Friday, April 29, 2011

IMPEACHMENT IMPOSSIBLE IN INDIA

The Corrupt Indian Judiciary

chitranjan sawant

chitranjan sawant
AUM.
IMPEACHMENT IMPOSSIBLE IN INDIA
By Chitranjan Sawant
Chief Justice of India knows very well that BHRASHTACHAR or Corruption of the worst order is eating into the vitals of India,that is Bharat. The three pillars of democracy - legislature, executive and judiciary have failed to stop corrupt practices from one part or from all parts collectively or severally.
There are a number of checks and balances in the judiciary to see that corruption is kept at bay. In good old days there was no corruption in higher judiciary. Corruption had touched only the periphery of the lower judiciary, mostly the ministerial staff. The judges were, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. The judges were not only well paid but also had no inclination to come in contact with touts, munshis or other suspicious characters who indulged in this sort of dubious game. The judges did not accept bribe that could influence judicial decisions. By and large, honesty prevailed in the temple of justice.

GODDESS OF JUSTICE WENT BLIND

The goddess of justice has a piece of black cloth tied over her eyes so that she does not see either the plaintiff or the defendant or the witnesses and is, therefore, not influenced by any party to the litigation. She is not blind though and has clear cut legal perception. She lets justice be done and also seen to be done.
Unfortunately there was a sudden flood of recruitment of judicial officers and judicial magistrates when the Executive and Judiciary were separated as per the constitutional directives. The judicial officers were recruited on such a large scale that the quality of judgements and ethics could not but suffer. Corruption of all sorts made big inroads into the judiciary. Since all concerned gained notoriety for receiving their shares of the bribe, there was no one to entertain a complaint against corruption. Members of the judicial system were thick as thieves because they were all beneficiaries of the corrupt system as stated earlier.

IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGES

The higher judiciary had been above board all along until the Executive meddled with the appointment of judges and had their own favourites appointed as judges of high courts and the Supreme Court of India to get favourable judgements in cases of political nature. In the cases where the Constitutional Law was involved, it was important for the government of the day in New Delhi to see that the Judiciary did not upset the political applecart. Indira Gandhi was a trail blazer and the first one to have the Supreme Court judges superceded to get her own man selected as the chief justice of India. The downhill run started from there and no one could stop this roll down.

If judgements could be influenced by prime minister and other central ministers, then they could be bought by other litigants too. The big business houses and tycoons were not far behind in buying the judiciary unashamedly. Judges too had a free run in making money and asking litigants for favours of sorts like receiving an air conditioner or other accessories of computers or sleek laptops.In one case when the police raided the house of a businessman, it found a case file along with a draft judgement that the judge himself had given to the client in lieu of a small monetary gain.It goes without saying that the hon’ble high court judge had dictated the judgement that went in favour of the businessman-client from whose house the police had recovered all sorts of contraband goods and the case file of the high court concerned. Judiciary was put to shame.

The Chief Justice of an important high court had spent public money in buying presents and gifts for his daughter's wedding and was caught accepting financial favours from the rich clients. He was not only removed from the bench deciding judicial cases but was also subjected to impeachment proceedings in the Indian Parliament. It was a foolproof case against the sitting chief justice and he was sure to be impeached successfully.

Lo and behold! the Congress party in Parliament decided, under the leadership of late Rajiv Gandhi, to abstain from voting on the motion of impeachment. The motion fell as the requisite number of votes in favour of impeachment could not be cast owing to abstention of the Congress members.
Thus a dishonest judge saved himself from the first impeachment despite overwhelming and unassailable evidence against him. Corruption at a high level was condoned by those who were at the helm of affairs of the Indian National Congress leading to gross miscarriage of justice. The counsels, advocates, litigants and passers by – they all take interest in such cases of miscarriage of jusice and ask themselves whether they will get justice in their own pending cases in an atmosphere where corruption is rampant. Moreover, if the said chief justice of the high court was let off on a technical point because a political party chose to refrain from participating in the voting system, what would happen to corrupt judges of the higher judiciary in future.

