Tag: Ram Jethmalani

Now CJI, Justice Ramana’s Elevation to High Court Once Came Under Supreme Court Scanner

In 2013, the apex court dismissed a petition challenging his 2000 appointment to the Andhra Pradesh high court but also revealed that the SC collegium had opposed that appointment on two occasions.

New Delhi: Justice N.V. Ramana was sworn in as the chief justice of India (CJI) on Saturday and will now head the very court where a case seeking his disqualification as a high court judge was heard – and dismissed – eight years ago.

The proceedings of the case – decided by Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court in February 2013 –  were marked by the absence of any prognostication that its protagonist would, within eight years, become CJI. Perhaps that was the reason the judges let out a secret, which their fraternity normally tends to safeguard in the name of the confidentiality of the Supreme Court collegium’s functioning.

The petitioners in the case – M. Manohar Reddy and M.V. Narasimha Reddy – had challenged Justice N.V. Ramana’s continuation as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh high court. During the hearing on December 8, 2012, the bench reminded the late Ram Jethmalani, counsel for the petitioners, that the individual against whom he was now appearing had been made a high court judge in 2000 at Jethmalani’s own urging when he was law minister despite the Supreme Court collegium initially opposing his name. “Please tell us what we should do,” the bench asked:

“In this particular case, the collegium had twice rejected the name of this particular judge. Not on this ground but on grounds of his eligibility for the post, age and other factors. But it was at the instance of the then Union Law Minister that his appointment was made.”  (emphasis added)

Unfazed, Jethmalani responded by saying that if some wrong had been done, it could be undone too.

What the petition against Justice Ramana was about

The petitioners had come to the Supreme Court to challenge the continuation of Justice Ramana as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh high court on the ground that a criminal case had been pending against him when the high court’s collegium cleared his name in 1999 and the government appointed him in 2000.

On February 13, 1981, several students of Nagarjuna University in Guntur indulged in rioting and damage to public property, which included a bus, and caused injuries to passengers.  On the same day, an FIR was registered at the Mangalagiri police station against the purported ringleaders of the violence. The FIR named Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana as Accused No. 4.

The petitioners, who were high court advocates, filed their petition under Article 32 of the constitution, seeking a writ in the nature of quo warranto, quashing Justice Ramana’s appointment as a judge.

The ground cited was that the consultation process leading to his appointment as judge was vitiated as both the high court and the Supreme Court collegiums as well as the Central government had failed to consider an essential fact: that at the time of his appointment, a criminal trial was pending in which Justice N.V. Ramana was not only an accused but a proclaimed offender .

The petitioners also sought a writ in the nature of mandamus commanding the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh to cancel Ramana’s enrolment as an advocate since he had “concealed” the criminal proceedings and, in the relevant column of the application for enrolment, had stated, falsely, that there was no pending proceeding against him.

N.V. Ramana’s name was recommended for appointment as a judge of the high court on November 14, 1998 by the chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh high court with the other two collegium members concurring.  The high court’s recommendation was received in the Supreme Court on February 15, 1999. Ramana, who was 41 and had completed over 15 years of legal practice, was the additional advocate general of Andhra Pradesh at the time. He was appointed as a judge one year and four months later, on June 19, 2000 – after the “consultative process” between the Supreme Court collegium and Jethmalani’s law ministry was over – and assumed office on June 27, 2000.

The apex court’s findings

At the outset, the Supreme Court noted that a criminal case (No.229/83 later re-numbered as CC No.75/87 and then CC No.167/91) was undeniably pending at the time of Ramana’s appointment as a judge of the high court – a fact that the Intelligence Bureau, whose report the order quotes, failed to unearth when it said “nothing adverse… has come to notice”.

Though the criminal case was pending at the time of Justice Ramana’s appointment, G.E. Vahanvati, who was attorney general in 2012, told the court that the removal of a judge in office was an issue directly related to the independence of the judiciary and that the constitution did not envisage any  mode for a judge’s removal other than impeachment by parliament.

Shanti Bhushan, who, along with Jethmalani, was representing the petitioners, disagreed, arguing that the court must not be seen as protecting someone wrongly appointed as a high court judge. He said that the faith, trust and confidence of the people in the courts and its judges was as much necessary to support the independence of judiciary as the guarantees under the constitution.

The Alam-Desai bench eventually dismissed the petition in a reasoned order that went into the minutiae of the case that the petitioners claimed had rendered Justice Ramana’s judgeship untenable.

At the time of the 1981 incident, Ramana had been a student of Nagarjuna University. The students complained of inadequate public transport facilities for commuting from their homes to the university as only a few buses plying between Guntur and Vijayawada stopped at the university.  They demanded that more buses should stop at the university. Some of the students launched an agitation.

On February 13, 1981, a group of about 30 students put up road blocks on the GNT road, opposite the university, stopping all vehicles on the road. A state bus became the target of the agitating students. The driver was pulled down and the door to the driver’s seat was damaged.  Some students pelted stones on the bus and smashed its windscreen and glass windows with iron rods.  One of the passengers on the bus also received some injuries.  A policeman prevented an attempt to set the bus on fire. The FIR registered after the incident was against unknown persons and the accused were described as “Nagarjuna university students”.

