 |
|
Prolonged
trials Profile |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Unrest in Tibet Inflationary fears in
India On Record
|
Prolonged trials No
person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law ”, says Article 21 of the 1950 Indian Constitution. The negative covenant prescribed by this article does not prevent the state from killing a person or incarcerating a person — the only restriction on this right to kill or imprison is that the state must follow some procedure which has been prescribed. It is the right of every citizen and the duty of every law enforcer to know the procedures which permit the removal of a person from society, whether permanently or temporarily. By and large, the due procedure that is followed today is contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure — a law enacted by the Parliament of India in early 1974. One of the main reasons for the consolidation of the procedural code was the desire of Parliament and the recommendation of the first Law Commission that every effort should be made to avoid delay in investigation and trial which is harmful not only to the individuals involved but also to society. It was perhaps this intention which became a part of the written law in the form of Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This section fairly guarantees that the trial of an accused shall take place as expeditiously as possible. In fact, this section makes it obligatory for the judge to hold proceedings on a day-to-day basis, especially when the examination of witnesses has begun. Any adjournments have to be explained by the judge in writing and a strong hint is provided that whenever either side seeks an adjournment, they must be required to pay costs to the court. As always, the intent of the legislature and the practice in courts have little in common. While the legislature desired that a trial once started should be finished in one session, possibly spread over multiple days, it is not unusual today to see trials continuing for months, years and decades. It is also not unusual to find the accused under-trial incarcerated during the length of the prolonged trial despite a provision in the section that “remand” ought not to be for more than 15 days at a time. In some cases which have come to light it has been seen that the accused under-trial has spent more time in jail during the trial than he would have had to spend in jail even if he had been held guilty and punished with the maximum possible sentence. It is worth remembering that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which India has ratified and which is therefore a part of Indian law since 1979, makes it obligatory that anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release. It shall not be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody. The fact that the convention is part of the Indian domestic law does not need much discussion, the issue also having been finally decided by the Supreme Court in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties case in 1997. It is also worthwhile to notice that the European Convention on Human Rights also imposes a similar obligation on the state to initiate and conclude a trial quickly. The European Court in Strasbourg has taken governments to task repeatedly for their failure to ensure quick and speedy trials and has gone on to discharge accused under-trials on “process grounds” simply because their human rights were violated by the failure of the prosecuting agency to conclude their trials within reasonable time. Some years ago while interning in a prominent barrister’s chambers in London, I had the occasion to ask out one of the Queen’s counsel for dinner. The date I suggested had to be changed because the Silk had blocked a five-day period for a trial he was conducting. The court had not only intimated the date of the beginning of the trial to the barrister, but had also set the date on which the trial was to conclude — a useful lesson, and one worth emulating indeed. It is not that we have not had speedy trials in India — Bhagat Singh’s trial for the assassination of Saunders and the eventual dismissal of his appeal by the Privy Council took less than half a year. Unfortunately, however, lawyers and judges have got used to hiding behind statistics to justify adjournments in criminal trials. The mandate of Section 309 notwithstanding, trials are adjourned endlessly and for every reason except those envisaged in the Act. Each adjourned date means that the judge and the lawyers need to refresh their memory about the facts wasting precious court time and requiring still more imprisonment of the accused and a posse of policemen to escort him to the court. The phase of militancy in Punjab in the 1980s and 1990s gave the “system” yet another excuse to turn a blind eye to the violation of the law and the rights of the accused. The days of terror were not conducive to day-to-day trials, we were told, and for various reasons, the trials had to be adjourned time and again. Be that as it may, the same reason cannot possibly shield our incompetence and lethargy today. Justice K.T. Thomas, speaking