I
wonder what it would be like if people filed petitions in the US Supreme Court
on the size of Christmas trees or the number of candles to be lighted. It would
be even more specific if they demanded a limit on the thickness and length of
the candles. The number of PILs in the Indian SC keeps dramatically going up.
Almost every single day, or at least week, the SC seems to be ruling on some
PIL or the other. A number of these PILs pertain to restricting Hindu
festivals, customs and celebrations. Some of these don’t even need to be
entertained by the judges. Here is what a former HC judge had to say:
“There are always two sides to a coin. There will be people
who will try and exploit [PILs], whether courts allows themselves to be
misused... that is where the wisdom of the courts lie”. – Former Delhi
HC Judge, Justice RS Sodhi
On
October 27 Arun Jaitley, in an
interview with Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, was remarkably candid in a direct
criticism of the courts and judges:
The
admission of certain PILs and the rulings thereon have become a serious concern
to many, especially those on Hinduism and Hindu practices. Recently, some moron
even went to Madras HC over the movie “Mersal”
containing some inaccuracies about GST or taxes on liquor and medical
treatments. I really don’t understand why such a frivolous petition should even
be admitted by a HC, let alone be ruled on. It should have been summarily
dismissed as frivolous. But the Madras HC ruled as under:
The
irony in HC’s ruling seems totally lost on our judges who are very touchy when
it comes to their own domain. Ever been to a court? Especially to a trial
court? This is how courts are shown in Indian movies:
Nowhere
will you find trial courts so neat and tidy. It is even frivolous to find a
defendant and a witness being allowed to argue with each other during
proceedings. It is unlikely that you will find two witness boxes in most trial courts. Indian movies are known to
portray courts in a most idiotic manner and it goes without saying that it is pure fiction and that the producers
only dramatize their imagination. And
since “Mersal” was mere fiction and imagination the HC ruled on it. But, when
it came to another movie, Jolly LLB,
the HC took objection to the court being shown in a bad light:
Not
only did the Bombay HC take objection to the court being portrayed badly, it
even ordered some scenes to be deleted.
Why? Was Jolly not as much fiction and
imagination as “Mersal” is? And if “Mersal” has the license to FoE and
imaginative work why does “Jolly” not have the same license to portray courts
and judges as they want in a “fictional” movie? Such contradictions and
hypocrisies have come to infest our courts. Almost every movie, every issue now
runs to courts with some silly PIL and the courts, deprived of precious time
already, seem to entertain them too. This is causing serious concern among
citizens. And these contradictions are now being widely “trolled” on SM as they
would be anywhere in the world:
Let’s
look another contradiction. In December 2016 the SC ruled that the national
anthem should be played in movie halls and people must stand for it. The
practice was discontinued long ago and while it was okay in the early days
after Independence, the anthem in movie halls made no sense at all. People
don’t go to movies for a function or a national parade. They just go for
entertainment. And then, in October 2017, the SC suddenly decided the anthem in movie halls should be
optional and the Centre should make a decision on it. That’s why courts are
increasingly seen as playing the role of elected govts when it is totally
unnecessary. These are the outcomes of frivolous PILs on issues on which the SC
should just recommend suitable action to the concerned govt rather than issuing
diktats. What did this do? On many TV debates it only brought out Mullahs and
Commies who are vehemently against respecting the national anthem.
Many
decades after WWII, organisations, courts and investigators still hunted for
Nazi war criminals. Many were indeed hunted down. A company like BMW that exploited Jewish “slave labourers” without payment
was made to compensate many years later. Most of the victims were dead. Those
living were compensated. It is not mere
compensation, it is also a question of restoring honour to those dead.
That’s what being human is all about. Kashmiri Pandits have been murdered,
uprooted from their homes for decades and no govt seems to want to help them or
bring them justice. So, what did the KPs do? They went to the SC to seek
justice but the court promptly sent them off:
Many
of the murderers of KPs, many of the known criminals are still walking around.