According to the charge sheet, submitted in the court of the munsif  magistrate, Mangalagiri, on October 19, 1983, the driver and the conductor of the bus, in their statements under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C., (apart from some other witnesses) identified and named five persons as the student-leaders who were leading the agitation on that fateful day. The charge sheet cited five persons as accused and N.V. Ramana figured among them at No.4. All the accused were shown as absconders.

However, the Alam-Desai bench found that

“The charge sheet… does not disclose what steps were taken by the investigating officer to secure the presence of the accused. There is no mention that the investigating officer ever tried to obtain from the court warrants of arrest or processes under sections 82 and 83 of the Cr.P.C. for apprehending the accused.  They were simply shown as absconders without observing the procedure sanctioned by law before an accused can be called an absconder.”

The Alam-Desai bench, however also observed that Ramana had been “repeatedly called – a little loosely and rather uncharitably –  an “absconder” and a “proclaimed offender” in a case of robbery and burning down of a bus”, although the criminal case in question had no element of robbery or bus burning.  Moreover, the trial court, by its judgment and order dated July 4, 1988, had found accused No.1 not guilty of the offences alleged against him, and acquitted him of the charges of rioting. While acquitting him, the trial judge noted that the prosecution witnesses were not able to identify the accused. The bus conductor denied having identified the accused in his statement under Section 161 Cr.P.C.

‘No record of warrants’

The Supreme Court bench also found that while the trial court had ordered the issuing of non-bailable warrants against Ramana and the other three accused, the warrants were not on record and it was not known whether any warrants had even been issued. From May 1987 to August 1991, the trial court passed orders on about 24 dates directing for issuance of non-bailable warrants of arrest against the accused, but no compliance was noted against any order, excepting the one passed on August 30, 1991. However, no warrants, even of that date, were on the file, the bench noted.

On November 5, 2001, the examination-in-chief of the bus driver (PW1) and of the conductor (PW2) were recorded. In their depositions, neither PW1 nor PW2 named anyone as accused and both of them said that they did not know the leaders of the group of students that had attacked the bus. On the same day, the assistant public prosecutor made an application to the effect that the other witnesses mentioned in the charge-sheet were passengers in the bus and their whereabouts were not known in view of the passage of time. Accordingly, he prayed that the evidence of the prosecution might be closed.  On December 11, 2001, the state government decided to withdraw the prosecution against the accused. On December 26, 2001, the sessions judge gave the trial judge permission to declare the case as ‘long pending’, and on January 31, 2002, the assistant public prosecutor moved an application under Section 321 of the Cr.P.C. seeking permission to withdraw the case in the interest of justice.  The trial judge granted permission to the prosecution to withdraw the case, and all the accused were discharged the same day.

The Alam-Desai bench found that during the entire period, no summons in the ordinary course were served on the four accused. “There is nothing on the record to show that any attempt, let alone any serious attempt, was made to serve the summons or the non-bailable warrants on any of the accused persons”, the bench noted, adding:

“From the record of the case in which we have discussed in detail above, we find it very difficult to hold that Respondent No.3 [i.e. Justice Ramana] was even aware that in some record buried in the courts at Mangalagiri he was named as an accused and he was required to appear in the court in connection with that case.”

Ramana ‘unaware of pendency of case’

The bench also noted that Ramana was the additional advocate general of Andhra Pradesh at the time of his elevation as a judge. “If the case would have been within his knowledge, it was unimaginable that he would not have attended to it and got it concluded one way or the other,” it said.

The bench referred to the detailed enquiry made by the chief justice of the AP high court. His report dated February 7, 2012, which was submitted to the then CJI, S.H. Kapadia, stated: “It does appear that Justice Ramana was unaware of the pendency of the criminal case.  I say this from the record of the case, which speaks for itself, and the contents which need not be repeated. I also say this for another reason.  In my opinion, Justice Ramana was truly unaware of the criminal case against him and he deserves to be believed when he says so.”

Since Justice Ramana was unaware of the pending case against him, the bench concluded that he could not be accused of suppressing material facts. When counsel for the petitioners argued that the police had submitted their charge sheet against Ramana, and hence, the state government must be deemed to be aware of the fact, the bench reasoned that the state government is not a monolith and it does not function as a single person. Simply because a charge sheet was submitted by the state police, no conscious knowledge of the fact can be attributed to the state government, the bench suggested.

“From all the attending circumstances, it is clear beyond doubt that not only respondent No.3 [i.e. Justice Ramana] himself but practically no one was aware of the pendency of the case in which he was named as an accused”, the bench concluded. Thus, it reasoned:

“To fault the consultative process for not taking into account a fact that was not known at that time would put an impossible burden on the constitutional authorities engaged in the consultative process and would introduce a dangerous element of uncertainty in the appointments.”

While the bench did not find anything odd in the fact that the case against Ramana was closed in 2002 – within two years of his appointment as judge of the high court – it saw the petition filed 10 years after the closure of the case as a ruse to malign Justice Ramana.  Finding the petition without merit and wanting in bona fides, the bench dismissed it with costs.

Lawyers may still debate whether the Alam-Desai bench was  correct in dismissing the petition against Justice Ramana in 2013. But the answer to the question which the bench itself prompts us to ask – Why did the Supreme Court collegium reject Justice Ramana’s name twice for elevation to the high court? – remains elusive.

Given that the collegium had opposed Justice Ramana’s elevation as a high court judge not once but twice, as admitted by the Alam-Desai bench in 2013, this opaque institution’s functioning will not help to restore people’s confidence in the functioning of the Supreme Court under a new CJI.