for the Supreme Court a decade ago, said volumes when he wrote: “It causes anguish to us that in spite of the exhortations made by this court and a few high courts, time and again, some of the trial courts exhibit stark insensitivity to the need for swift action, even in cases where the accused are languishing in prisons for long years as undertrials only on account of the slackness, if not inertia, in accelerating the process during trial stage.” On another occasion, the court had to lament “Thus, the legal position is that once examination of witnesses started the court has to continue the trial from day-to-day until all wit nesses in attendance have been examined… The court has to record reasons for deviating from the said course. Even that is forbidden when witnesses are present in court as the requirement then is that the court has to examine them. Now, we are distressed to note that it is almost a common practice and regular occurrence that trial courts flout the said command with immunity. Even when witnesses are present cases are adjourned on far less serious reasons or even on flippant grounds ” There are scores of judgments where the Supreme Court has had to specifically direct the trial court to follow the law and to conduct day-to-day trials; which in itself is a sad comment on the “system”. A judgement of the Supreme Court is the law for the high courts and subordinate courts — but possibly not a law that they care to bear in mind while depriving a person, who has not yet been convicted, of his
liberty. The writer is a Barrister-at-Law, practising at the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Chandigarh
|
|
Profile To her surprise, he offered to join the PPP when political leaders were afraid to meet her. “There is nothing I can offer you, why have you come”? asked an astonished Benazir. Gillani told her, “there are three types of people in the world; lovers of honour, of wisdom and of wealth. I am the first type, and that is all I want”. Benazir was impressed and thus began Gillani’s tryst with the PPP. It is widely believed in Pakistan that Gillani’s loyalty and his disdain for politicking within the party earned him the nomination for the prestigious office of Prime Minister. His track record shows he has no lust for office and if and when Asif Ali Zardari becomes eligible to become MP, he would step down without any fuss. Gillani was, perhaps, the only man among the top leadership of the PPP who did not pester Zardari for any position. On his part, Zardari says he has no intention of replacing Gillani. Even though the new Prime Minister does not hanker after position, his career graph shows he is a leader of conviction; no amount of coercion or pressure can deter him from what he considers correct. So much as that he has come to be known in the PPP as “Mr No.” He refused to join renegades in the PPP enticed by the Musharraf regime and refused to deal with the army dictator. He was sent to jail by Gen Musharraf, for five years following his conviction over an alleged illegal government appointment. He was then quoted as saying that the charges “concocted and were fabricated to pressurise me to leave the PPP…. Since I refused to oblige Musharraf, his regime convicted me so that I could be disqualified and set an example for other political leaders who may learn to “behave like good boys”. He was released in October, 2006. His stance and defiance won him many admirers, even among government circles. Zardari has been quoted as saying that “Gillani Sahib slept in jail without a proper bed for three months but he never contacted his powerful friends and influential relatives for help. He remained loyal to the party during his jail-term. We have a lot of respect for him; he was the best available choice for the post of Prime Minister”. Fiftysix-year-old Gillani has the distinction of saying a big “No” to both President Musharraf and the late Benazir Bhutto many times. PPP insiders say that the new Prime Minister has always been loyal to his party but he is not a “yes” man, a quality that impressed Zardari. He nominated Giilani because he was sure he would not take any dictation either from the President or from any powerful diplomat. Zardari is confident that that his “Mr No” could become a problem for President Musharraf but not for him During his tenure as the Speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly, the opposition parties led by Nawaz Sharif scuffled with the treasury benches during the speech of the then President Farooq Leghari. That was the year 1995. Benazir sent her Attorney General to Gillani with a message that as the Speaker he must register a police case against the opposition MPs for attacking the President. Gillani politely declined. In the meanwhile, the intelligence agencies conveyed to her that the Speaker was in contact with the opposition parties and was hatching a conspiracy to become the Prime Minister. Benazir sent the report to Gillani. He returned the file with a note to the effect that only time would prove his loyalty. In the course of time, Gillani proved how wrong the intelligence agencies were and how right he
was.
