-lived patchwork governments that followed it, until their interminable quarrels so infuriated the electorate that it brought Indira back. Her assassination led to her older son Rajiv filling her shoes, Sanjay having died in an air accident. But the Bharatiya Janata Party, the renamed Jan Sangh, had found the key to success in blood-curdling rhetoric aimed at the Muslim minority, which culminated in the destruction of the Babri mosque. With initial interruptions, the BJP-led government had a run of six years and just as it was getting comfortable being in power at the Centre, it was unexpectedly toppled by the Congress, which emerged as the largest party in the 2004 election. Ms Sonia Gandhi wisely decided to pass on the Prime Minister’s post to Dr Manmohan Singh, an arrangement that worked reasonably well for the first two years, underpinned by Left support, but tensions have emerged, and the BJP, sensing the public mood for change, has been successfully challenging the Congress at the state level, despite its own series of misfortunes. Uttar Pradesh is, of course, the prize catch, but the BJP will have to be content with being the third party. It hopes it can play the role of the kingmaker. The Congress is fated to be the fourth party. The Rahul Gandhi road show in UP has two aims: to test how far the family magic still holds sway in its home state and, more importantly, to launch him at the national level. In achieving the first objective, the Congress is handicapped by the great erosion of its worker base and the caste arithmetic is against the party, having lost the upper caste-Muslim-Dalit success formula. The party might be more successful in the latter objective, in view of the crowds he has been attracting at his various road stops. For the better part, Rahul has been repeating a few simple messages. The opposition parties have led the people of Uttar Pradesh up the garden path during the last 15 years they have exercised power, in addition to dividing the people by caste and religion. His accent is totally on development – “elections may come and go”, but he will be there. A second theme song of Rahul’s has been to flatter the youth by telling them that their time has come to assume the reins of office. And, in an obvious attempt at ensnaring Muslim votes, he suggested that the Babri mosque would be still standing if a family member had been in power, in an indirect indictment of the then Congress Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao. By and large, the 36-year-old Member of Parliament from Amethi has pitched his rhetoric at a rather modest level, knowing full well that if he can double the 25 seats the party won the last time, before losing members to other parties, he would score high in political terms. For the most part, Rahul has come across as a personable young man, somewhat shy of the media but sounding sincere in his remarks, unremarkable though they have been in content. Thus far, Rahul has performed rather well in his road shows. Whatever the results of the UP elections, the Congress has no fallback position but to rely on a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to return to power at the national level. There is residual goodwill for the Congress, in UP in particular, but in many other parts of the country as well, and the throngs that have met Rahul Gandhi during his campaign halts are a testimony of people’s affection as well as curiosity to see what the newest family member on offer looks and sounds like. But there is no streamlined party mechanism to convert this sympathy into votes. As any party tactician knows, it is one thing to attract crowds, quite another to convert them into votes. And Rahul’s style has been inevitably cramped by the public warning that he has to follow the rules set by his posse of guards protecting his person. |
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How the City of Lights is also the city of leaks PARIS – Leaks are usually welcome in newspaper offices. My office in Paris, shared with the BBC, has been showered with leaks over the years, few of them welcome. The building is new by Paris standards but the internal plumbing – like the plumbing throughout the city – is a rusting, rotting mess. Unwelcome liquids cascaded down upon the BBC bureau from the apartments upstairs the other day: probably the 20th time this has happened in the last ten years. Our flat, in a much older building, is even worse. Barely a month goes by without us causing, or suffering, a serious leak. The permanently angry man downstairs has virtually accused us of boring holes in the pipes. The facades of buildings in Paris are mostly impeccable. The owners, or co-owners, are obliged by a city by-law to blast-clean them every ten years. Hence, in part, the extraordinary beauty and neatness of the City of Light. Behind those shining, architecturally uniform Parisian exteriors there lies a shambles; a swamp. Most Paris buildings are co-owned by the proprietors of the individual apartments and offices. They manage the buildings through owners’ committees and share expenses on the “common” parts or services, such as the plumbing. For decades, for centuries in some cases, the committees have delayed, refused or cheese-pared expenditure on fundamentals such as the sewerage and water pipes. Thousands of former chambres de bonnes (maids’ rooms) in the attics have been converted to smart bed-sitters and flats with their own bathrooms and toilets. The communal pipes have remained untouched. Result: the City of Light is also the City of Leaks and even, in one character-building incident that I suffered, the City of... After fire and theft, claims for damage caused by “fuites d’eau”, flights of water, or leaks, are the single largest burden for French insurance companies. You have, by French law, to be insured against leaks. There is no law – like the facade-cleaning law – to force the co-owners of buildings to invest in plumbing. All of this could, in this puzzling election year, be made a metaphor for the “state of France”. On the one hand, you have a country whose quality of life and public services are the envy of the world. You have a country that loves planning and still has a national, strategic document called “Le Plan”. You have a country that has just broken (again) the record for the world’s fastest train. On the other hand (behind the facade), you have a country where selfish, short-term interests – from jurassic trade unions, to conceited, immobile politicians, to dominant businessmen with political connections – have blocked the pipes of sensible, long-term policy-making for nearly three decades. Every so often, the pipes burst or overflow and unpleasant substances pour into the nation’s living room. A decision is then made to do nothing very much until the next time.