In the context of the less-than-transparent clean chit which the outgoing CJI, S. A. Bobde, gave to Justice Ramana – after an ‘in-house inquiry’ found the allegations made by Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy to be “baseless” – the litigation which attended his ascent to the higher judiciary is not just of academic interest.

The Ones That Didn’t Make It to NYT: The Valiant Bar and Bench During Indira’s Emergency

All through the dark times of 1976, legal professionals continued to stay invested in the fight against authoritarianism. 

“If India ever finds its way back to the freedom and democracy that were proud hallmarks of its first eighteen years as an independent nation, someone will surely erect a monument to Justice H R Khanna of the Supreme Court. It was Justice Khanna who spoke out fearlessly and eloquently for freedom this week in dissenting from the Court’s decision upholding the right of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Government to imprison political opponents at will and without court hearings… The submission of an independent judiciary to absolutist government is virtually the last step in the destruction of a democratic society; and the Indian Supreme Court’s decision appears close to utter surrender”

This iconic tribute by a journal several seas away marked H.R. Khanna’s transition from mortality to judicial immortality.

While Justice Khanna, who penned the dissent at the cost of the Chief Justiceship of India, cannot be grudged his canonisation, it must not be forgotten that the case which gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his judicial spine – ADM Jabalpur v Shiv Kant Shukla, 1976 AIR 1207 – arose out of orders passed by liberty minded justices of nine high courts who held that Indira Gandhi’s constitutional coup could not come in their way of defending the inalienable basic rights of the citizens.

Rajinder Sachar, himself a judicial victim of the Emergency, maintains that if the Supreme Court had supported these brave high court justices, Indira’s Emergency itself would have collapsed.

AG Noorani, in an article titled “The judiciary and the Bar in India during the Emergency,” notes an opinion expressed by Jayaprakash Narayan about the judiciary during the emergency:

“As for the judiciary, I must say that the High Courts have come out with flying colours in the present crisis. But the record of the Supreme Court is unfortunately very disappointing, mainly because Mrs. Gandhi has packed it with pliant and submissive judges except for a few.”

The darkness of Indira’s Emergency is also a story of the courage of many members of India’s Bar and the Bench. This is their story.

In fact, the executive had anticipated that the high courts might show some spine. Granville Austin notes that a powerful individual in the Prime Minister’s house “apparently had it “in for” the high courts from the beginning”.  He refers to an order issued on 25.06.1975 “to lock up the high courts”.

Also read: How the Judiciary Defied the Government to Uphold Constitutional Values During the Emergency

Om Mehta, the then Minister of State for Home, reported this audacious move to the Indira’s kitchen cabinet member Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who, as a senior advocate himself, knew how outrageous such an order sounded.  Deft manoeuvres on his part, not without Sanjay Gandhi’s outburst at it, ensured this was timely aborted!

Express journalist Kuldip Nayar was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and his wife Bharati Nayar challenged the detention before the Delhi high court. The formidable V.M. Tarkunde, former Bombay high court judge and widely respected for his commitment to human rights, presented Nayar’s case before Justices S. Rangarajan and R.N. Aggarwal. The state simply refused to disclose to the court the material on the basis of which the detention order had been passed. The court responded by quashing the detention holding that the right to a writ of habeas corpus had not been suspended.

Justice Hans Raj Khanna. Photo: GoI

The Bar was as vocal. Taraporewala recalls that the Emergency was met with lawyer’s strikes in several parts of the country. On the day of declaration of Emergency, the legendary Nani Palkhiwala, who, until a few days ago, was Indira’s own lawyer pleading before the vacation judge Krishna Iyer, to stay Justice Sinha’s order disqualifying her from electoral office for six years, led a delegation of lawyers to the chambers of Bombay high court Chief Justice Kantavala. His bench partner, Justice Tulzapurkar was also present.

Nani informed the judges that all lawyers in Bombay had decided to go on strike in protest.  The Chief’s sympathy was obvious from the fact that, while he emphatically stated that judges could not go on strike, in the same breath he assured that as litigants should not suffer, no adverse orders would be passed by courts.

On 12.10.75, under the banner of “Citizens for Democracy”, an All India Civil Liberties Conference was held in Ahmedabad presided over by Justice J.C. Shah, a retired Chief Justice of India. One factor behind choosing this venue was that Gujarat was then an Opposition Ruled state. Yet even in Congress states, Ananth V. Krishna observes, for some reason, though a number of former judges and lawyers protested, they were not arrested. The Ahmedabad meeting passed several significant resolutions seeking immediate restoration of the liberties of the citizens. The legendary M.C. Chagla was also a delegate.

The fire spread to neighbouring Bombay at the initiative of N.P. Nathwani, a retired justice of the Bombay high court. The “Committee of Lawyers for Civil Liberties” formed by him was to hold a meeting on 18.10.75, at the Jinnah Hall to discuss “Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law under the Constitution”. The Bombay police declined permission and, for good measure, invoked the Defence of India Rules to ban any such lawyers’ meetings anywhere during the duration of the Emergency.

Nathwani, an office bearer of this Committee, challenged this ban before the bench of Chief Justice R.M. Kantawala and Justice VD Tulzapurkar. The charge of the petitioners was led by none other than Mr Nani Palkivala with 157 lawyers supporting him.  The Bar had risen in one voice. The court quashed the ban saying that, even when Emergency was imposed, it was lawful to meet and assert a view that its imposition was unlawful, unjust and illegal.