|
|
— Former Federal Minister of
Pakistan Ansar Burney The Congress party has shown neither generosity nor magnanimity towards its allies. Instead of attacking the Opposition, they are undermining their allies. — Nationalist Congress Party
General Secretary D. P. Tripathi — Sonia Gandhi We have never blamed any individual for the price rise as we are confident of controlling it. The present escalation bout is not due to eatables, we have made that clear. — Congress spokesman
Manish Tiwari My entry into the CPM Politburo cannot be interpreted as a direction towards industrialisation in Bengal. It was the party’s directive to a member. — Nirupam
Sen, Bengal Industry Minister — Prakash Karat,
General Secretary of the CPM The Indians were scared after losing a couple of wickets. This is what happens when you don’t come with a clear gameplan. — South African fast bowler
Dale Steyn — Indian off-spinner
Harbhajan Singh The withholding of food is a documented form of abuse in Indian households and is likely correlated with the perpetration of physical violence. Additionally, domestic violence is strongly associated with a woman’s inability to make decisions of herself, including the choice of types and quantities of food that a woman prepares. — Social scientist S. V. Subramanian from Harvard’s department
of society, human development and health
|
Unrest in Tibet Why
is China in jitters over the unrest in Tibet marking the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s forced escape from Lhasa? The Buddhist spiritual leader had to flee his homeland as much to save his life as to preserve the autonomy of his hoary land of birth. The idea behind the Dalai Lama’s escape to India following hostilities in which an estimated 2,000 Tibetans perished was that India would stand by Tibet. But the starry-eyed leadership of Nehru succumbed to China’s designs following quibbling about China’s suzerainty over Tibet without undermining the latter’s sovereignty as an autonomous region. Overruling Sardar Patel’s advice, he hurriedly withdrew the Indian communications establishment in Lhasa on the misguided assumption that it was an “imperialist legacy!” Not many years later China repudiated the so-called McMahon Line boundary as the handiwork of British imperialism reducing Tibet to a Chinese colony. In contrast, Pakistan insisted that the Durand Line should remain its frontier with Afghanistan. Both the McMahon and Durand lines were named after the then foreign secretaries of the British Indian Government. The McMahon Line emanated from the 1914 boundary treaty between the British (India) government and Tibet. Several countries, including Russia and France, recognised it. It was the international practice even in the prevailing jungle of international politics that bilateral agreements with or between colonial powers passed down to successor or independent States should be automatically recognised. The Durand Line (1893) was the upshot of the military deadlock from the Afghan wars between the British India government and the then Afghanistan ruler. It represented the boundary between Afghanistan and north-western India – later Pakistan. The Nehru government kept quiet when Afghanistan unilaterally disowned it in 1949.That was despite India’s support to the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations as a successor to the erstwhile British imperial State, while Afghanistan cast its negative vote. Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1961 questioned India’s “morality” in condoning Kabul’s action, thus objectively egging the Pushto speaking areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to secede. Reverting to China’s trepidation at the unrest in Tibet, it is by no means an attack of guilty conscience because when it comes to the crunch Communist China is a replica of the Leninist establishment of Russia of the early 20th century. Having consolidated their position in China, the Communists set out to expand their empire. While European imperialism was in retreat following the Second World War and the defeat of fascism, a new kind of colonialism came into existence in China. The Chinese infiltrated the provincial administration in Kham province and the Tibetan army’s eastern command at Amdo to capture the Dalai Lama reportedly to kidnap him to China as a captive. It was in such a situation that the Dalai Lama, with the members of his cabinet and over a 100,000 followers crossed over to India in March 1959. As many as 300 dwellings collapsed when the Dalai Lama’s summer palace in Lhasa was razed. Even if Nehru missed a historic opportunity to preserve Tibet’s cultural autonomy and keep India-China relations on a Realpolitic footing, by letting the Dalai Lama settle ultimately at Dharamashala, he enabled his followers to pursue their studies. Over the years, more and more Tibetans have been escaping into India. Meanwhile, China suffered a severe public relations setback when celebrated film-maker and director Steven Spielberg quit as “artistic adviser” for the Games calling them genocide Olympics because of Beijing’s military backing to the Sudan on the Darfur issue (2004) To put India in the wrong and bend the already spineless government further to its will, China made much of an incident in which Tibetan protestors entered its embassy in New Delhi. By the way, during the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966 when the Indian embassy in Beijing was under siege the irrepressible Manohar Lal Sondhi – a member of Parliament –took a donkey procession with pictures of Mao and Chou into the foreground of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi. There was much commotion, no doubt, but China had to swallow the snub ultimately. China has been trying to blame the Dalai Lama for the mounting protests in India and elsewhere against the repression in Tibet. But the record reads different. There were more than six rounds of abortive talks spread over five years between the representatives of the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials between September, 2002, and February, 2006. The venues were Beijing and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province but China would not condescend to even concede there was formal or official contact with the representatives of the Dalai Lama. The Buddhist spiritual leader is a “nonperson” for the Chinese! In fact, the Dalai Lama has gone out of his way to reiterate in an interview with Pranoy Roy of NDTV that he wanted the Beijing Olympics to go unhampered. Ignoring the visceral hatred of Tibetans for Han Chinese, he recalled his visit to Taiwan as an instance of accommodation with Chinese He had also met Mao and Chou in Beijing in 1954 and Deng Xiaoping subsequently. He had also called on Pope John Paul, the Second, at the Vatican in 1981 and 1982. The UN General Assembly passed resolutions in support of Tibetan autonomy in 1959, 1961 and 1965. But the present ruling dispensation in New Delhi lacks moral courage to let Vice-President Hamid Ansari keep an appointment with the Dalai Lama, although it was arranged years ago. In contrast, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, had a cordial meeting with the Dalai Lama US President George Bush telephoned his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to plead for peaceful negotiations with the Dalai Lama. British Premier Gordon Brown similarly spoke to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao In contrast to the pusillanimity of the Manmohan Singh government, Baichung Bhutia, Indian football captain, declined the invitation of the President of the Indian Olympic Association, Suresh Kalmadi, to join the Olympic march. That Aamir Khan would join the jamboree on behalf of Coca Cola is a reflection of a different culture. In short, while the Dalai Lama will not be a party to any disruption of the Beijing Olympics, he cannot also gloss over the repression and oppression of his fellow
Tibetans.
