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HVK Archives: Supreme Court must not delay judgement on corrupt politicians

Supreme Court must not delay judgement on corrupt politicians - The Times of India

Rakesh Bhatnagar ()
8 October 1996

Title : Supreme court must not delay judgment on
corrupt politicians
Author : Rakesh Bhatnagar
Publication : The Times of India
Date : October 8, 1996

Though neither judicial activism nor political vandalism
is responsible for exposing our leaders' past - but
rather the logic of events that has brought it about - a
special session of Parliament is being demanded by
"aggrieved" politicians to discuss "judicial activism."
Politicians across party lines have made common cause on
this issue.

If judicial intervention - which some may prefer to
describe as activism or adventurism - is at its peak, the
credibility of politicians is at its nadir. There may be
some exceptions, no doubt. For the common man, though,
the judiciary cannot provide the solution for a variety
of problems that stem from an ailing system.

It was because of the supreme court's intervention (with
justice J. S. Verma, Justice S. P. Bharucha and justice
S. C. Sen on the bench and. in one case, Justice B. N.
Kirpal too) that the high and mighty have been booked in
a number of sensational cases that were kept under wraps
for decades.

Well-known politicians and bureaucrats have been booked
in the hawala transactions case. Leaders like former
prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and some of his erst-
while cabinet colleagues are also in the dock, in the
real sense of the term. A few wheeler-dealers who once
ruled the roost are behind bars in a cheating case and a
bank accounts forgery case masterminded to defame former
prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's adversary V. P. Singh and
his son.

Then came justice Kuldip Singh's judgment on why former
petroleum minister Satish Sharma should not be prosecuted
for "betraying" the faith imposed in him by the nation
when he was a minister and indiscriminately allotting
petrol pumps and gas agencies to his close associates
under the discretionary quota. justice Singh's verdict
has also set the tone for dealing with public servants or
public officers who are found guilty of defaulting in
their duty.

Holding that "it is high time that public servants be
held personally responsible for their malafide acts in
discharge of their functions as public servants," the
court has ruled that delinquent public servants may be
liable for damages for malicious, deliberate or injurious
wrongdoing. Though the court does not specify what
"wrongdoings" fall in this category of offences, any
misuse of power, whether in the form of conspiring to
forge documents or cheating, would undoubtedly be covered
by justice Singh's trend-setting judgment.

On the other hand, lawyers are up in arms against Union
law minister Rama Kant Khalap's directive to Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief Joginder Singh not to
oppose Mr Rao's plea for bail in the Lakhubhai Pathak
cheating case. CBI special prosecutor Gopal Subramaniam
immediately resigned following this piece of "advice,"
which, however, had the attorney-general Ashok H. Desai's

consent. Mr Desai is assisting the supreme court monitor
the Investigations in the St Kitts', hawala and similar
cases.

The high court has already condemned Mr Khalap for inter-
fering in cases of public importance. They said his
directive to the CBI chief was "illegal."

The supreme court bar association is all set to deal with
the recent "sordid" developments at its October 10 gener-
al body meeting. In addition, a group of nine lawyers,
including former Union law ministers Shanti Bhushan and
Ram Jethmalani, as well as former high court judges R. B.
Mehrotra, V. M. Tarkunde and D. S. Tewatia, said that
such actions "inevitably adversely affected the credibil-
ity of the supreme court and has rudely shaken the peo-
ple's faith In it."

They said they were shocked by Prime Minister H. D. Deve
Gowda's 'mysterious" midnight meeting with chief justice
of India A. M. Ahmadi. They referred to the reprieves
granted twice to Mr Rao by the supreme court and also
questioned the action of the police in knocking at the
apex court's doors to seek a change of the trial court's
venue in the name of providing security to Mr Rao.

It redounds to the credit of the judiciary that the
principle that no one is above the law is being seriously
talked about and enforced, the senior lawyers said.

At a time when increasing judicial activism and political
vandalism Is the theme of the day, the supreme court is
taking its own time to deliver the much-awaited judgment
on "criminalisation of politics." It is high time that
this judgment be pronounced quickly before recent uncon-
firmed reports regarding the supercession of the senior-
most judge gain ground.



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