Also read: The Supreme Court and the Need for Judicial Discipline

Justice Tulzapurkar was savage when he pointed out that:

“A family unit of five consisting of husband, wife and three children cannot sit together for a dinner at a table without obtaining the prior permission of the Police Commissioner and a Muslim cannot socially meet his four wives at one place and time without obtaining the prior permission of the Police Commissioner.”

The Supreme Court promptly stayed the order in appeal.  For good measure, the court even stayed the “judgement” in addition to its operative part.

When the famous Jinnah Hall meeting finally took place with former chief justice Chagla and former Supreme Court Justice J.C. Shah in attendance, many lawyers actually chickened out. One senior told Soli Sorabjee and Taraporevala, “Goodbye.  I do not want to be jailed with you both.”  There was panic and a feeling was created that even attending a protest meeting could get one into trouble.

The retaliation was swift. The targets were those judges who had been responsible for the release of political opponents. Justice Lalit of the Bombay high court and Justice R.N. Aggarwal of the Delhi high court were additional judges. In the tooth of all convention, their appointments were not confirmed. Graville Austin claims that even Indira’s law minister Gokhale as well as the respective high courts had favourably recommended the confirmation of these two judges.

It came out in the report of the Shah Commission, set up by the Janata Party to inquire into Emergency excesses, that Indira had rejected her own law minister’s note of recommendation with the handwritten noting “I do not approve”.  In fact, the Shah Commission concluded that this non-confirmation was an “abuse of authority and a misuse of power.” Justice Aggarwal’s misfortune was that he was on the bench that had decided in favour of Kuldip Nayar. In an unprecedented move, he was demoted to the Sessions Court. The senior member of the bench, Justice Rangarajan was transferred to Guwahati.

Sixteen judges who had issued habeas corpus writs or had not fallen into line were transferred to different high courts.  This included the members of the Division Bench (D.M. Chandrashekar and M Sadananda Swamy) which had quashed the detention orders of A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.  Justice Chandrashekhar was transferred to Allahabad and Justice Swamy to Gauhati.  Justice A.P. Sen (One of the judges in Shiv Kant Shukla vs ADM Jabalpur) was transferred to the Rajasthan high court as acting Chief Justice.

Also read: Sorry Mr Gogoi, We Need ‘Constitutional Distancing’, Not Court-Government Bonhomie

Austin has written about how the list of judicial transfers were “discussed in the Home and Law Ministries and sent to Chief Justice Ray who had to ‘sign the transfers or resign’”.  Austin also notes that “Senior officials in the Law Ministry did not favour the transfers, but there was no higher level dissent because the issue had already been decided.”

In fact, a list of fifty-six to seventy judges, apart from the sixteen transfers, was also leaked to the press to keep the potential trouble makers on their toes. This had its desired effect and in the words of M.C. Chagla, “Judges hesitate where they used to be fearless.”

Post Emergency, on April 5, 1977, law minister, Shanti Bhushan, apprised the Lok Sabha that during the emergency as many as 21 judges were transferred from one court to another, without their consent.  The courageous ones were:

Chief Justices:

  • S Obul Reddy: Andhra to Gujarat
  • B J Divan: Gujarat to Andhra
  • P Govindan Nair: Kerala to Madras

Other Judges:

  • D S Tewatia: Punjab & Haryana (P&H) to Karnataka
  • O Chinappa Reddy: Andhra to P&H
  • C. Kondiah: Andhra to Madhya Pradesh
  • D M Chandra Shekhar: Karnataka to Allahabad
  • J R Vimadalal: Bombay to Andhra Pradesh
  • S H Sheth: Gujarat to Andhra Pradesh
  • Sadanand Swamy: Karnataka to Gauhati
  • S Rangarajan: Delhi to Gauhati
  • C Lodha: Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh
  • A P Sen: Madhya Pradesh to Rajasthan
  • T U Mehta: Gujarat to Himachal
  • D B Lal: Himachal to Karnataka
  • A D Koshal: P&H to Madras
  • M Baha-ud-ddin Farooqi: Jammu & Kashmir to Allahabad
  • Rajinder Sachar: Sikkim to Rajasthan

Transferred as Chief Justices:

  • S N Shankar: Delhi to Orissa
  • M R A Ansari: Delhi to J&K
  • Manmohan Singh Gujral: P&H to Sikkim

The late Ashok Desai recalled that the news of transfer to Calcutta high court of Justice Mukhi of the Bombay high court who was keeping indifferent health, impacted him so much that he passed away in September 1976 though by that time the transfer had been revoked.

Also read:

One person stood out was Justice Sankal Chand Seth, a transferred judge, who challenged the constitutional validity of his transfer before the high court of Gujarat.

The full bench of the Gujarat high court unanimously struck down the transfer order.  In the Supreme Court, the appeal was heard by a constitution bench of Chandrachud, Bhagwati, Krishna Iyer, Untwalia and Fazal Ali, JJ. During the pendency of the appeal, the central government decided to withdraw the transfer order. The court still went ahead and pronounced on the law.  The majority (Chandrachud, Krishna Iyer and Fazal Ali, JJ.) held that independence of the judiciary was not imperilled if consent of the transferee judge is not obtained. The minority view (P. N. Bhagwati, Untwalia, JJ.) was to the contrary.