Who will bell the cat, even if a bell has been procured? None, my lord, none.
_________________________________________________________________________________
UPVAN 609, Sector 29, Noida - 201303, INDIA. Email : upvanom@yahoo.com Mobile 9811173590

impeachment impossible in india


chitranjan sawant

chitranjan sawant
AUM.
IMPEACHMENT IMPOSSIBLE IN INDIA
By Chitranjan Sawant
Chief Justice of India knows very well that BHRASHTACHAR or Corruption of the worst order is eating into the vitals of India,that is Bharat. The three pillars of democracy - legislature, executive and judiciary have failed to stop corrupt practices from one part or from all parts collectively or severally.
There are a number of checks and balances in the judiciary to see that corruption is kept at bay. In good old days there was no corruption in higher judiciary. Corruption had touched only the periphery of the lower judiciary, mostly the ministerial staff. The judges were, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. The judges were not only well paid but also had no inclination to come in contact with touts, munshis or other suspicious characters who indulged in this sort of dubious game. The judges did not accept bribe that could influence judicial decisions. By and large, honesty prevailed in the temple of justice.

GODDESS OF JUSTICE WENT BLIND

The goddess of justice has a piece of black cloth tied over her eyes so that she does not see either the plaintiff or the defendant or the witnesses and is, therefore, not influenced by any party to the litigation. She is not blind though and has clear cut legal perception. She lets justice be done and also seen to be done.
Unfortunately there was a sudden flood of recruitment of judicial officers and judicial magistrates when the Executive and Judiciary were separated as per the constitutional directives. The judicial officers were recruited on such a large scale that the quality of judgements and ethics could not but suffer. Corruption of all sorts made big inroads into the judiciary. Since all concerned gained notoriety for receiving their shares of the bribe, there was no one to entertain a complaint against corruption. Members of the judicial system were thick as thieves because they were all beneficiaries of the corrupt system as stated earlier.

IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGES

The higher judiciary had been above board all along until the Executive meddled with the appointment of judges and had their own favourites appointed as judges of high courts and the Supreme Court of India to get favourable judgements in cases of political nature. In the cases where the Constitutional Law was involved, it was important for the government of the day in New Delhi to see that the Judiciary did not upset the political applecart. Indira Gandhi was a trail blazer and the first one to have the Supreme Court judges superceded to get her own man selected as the chief justice of India. The downhill run started from there and no one could stop this roll down.

If judgements could be influenced by prime minister and other central ministers, then they could be bought by other litigants too. The big business houses and tycoons were not far behind in buying the judiciary unashamedly. Judges too had a free run in making money and asking litigants for favours of sorts like receiving an air conditioner or other accessories of computers or sleek laptops.In one case when the police raided the house of a businessman, it found a case file along with a draft judgement that the judge himself had given to the client in lieu of a small monetary gain.It goes without saying that the hon’ble high court judge had dictated the judgement that went in favour of the businessman-client from whose house the police had recovered all sorts of contraband goods and the case file of the high court concerned. Judiciary was put to shame.

The Chief Justice of an important high court had spent public money in buying presents and gifts for his daughter's wedding and was caught accepting financial favours from the rich clients. He was not only removed from the bench deciding judicial cases but was also subjected to impeachment proceedings in the Indian Parliament. It was a foolproof case against the sitting chief justice and he was sure to be impeached successfully.

Lo and behold! the Congress party in Parliament decided, under the leadership of late Rajiv Gandhi, to abstain from voting on the motion of impeachment. The motion fell as the requisite number of votes in favour of impeachment could not be cast owing to abstention of the Congress members.
Thus a dishonest judge saved himself from the first impeachment despite overwhelming and unassailable evidence against him. Corruption at a high level was condoned by those who were at the helm of affairs of the Indian National Congress leading to gross miscarriage of justice. The counsels, advocates, litigants and passers by – they all take interest in such cases of miscarriage of jusice and ask themselves whether they will get justice in their own pending cases in an atmosphere where corruption is rampant. Moreover, if the said chief justice of the high court was let off on a technical point because a political party chose to refrain from participating in the voting system, what would happen to corrupt judges of the higher judiciary in future.

Who will bell the cat, even if a bell has been procured? None, my lord, none.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