The KPs deserve not just justice but a return to their homes. I wonder who is
going to stand for them. The last temple of justice has closed their doors on
them. The SC claims it protects citizens from injustices. After this shutting
out of KPs, I am confident even the Central and State govts will conveniently
forget them. This is not justice, this
is a serious war-crime against an entire community of people. This, even
when the older cases of 1984 killing of Sikhs are still in courts. There is
another case where army men were framed and is famous as the “Samba Spy Case”. Even army-men know
this is a fake, trumped-up case. The ISRO
spy case was also used to tar many scientists, including Nambi Narayanan. It
is commonly believed this was done by enemies of India to sabotage the
Cryogenics technology. Men and women who have served the nation only demand
they live their life with honour if they are innocent. Even former Governor Kaushal Swaraj had tweeted these cases
was a farce:
Nothing
stops the SC from taking suo-moto cognisance and reopening these cases to
restore justice and honour to the innocent. Last February, the SC agreed to
look into the ISRO spying case. The Samba spy case merits the same relook. Even
if the SC has made the final ruling in these cases earlier, the appellants
deserve another hearing, if the SC judges can wake up midnight to hear Yakub Memon. Instead, NGOs, vested
interests and even anti-nationals have been flooding the courts with frivolous
PILs.
Humans
are known to be adventurous risk-takers. They climb mountain peaks, trek
dangerous jungles for discoveries, conquer space, travel to the north or south
pole and even the limbless run Olympic races. So why does the SC have to rule
on social practices like Dahi Handi
or Jallikattu? All it needs to do is
recommend to concerned govts to ensure they make adequate laws to protect
humans and animals involved. Dictating height of Dahi Handi or banning
Jallikattu is really not a solution. The Diwali
cracker-ban in NCR appears to have made no real change in pollution either:
The
problem with crackers and pollution can be stopped at the manufacturing level.
The emissions and decibel levels need to be stipulated for the manufacturers
not to the retailers and users. Hindus are united only by festivals, traditions
and celebrations. There is no need to constantly impinge on this by any
authority. A panel created by SC reported that Bhaang or other offerings are
not the reasons for shrinking of the Shivling
at the Ujjain temple. Yet,
the SC has ruled on the Panchamrit or offerings to be made at the temple. These
Shivlings across India have been around for thousands of years and weathered
everything. While there is no harm in regulating the frenzied offerings at the
temple, the courts intervening in this leads to permanent grievance in the
hearts of Hindus. They feel their Rights are being restricted one by one and
systematically too. This is best left to the temple management/trust.
Maybe
the whole country needs reforms. Maybe all religions need reforms. But only the
Hindus seem to be asked to change or alter their practices. Even courts too
need reforms but are reluctant and the judges seem protective and adverse to
change. Arun Jaitley, naturally, called it the “tyranny of the unelected” when the court over-ruled a
Constitutional amendment which is Parliament’s supreme privilege and authority:
It
has now almost become a question of “who will monitor the monitors”. A
Constitutional amendment by Parliament after due process being over-ruled now
means there is no authority or control over the Supreme Court whatsoever. This
is not the kind of imbalance a democracy should desire. The same SC didn’t
overturn the Constitutional amendment in the Shah Bano case which was executed mainly to negate the SC judgement.
From Panchamrit to redeployment of security forces the SC is more or less
running the Executive. In the case of security forces, the Bengal govt had gone
to the HC against redeployment of forces from Darjeeling. The SC should have
simply overturned the HC ruling instead of again dictating how many troops to
redeploy. Central forces are subject to deployment by the GOI and the Cabinet
and not the courts to really decide:
Other
than hearing appeals against lower court judgements, Courts are supposed to
stand for people against tyranny of any govt or force. In none of the cases
mentioned above were people subjected to any kind of tyranny by GOI or any
specific govt. On the contrary, when really tested, the SC did not stand up for
freedoms and justice and a much reputed and respected SC judge, the late CJI PN Bhagwati apologised for not doing
so:
Players
cannot appoint umpires. Umpires cannot appoint umpires. Judges too should not be
appointing themselves through their own body. The Constitution does not provide for a Collegium. Therefore, this
does require a serious review and remedy. Until this is done we will continue
to see a conflict between Judiciary and Executive, if not openly, and the
public subjected to a judicial quandary.