Noted lawyers P.N. Lekhi and Rama Jois (subsequently a judge) were arrested and imprisoned. In March 1976, about 200 lawyers’ chambers in the Tis Hazari Court Complex were demolished and 43 lawyers jailed. This provoked the Supreme Court Bar Association to summon its Emergent General Body Meeting on 30.03.76 to strongly condemn executive highhandedness against the bar.

The chairman of the Bar Council of India in those days used to speak against the government and his explosive speech to the Palghat Lawyer’s Conference in Kerala ensured a MISA Arrest warrant bearing Ram Jethmalani’s name. Bombay Lawyers had filed a petition against Jethmalani’s detention order drafted by Soli Sorabjee along with Ram’s son Mahesh. Nani Palkhivala had obtained interim relief. However, the ADM Jabalpur’s ruling of the Supreme Court, which came while the petition was pending, ensured minimal chances of success. Ram had no option but, on Nani’s advice, to flee India the day after Justice Khanna read out his dissent.

All through the dark times of 1976, the legal profession continued to stay invested in the fight against authoritarianism.  Towards this end, the lawyers roped in academicians, journalists and other public-spirited persons. Ashok Desai asserts that many lawyers refused to accept government briefs in solidarity with those protesting against its draconian action. Coomi Kapoor states that all bar associations of India, with the exception of the Calcutta Bar, had issued statements condemning the Emergency.

On June 14, 1977, William Borders reported for the New York Times that “two young lawyers, wearing the black robes and starchy white dickies customary in Indian court rooms” were sitting in a Bombay Law Library and sipping tea.  One of them observed, “The Rule of Law has swept back like fresh air.  The awful politicization of our cherished judiciary has been reversed, thank God.”

I am waiting to sip that cup of tea. Every generation deserves such a moment of serendipity.

Sanjoy Ghose is a labour lawyer in Delhi.

Reliance Industries Appoints Former CVC K.V. Chowdary to Board of Directors

Chowdary’s career has had its share of controversies, particularly with regard to the CBI’s infighting in 2018.

New Delhi: Reliance Industries has appointed former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) K.V. Chowdary to its board of directors, according to a Friday night regulatory filing the company made to the stock exchanges.

The Mukesh Ambani-owned company noted that the board had appointed Chowdary as a non-executive additional director.

“In accordance with the circular dated June 20, 2018, issued by the Stock Exchanges, we hereby confirm that Shri K.V. Chowdary, is not debarred from holding the office of director by virtue of any Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) order or any other such authority,” it said.

Chowdary, an officer of the Indian Revenue Service, served as the CVC from June 2015 to June 2019.

His four-year tenure was marked by some controversy in relation to a handful of politically-sensitive cases, particularly with regard to the infighting in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2018.

Also read: I-T Notices Sent to Mukesh Ambani’s Family for Undisclosed Foreign Assets

In late 2018, the Supreme Court directed the CVC to complete a probe into former CBI boss Alok Verma’s actions under the supervision of retired judge A.K. Patnaik. On November 16, 2018, having gone through Chowdary’s report, the apex court directed Verma to file his reply in a sealed cover.

As The Wire reported at the time, Verma leveled serious allegations against Chowdary and questioned his integrity as the CVC. “I am surprised that the line of questioning being adopted by the CVC is as if I am already guilty and have to prove my innocence rather than the other way around,” Verma stated.

Verma also stated in writing that Chowdary had visited him to request he withdraw the adverse comments he had made on fellow CBI officer Rakesh Asthana, considered a blue-eye boy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chowdary’s time at India’s tax department, where he first headed investigations and later became chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT), also overlapped with the investigation into the ‘Sahara-Birla’ papers – a group of documents that allegedly indicated that senior Indian politicians, including Narendra Modi, may have accepted bribes.

Also read: CAG Proceeds With Audit Report Questioning Reliance, I-T Dept for Tax Discrepancies

Advocate-activist Prashant Bhushan has also alleged that former CBI director Ranjit Sinha investigated whether Chowdary had any links to a high-profile investment fraud case known as the ‘Stock Guru scheme’, a probe which eventually cleared the CVC.

Chowdary’s appointment and tenure as CVC was criticised by stakeholders from across the political spectrum, including Prashant Bhushan, Ram Jethmalani and Subramanian Swamy.

His selection as CVC was challenged in the Supreme Court, but a bench of judges led by Justice Arun Mishra eventually dismissed the case, saying that the complaints against him could not be taken at face value.

Veteran Jurist Ram Jethmalani Passes Away, Tributes Pour In

Leaders across political and social spectrum joined in to pay tributes to the 95-year-old.

New Delhi: Eminent jurist and former Union minister Ram Jethmalani passed away on Sunday at the age of 95, his family members said.

Jethmalani breathed his last at 7.45 am at his official residence in New Delhi, his son Mahesh Jethmalani told PTI. Mahesh and other close acquaintances said he had not been keeping well for a few months.

He passed away a few days before his 96th birthday on September 14. Mahesh said his father’s last rites will be performed in the evening at the Lodhi road crematorium here.

Besides Mahesh Jethmalani, the former Union minister is survived by his daughter based in the US. His other daughter, Rani Jethmalani, died in 2011.