|
|
Inflationary fears in India The
economy of India’s appears to have moved on to a new phase of high growth with an average growth rte of 8.8 per cent over the last five years as investment in the economy has risen sharply. India’s 9.6 GDP growth rate for 2006 double-digit growth in the industrial and services sectors. India’s continued high growth in 2007, estimated at 8.7 per cent resulted from steady gains in the rate of savings and investment, consumption demand, addition of new capacity and the more intensive and efficient use of existing capacity. Strong growth in the industrial and services sectors supported the high overall rate, more than compensating for an agricultural slowdown. GDP growth for India over the next few years is projected to remain at between 8.5 per cent and 9.5 per cent. Concerns have been expressed about whether the country is growing beyond its growth potential thereby straining its labour force and capital stock, and creating inflationary instabilities. The government’s strategy for maintaining high growth while keeping prices fairly stable is to increase productivity, ameliorate skills shortages and add capacity through investments. Monetary policy will continue to play a critical role in maintaining price stability. But the sustainability of high economic growth with moderate inflation will depend critically on fiscal prudence and high investment levels. India could achieve and sustain a 10 per cent growth rate by further improving the country’s business environment, by developing its physical infrastructure and human capital. Inflation in India, as measured by the consumer price index for industrial workers, rose from 4.4 per cent in 2005 to 6.7 per cent in 2006. The increase mainly reflected higher food prices, with demand-supply gaps in the domestic production of major food gains and oilseeds amid rising global prices. But 2006 also led to other inflationary pressures on the demand side, including elevated asset prices, high investment and consumption demand and strong growth in credit and monetary aggregates. To contain inflation the government adopted a tight monetary policy and took various fiscal and supply-side measures in 2006. Inflation in India is estimated at 5.5 per cent for 2007, slowing somewhat from its 2006 rate. But inflationary pressures could persist as international commodity prices, in particular oil prices, further increase. A continuous vigil by all concerned-with appropriate policy actions – would be needed to stabilize prices and anchor inflationary expectations in a sustained fashion. The Indian central government’s fiscal deficit fell in 2006, to 3.7 per cent of GDP and further to 3.1 per cent in 2007. Essentially revenue-led, the government’s deficit reduction strategy focuses on improving the efficiencies in allocating public spending. Its policy of reprioritizing expenditure has led to higher outlays for the social sector. In India both exports and imports continued to grow strongly. Imports increased more than exports, deepening the trade deficit. But thanks to continuing buoyancy in the net invisible surplus, India’s current account deficit in fiscal 2006 was 1.1 per cent of GDP. Net capital inflow to India remained buoyant in 2006, at 4.9 of GDP, far more than the country’s current account deficit. Higher capital inflows for 2006 were attributable to strengthening macroeconomic fundamentals, greater investor confidence and ample global liquidity. Net FDI inflows in 2006 reached $ 19.4 billion. For 2007, both exports and imports are estimated to have grown by more than 20 per cent. Foreign exchange reserves stood at $267 billion at the end of December 2007, and the Indian rupee had appreciated sharply against the United States dollar. The main challenge for countries in South Asia is to sustain, their growth momentum in the face of high oil prices. Should oil prices remain very high, they will compromise economic growth while putting pressure on budgets, inflation rates and the balance of payments in countries throughout the sub-region. So some measures must be taken to hedge the risk of continued high oil prices and – more importantly – to contain oil imports through selective conservation measures.n Excerpts from the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008.