mother earth and human children need harmony

AUM
MOTHER EARTH AND HUMAN CHILDREN NEED HARMONY
By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM
We celebrated the Earth Day today by planting additional trees in vacant spaces around our residential areas. Awareness about the planet Earth was created. Men, women and school going children, who happened to be at home because Jesus was crucified this day a little over two millennia ago, and they were enjoying this one-day holiday. This happened to be the Earth Day today, 22 April.
HYMN TO HUMMING
The Atharva Ved has a hymn – BHOOMI MATA PUTRO AHAM PRITHAVYAH –and it means that the planet Earth is our Mother and we the human beings are mother earth’s children. It is the mother who looks after her children for the first few months for feeding, cleaning and protection from hostile elements, and when the children grow up, they look after the ageing mother. Of course, what the Mother Earth is worried about is the continual digging, overdrawing of sub-soil water, building too many bunds over rivers, deforestation on a large scale, illegal mining, hunting of rare species of animals in deep forests and above all nuclear tests by atomic scientists that destroys both flora and fauna.
The hill tribesmen and women and those inhabiting deep forests hymn tunes about their being a part of pristine Nature and their humming and singing is so natural. So is group dancing. It is learnt that the content of folk songs and rhythmic style of dancing where movements are executed so effortlessly entitle the males to have female partners of their choice. The human habitat in the jungle is in tune with the pristine music emanating from rustling of leaves, murmur of rivulet waters, chirping of birds and, of course, roar of tigers in the vicinity. The humans are in harmony with the Nature – be it animals or the rare home-grown vegetables. The front or backyard of the ghotals serve as small plots for vegetable farming. There all bachelors of the tribe do community live and discuss merits or demerits of nubile girls of the said tribe. Life ambles along with perfect peace and mother Earth has no problems to solve.
PROBLEMS GALORE
Human beings take pride in being a part of a civilised society. When being civilised means shunning violence or not causing pain and or inflicting misery on a fellow human being or even on animals or birds and bees, it is fine from all angles. However, when human civilisation means denuding the earth surface of rich forest cover, mining in mountains or carrying out nuclear tests under water in oceans, then problems come up like hydra-headed monsters poised to swallow Man and his creations. This situation beggars solutions and over shadows all worldly achievements of human beings.
Earthquake, Tsunami, deluge or drought, world wars and nuclear accidents are phases of our march to human destruction. Is the human race possessed by a Death-Wish and is voluntarily moving forward on the road of self-destruction. Mankind lived a simple life until World War I when science made a tremendous progress in inventing new and effective weapons that could kill a large number of people in one go. Of course, the concept of nuclear weapons was not known till then but new ways of destruction of the enemy forces in biological and chemical warfare was a distinct possibility. The German scientists had worked on such weapons of mass destruction successfully. On termination of the Second World War, it was a vanquished Germany that had eminent scientists who were taken to America and motivated to design and develop atom bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were the worst sufferers of this new atomic warfare. Anyway, the civilised society of human beings had made progress that spelt disaster for fellow human beings in other parts of the globe. Was this the progress that the humans were looking for?
Certainly not. This progress in science meant death and destruction that no one wished for.
The UNO or United Nations Organisation was formed on cessation of hostilities in 1945. The grand idea of this high profile international organisation was to eschew violence in solving mutual problems cropping up among independent nations due to clash of political or economic or cultural interests. It is true that UNO has been able to avert global wars of the magnitude of world wars but it is equally true that the United Nations failed to eliminate shooting wars completely.
The world body has come up with numerous agreements to save the natural wealth of the world that all human beings could share in future. If the natural wealth of Mother Earth has been of little use to the present generation, it should still be saved, protected and preserved for our children and children’s children. If a vast majority of human beings start taking interest in preserving and protecting the natural wealth of Planet Earth, the wanton destruction of hills and dales, forests and agricultural lands, water resources and oil reserves will be stopped and may be abandoned. Thus the natural wealth placed by God in the hands of humans for the welfare of Mankind will be preserved and used judiciously. Indeed that will be some sort of victory of a civilised society over the barbarian instinct of causing death and destruction. It is the saner element among mankind who is convinced that wars do not solve problems of human beings but only aggravate them. So, why not sit around a table and talk out the knotty problem. No one will vote for a war. Everyone will vote for Peace. The United Nations Organisation is precisely meant for that.
SECURITY FOR PROSPERITY
Notwithstanding the existence of UNO, member nations possess and maintain large standing armies to defend their country. Of course, UNO will prevent a local skirmish from developing into a war but a nation needs its own defence forces to ward off the initial onslaught of the invading nation. Wars cause a lot of death and destruction as well as damage to Mother Earth. The warring nations may be urged by the world peace outfit to save mother Earth from damage beyond repairs. After all, all of us have to have our habitat on Earth till we colonise Moon and have more elbow room for all human beings.
Security means making of modern weapon system and that means establishing factories that cause pollution and destruction of natural resources. A sense of security brings in prosperity of material wealth but it also means loss of morality and lapse of honesty in dealing with fellow human beings. Therefore, it is for leaders of the civil society to strike a happy balance and see that man makes material progress for prosperity without debasing loftiness of human nature. Above all, Man must continue to entertain the lofty ideal of having harmony between Mother Earth and her children who are all human beings.
UPVAN 609, Sector 29, Noida – 201303. Mobile : 9811173590.
Email : upvanom@yahoo.com and sawantg.chitranjan@gmail.com