Jethmalani was the Union law minister and also the Urban development minister during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. He also served as the Supreme Court Bar Association president in 2010. He was born in Shikarpur in Sindh province (now in Pakistan) on September 14, 1923 and obtained a law degree at the age of 17.

‘Lost a dear friend’

President Ram Nath Kovind condoled the demise of Ram Jethmalani, a “person of great erudition and intellect”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recollected the contributions of Mr. Jethmalani to both the Court and Parliament while condoling his demise.

“I consider myself fortunate to have got numerous opportunities to interact with Shri Ram Jethmalani Ji. In these sad moments, my condolences to his family, friends and many admirers. He may not be here but his pioneering work will live on! Om Shanti,” Modi wote.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday expressed grief over the death of the veteran lawyer, and said he had lost a “dear friend”.

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said the country has lost a great intellectual and a patriot.

“Deeply saddened to learn about the demise of Shri Ram Jethmalani … one of the brilliant minds of Bharat. In his passing away the nation has lost a distinguished jurist, a great intellectual & a patriot, who was active till his last breath,” the Vice President’s secretariat wrote on Twitter.

Ram Jethmalani’s name will be written in golden words in legal history, said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, reacting to Jethmalani’s demise.

“Extremely saddened at the passing away of legendary lawyer Ram Jethmalani ji,” the Delhi CM wrote on Twitter.

(With inputs from PTI)

How the Judiciary Defied the Government to Uphold Constitutional Values During the Emergency

At a time when all critical voices against the government were being muted and the media had become compliant, lawyers and judges continued to argue for civil liberties.

Note: This article was first published on June 25, 2017 and is being republished on June 25, 2019.

The declaration proclaimed on June 25, 1975, under Article 352(1) of the constitution that a grave Emergency existed whereby the security of India was threatened by internal disturbance was the declaration of a phoney Emergency. Its real cause was the erosion of Indira Gandhi’s hold on power. The occasion to declare it on that day was an adverse decision of the courts. On June 12, 1975, in the election petition filed by Raj Narain, Jagmohan Lal Sinha, justice of the Allahabad high court, had found Gandhi guilty of corrupt practices.

The Supreme Court had risen for its summer vacation and Justice Krishna Iyer happened to be the vacation judge. On the very day of the decision, the judge received a curious telephone call from the law minister H.R. Gokhale (popularly known as Balasaheb) that he wanted to call on the judge. On inquiry, Gokhale mentioned that it was about the verdict in the prime minister’s case. The judge declined to meet him, but advised him to file an appeal and seek an early hearing.

At the hearing on June 24, 1975, Gandhi’s counsel Nani Palkhivala pressed for a complete stay, urging that otherwise the very legitimacy of the prime minister would become an issue. The judge, however, followed the established practice and granted only a limited stay (Indira Nehru Gandhi vs. Raj Narain, (1975) 2 SCC 159). Now the citizens of India had the protection of a ‘double Emergency,’ because from December 3, 1971, we were already governed by an earlier proclamation that an Emergency existed whereby the security of India was threatened by external aggression.

At 9:30 pm on the night of June 25, 1975, the proclamation was sent to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. No cabinet meeting had been held to discuss the matter, much less to approve of the measure. Gandhi evidently wanted even her colleagues to face a fait accompli. The president also did not insist on a cabinet meeting, but was persuaded to sign the midnight proclamation. It is a historic irony that the order of a judge keen on preserving the rule of law provided the excuse for its suspension.

The report of the Shah Commission and now the book The Emergency by Coomi Kapoor shows that the actual preparation for an internal Emergency had started much earlier. Gandhi was being advised by a core group close to her, namely Siddhartha Shankar Ray (chief minister of West Bengal), D.K. Barooah (Congress president), Rajni Patel (chairman of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee) and Balasahab Gokhale, the last two being the contribution of the Bombay Bar.

A declaration of Emergency necessitates an elaborate administrative legal framework. An earlier model was already available in the Defence of India Act and various subsidiary orders thereunder. The list of proposed detenus, which was being prepared from as early as January 1975, had to be updated. One critical declaration now invoked was under Article 359(1) which denied anyone to move any court for enforcement of the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 21 and 22.

The Bombay high court was particularly fortunate to have an independent and resolute leadership provided by Chief Justice Kantawala and Justice Tulzapurkar. On some occasions, even the sword of transfer was invoked by the government against some of the judges. For instance, Justice Vimadalal was transferred to the Andhra Pradesh high court. A transfer order was also passed against Justice Mukhi who was keeping indifferent health. He was abruptly ordered to be transferred to the Calcutta high court. Unfortunately, the news weighed so heavily on him that he passed away in September 1976, even though by this time his transfer order had been revoked (Bombay Law Reporter Journal page 1).

The bar also rose to the occasion. Persons who were oppressed by preventive detention orders or press censorship had ready champions at the bar to fight their causes. One of the devices prevailing in the Emergency was that critics of the Emergency were picked up for detention and removed outside Bombay so that they would not be accessible. Further, the conditions for a detenu were made harsher. Interestingly, we were able to rely on a passage in a Supreme Court decision of Justice Shah where he had observed:

‘It must be emphasized that a detenu is not a convict. Our Constitution, notwithstanding the broad principles of the rule of law, equality and liberty of the individual enshrined therein, tolerates, on account of peculiar conditions prevailing, legislation which is a negation of the rule of law, equality and liberty. But it is implicit in the constitutional scheme that the power to detain is not a power to punish for offences which an executive authority in his subjective satisfaction believes a citizen to have committed. Power to detain is primarily intended to be exercised in those rare cases when the larger interest of the State demand that restrictions shall be placed upon the liberty of a citizen curbing his future activities. The restrictions so placed must consistently with the effectiveness of detention, be minimal.’ (Sampat Prakash vs. State of Jammu & Kashmir, 1969 (1) SCC 562).