|
|
On Record
Prof M.S.Swaminathan
is credited with developing a strong food security system in the country. He won the World Food Prize in 1987, the Tyler-Honda Prize in 1991, the UNEP Sasakawa Award in 1994 and the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in 2000. Prof Swaminathan is clear that “ if in future we want to feed one billion plus Indians we will have to protect agriculture in the country, especially in Punjab and Haryana, which are the guardians of food security of India.” Excerpts: Q. What is your viewpoint on the current situation? A.
I am worried about the state of agriculture in India, particularly in Punjab and Haryana. It was a bad signal when it started raining around March 31. Procurement was about to begin. Punjab, Haryana and western UP are the main suppliers to the public distribution system of the country and right now the government needs to build up its wheat stock. As estimated by the National Commission on Population, the country’s population is expected to touch 1.33 billion by 2020-21 and the demand for foodgrains around 280 million tonnes. This means that foodgrain production has to grow by 2 per cent a year over the next decade. Some untapped areas have to be tapped and the existing ones fortified. The bottomline is that India has to do everything to increase foodgrain production. Q. How important is the issue of climate change for agriculture? A.
India cannot afford to take any risk with its food security. We should be able to maintain food security in an era of climate change and ensure enough foodgrains for the entire country. Food security has to be the bottomline of any climate management programme. Global warming will have a serious effect on agriculture and India should be ready with a drought code, a flood code and a good weather code. Negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions can continue at the international level, but nationally we require a contingency plan to counter global warming. Q. What do you think of the Rs 60,000-crore loan waiver? A.
The loan waiver is one of the recommendations. It is the cost we have to pay for making agriculture an uneconomic option for farmers. When farming becomes uneconomical, support should be given to farmers. We always think of 30 per cent urban consumers but never about 70 per cent producer consumers Q . The two-hectare ceiling for the loan waiver denies benefits to dryland farmers.
A. Agriculture in India is highly variable. What applies to a farmer in Punjab does not apply to the farmer in Rajasthan. Punjab’s two hectares cannot be compared with two hectares of barren land. The government is aware of the problem and measures are being considered for hinterland farmers. But we must understand that the government is under a lot of financial pressure from the sixth pay commission, importing food at a higher price, loan waiver and petroleum and fertilizer subsidies. Q. Punjab farmers do not want a loan waiver. What they are demanding is scientific pricing for their produce. A.
India is suffering from low purchase prices. One of the reasons for grain shortage is the low procurement price. One of the recommendations of our committee is that the MSP should be 50 per cent more than the cost of production. There should be post-procurement adjustments and a way to compensate farmers if the government imports foodgrains at a higher cost from outside. Farmers who give foodgrains for public distribution should be given incentives like smart cards. Q. What is the best way out of the current situation? A.
There are no easy solutions but a way has to be found. India needs a multi-pronged strategy to fight hunger and food shortage. This includes efforts ranging from increasing local production to buying from outside and supplementing stocks, though the problem here could be the price. I hope farmers give their wheat to the government because it needs to build up its stock. It’s also time that we start attending to the business of agriculture seriously. Farmers who are being released from the debt trap must be given benefits from other government schemes to ensure that they do not fall back into the trap. States like Punjab and Haryana must make efforts to develop consortiums comprising technical groups, financial institutions, procurement agencies and agricultural universities to ensure that farmers get the support they
need.
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
D
The Sikh concept of community kitchen (langar) is a fine blend of social and moral values. No act can be more selfless than to feed the poor and provide them with shelter.
If he (Advani) was not aware of the Cabinet decision to send Jaswant Singh on a plane to Kandahar with dreaded terrorists, then it clearly reflected the lack of confidence of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in him.
We are for the millions of people who are being ground down by neo-liberal policies and liberalisation. This is our message to all secular and democratic forces.
It was one of the bad days I have seen in my 10 years of international cricket. I won’t blame the wicket, which was a green-top for our performance. We did not apply ourselves and played some casual shots.