A tale of two riots On Tuesday, March 27, 2007, a 33-year-old Congolese man was arrested at the Gare du Nord in Paris for attacking an inspector while travelling without a ticket. He was dragged along the ground by police. An angry, multi-racial crowd of young people gathered. The police prematurely fired tear-gas, making the crowd even more angry. During several hours of scuffling and vandalism and looting of shops, 13 people were arrested. There was a national outcry, blanket coverage on the television news. The centre-right presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, used the incident to stir up fear of renewed violence in the multi-racial suburbs. He accused his socialist and centrist opponents of being “morally deficient” and supporting free-loading and violence. He rose in the opinion polls. On Thursday, April 5, ten hooded people smashed their way into a government office in Nimes. Wielding iron bars, they destroyed 20 computers and all the furniture. No national outcry. No coverage on the national, television news. M. Sarkozy said nothing. Who were the hooded vandals? They were farmers, taking part in a demonstration called by the local farmers’ union, associated with the largest, national farming federation, the FNSEA. This federation’s favourite candidate in the presidential election is...Nicolas Sarkozy. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Delhi Durbar THE announcement of a mechanism to decide on troop reduction may have ended the stand-off between the PDP and the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir but it has apparently not led to an improvement in personal ties between leaders of the coalition in the state. Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who preferred to speak his mind on the PDP demands through the media, seemingly was in no hurry to speak to the top PDP leaders after the the mechanism was
announced by the Centre. PDP leaders indicated that the top leaders of the alliance did not interact after the party raised its pitch on the issue of troop reduction, withdrawal of the AFSPA and clearing of agricultutal land held by security forces. However, despite its complaints about the style of functioning of the Chief Minister, the PDP conveyed to the Congress high command that it valued its relationship with the party. CD tactics The CD controversy has caught the BJP on the backfoot. But the talk doing the rounds is that it was a well calculated strategy of the RSS to bring the Hindutva agenda back to the fore in the crucial UP polls. With the main contest appearing to be between the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the backroom managers of the BJP wanted to play the Hindutva card to consolidate its support base, which was being wooed by other parties. That’s the spin being given by some of the saffron brigade followers. Their rationale: why would Jan Morcha, BSP, Congress and SP rush to criticise the CD – only to please the Muslims and consolidate their vote bank. That’s the rough and tough of politics in the cow belt.
Great pioneer President A P J Abdul Kalam, while delivering the Babu Jagjivan Ram memorial lecture last week, recalled the moving reception that Nelson Mandela gave him on a visit to Johannesberg. Before leaving, Kalam asked Mandela about the pioneers of the anti-apartheid movement. Mandela responded: “Of course, one of the great pioneers of South Africa’s freedom movement was M.K. Gandhi. India gave us M. K. Gandhi and we gave you back Mahatma Gandhi after two decades. Mahatma Gandhi was an apostle of non-violence.” That indeed is the tradition of Indians – to enrich whichever nation we go to, Kalam noted.
Firm message A cut-out of a little girl in school uniform has been placed next to the ticket counters at a metro station in the New Delhi area. The cut-out reads “Papa, please buy me a token. I am three feet tall.” The simple yet meaningful message is obviously aimed at close-fisted parents who don’t want to buy tickets for children and like to project even grown up children to qualify in the free travel category. Must say, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation knows how to pass on a polite but firm message to commuters. Contributed by Prashant Sood, R Suryamurthy, S Satyanarayanan and Tripti Nath |
Possession of wealth is to be praised if it is used to sustain many. One comes naked into the world and departs also naked. One must work to match one’s destiny as divinity ordained.
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