This passage was creatively used by the judges to give far reaching relief to the detenus. The court permitted detenus to get their own food, reading material and to receive visitors. These were precious rights which kept up their spirits. There was the case of Mrinal Gore, who was lodged in a grim cell with a leper and thereafter a lunatic on the excuse that no other ‘accommodation’ was available. Her conditions were dramatically improved by court orders.

The court further accepted the submission that the writ of habeas corpus meant ‘produce the body’ and that therefore at every hearing, the detenu must be kept present in court. This gave a precious opportunity to the detenus to come to the court room in Mumbai and meet their friends. The most memorable instance was when the court ordered hearings on the same day for two different petitions viz. of Madhu Dandavate and his wife Pramila who were lodged in different jails. The court hearings enabled them to meet in the rather unromantic corridors of the Bombay high court.

It must be added that so far as availability of lawyers was concerned, the government often found itself in a quandary. Many lawyers declined to appear for the government in cases affecting civil liberty and the government could not always get the legal assistance that it desired. There was loose talk that counsel constantly appearing against the government would also be detained. The Maharashtra government, however, did not detain any lawyer unless he was undertaking forbidden political activities.

The bar also expressed its solidarity by appearing in some cases involving civil liberty in particularly large numbers. For instance, the office bearers of the Bombay Committee of Lawyers for Civil Liberty thought of calling a private meeting at the Jinnah Hall on October 18, 1975, and issued non-transferable cards to lawyers. It was to be addressed among others by a distinguished and a sedate panel including the former Chief Justice M. C. Chagla, the former Chief Justice J. C. Shah and Justice Nathwani. Although it was a private meeting, the lawyers sought permission of the commissioner of police which was duly refused. This then became an issue before the high court in which Palkhivala led the argument along with more than 150 lawyers as noted in the court record. Ironically, the elaborate hearing in the court on civil liberty itself constituted a meeting and perhaps a public meeting at that. The order was struck down. Chief Justice Kantawala held that such a meeting of lawyers could not be called a public meeting and that every executive action affecting liberty would have to comply with a specific legislative authority or legal sanction. Justice Tulzapurkar observed in sharp words:

‘The Commissioner ought to have acted with more care and responsibility before imposing such a near-total ban which would bring within its mischief all types of private assemblies or meetings leading to outrageous results. A family unit of five consisting of husband, wife and three children cannot sit together for a dinner at a table without obtaining the prior permission of the Police Commissioner and a Muslim cannot socially meet his four wives at one time and place without obtaining the prior permission of the Police Commissioner.’ (N. P. Nathwani vs. The Commissioner of Police, 78 (1975) Bom LR page 1)

Similarly, when the order of detention against Ram Jethmalani was challenged, a large number of lawyers appeared for the petitioner. The detention was stayed and we were all hopeful that the Supreme Court would recognise, at the least, the minimal right that no Indian could be deprived of his life or liberty except according to the letter of the law especially when the provisions were harsher. I recall how during the earlier Emergency, a law officer had sought to argue before the Supreme Court that if Article 21 was suspended, the citizen would be left with no rights of life or liberty. Justice Mathew pointedly asked whether before the independence a British officer could oppress or kill an Indian without the support of any specific law. Surely, an Indian could not be worse off after the independence and lose his rights, because ‘fundamental rights’ which were conferred in 1950 were subsequently suspended.

The Bombay high court was taking the view that during the Emergency the validity of a law may not be examined, but the text of the law could not be abandoned and had to support government order. This view was particularly helpful in detention and in press censorship cases. For instance, Justice Madon had struck down the censorship order served on the monthly Freedom First, observing to the effect that the objections urged by the censor were unrelated to any of the purposes or objects of the censorship order and that most of the consequences contemplated were fanciful and far-fetched. The view taken was such, as no person acting rationally could ever possibly take (Binod Rao Vs. M. R. Masani, 78 (1975) Bom LR 125). Several high courts had taken a similar view.

On April 27, 1976, when the decision in ADM Jabalpur was pronounced in the Supreme Court, I carried a copy of the judgment to Mumbai for the prompt information of Jethmalani who would now become an absconder (ADM Jabalpur vs. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521). When I read it on the flight, I could not believe that the judges by a majority led by Chief Justice Ray and Justice Beg and unexpectedly joined by Justice Chandrachud and Justice Bhagwati (but with a strong dissent of Justice Khanna) had declared that the right to life and liberty was not available during the Emergency since Article 21 itself got suspended. The majority judgment relied on the wartime decision of the majority of the House of Lords in Liversidge vs. Anderson (1942 A.C. 206), disregarding the ringing dissent of Lord Atkins.

The decision in ADM Jabalpur had a drastic impact on petitions for habeas corpus. During this period, the matters relating to Emergency in the Supreme Court were placed before the First Court. Unlike his normal court demeanour, Chief Justice Ray was clearly hostile to lawyers who argued for civil liberties. I have an ironic memory of a matter which can be called ‘the case of the hungry jailor.’ Our client was detained in the jail in Agra and was entitled to get his own food. His tiffin box used to be scrutinised by the security staff who evidently relished chicken dishes which were appropriated during the checking. We moved the Supreme Court to enforce his rights under the rules. At the first hearing, I discovered that an impressive looking tall gentleman was sitting in the first court when we assembled. The chief justice mentioned that ‘he was pleased to welcome Sir Robert Kerr, the former chief justice and now the governor general of Australia.’ I felt that Chief Justice Ray would not deny my client some relief, particularly in the August presence of the foreign visitor. As soon as the case was called out I mentioned the need for observing the conditions of detention strictly and the guest looked interested in the matter. The chief justice thereupon delivered a homily partly addressed to the audience that all detenus must be treated in the best possible way. He addressed the solicitor general, ‘Mr. Sinha, I shall adjourn the matter only for a day. Tell us promptly tomorrow what is the actual position in the Agra jail and what you propose.’ Alas, the next morning, the mood was completely transformed. When the matter was called out I expressed the confident hope that the learned solicitor general had received his instructions and would give us the good news. Before Sinha could respond, the chief justice said ‘What good news? First tell me what is your locus to file this writ petition,’ and we were unceremoniously bundled out.

Chief Justice Ray later presided over the bench which despite a powerful argument by Homi Seervai reversed the Bombay judgments on the conditions of detention including in the case of Mrinal Gore (UoI vs. Bhanudas K Gawde, (1977) 1 SCC 834).

In a little while all critical remarks against the government became muted and the media became compliant. The government now had illusions about its popularity. The debacle in the general elections of 1977 took it by complete surprise. The Supreme Court had to face the heaviest criticism in its history for letting down citizens during the Emergency. ‘Never again’ was the call in civil liberty meetings like the meeting of Citizens of Democracy. It must be noted that the objective was partially achieved by the 44th Constitutional Amendment of 1978 which also amended Article 359. Under the then existing provisions, once an Emergency was proclaimed, Articles 20 and 21, which guarantee life and liberty of citizens, could be suspended. The solution adopted by the 44th amendment was to ensure that no government in the future could suspend these rights which now become non-derogable. It must be added that in a remarkable swing of the pendulum, the Supreme Court has thereafter enlarged the concept and the application of Article 21 well beyond what was ever contemplated by the framers of the constitution. At least in this area, the lessons of the Emergency have been learned.

One later aspect of the Emergency cases remains to be considered. How sound was the view of the majority in ADM Jabalpur which was dissented to by Justice Khanna? While it is true that the reasoning in ADM Jabalpur is no longer good law in the light of the 44th amendment, it is interesting to consider the views of two later benches of the Supreme Court. Subsequent courts have been reluctant to discuss the correctness of the majority view on the ground that after the 44th amendment it was no longer a live issue. In Attorney General for India vs. Amrit Lal Pranjivandas (1994 (5) SCC 54), the Supreme Court held that the amendment was not retrospective, however, the court noticed some earlier judgments including Jaychand Lall Sethia vs. State of West Bengal (1966 Supp SCR 464: AIR 1967 SC 483: 967 Cri Lj 520) in which the court has held that the presidential orders under Article 359 (1) will not prevent a citizen challenging the order of detention if any of the grounds given in the order of detention are irrelevant or malafide. Then it went on to say that:

“To the same effect is the decision of another Constitution Bench in K. Anandan Nambiar V. Chief Secretary, Government of Madras (1966 (2) SCR 406). The majority opinion in ADM Jabalpur, however, appears to take a view contrary to the one expressed in Jaichand Lall (1966 Supp SCR 464) and Anandan Nambiar but for the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to go into the correctness of the reasoning in ADM Jabalpur, since it has not been debated before us. Indeed, a three-Judge Bench in Union of India V. Bhanudas Krishna Gawde (supra) has taken the extreme view, purporting to follow ADM Jabalpur, that even the restrictions placed and facilities denied cannot be questioned in a court during the period the order under Article 359(1) is in operation (sic)”

The correctness of ADM Jabalpur was directly considered in Ram Deo Chauhan V. BaniKanta Das (2010) 14 SCC 209: (2011) 3 SCC (Cri) 727. The court expressed its emphatic view that the majority judgment in ADM Jabalpur was itself violative of fundamental rights. It held:

This Court in exercise of its appellate jurisdiction has to deal with many judgments of the High Courts and the Tribunals in which the High Courts or the Tribunals, on an erroneous perception of facts and law, have rendered decisions in breach of human rights of the parties and this Court corrects such errors in those judgments. The instances of this Court’s judgment violating the human rights of the citizens may be extremely rare but it cannot be said that such a situation can never happen.

We can remind ourselves of the majority decision of the Constitution Bench of this Court in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla. The majority opinion was that in view of the Presidential Order dated 27-6-1975 under Article 359(1) of the Constitution, no person has the locus standi to move any writ petition under Article 226 before a High Court for habeas corpus or any other writ to enforce any right to personal liberty of a person detained under the then law of preventive detention (Maintenance of Internal Security Act of 1971), on the ground that the order is illegal or mala fide or not in compliance with the Act (see SCC paras 78 and 136 of the Report).

The lone dissenting voice of Justice Khanna in ADM Jabalpur case interpreted the legal position differently by inter alia holding: (SCC p. 777, para 593)

“593. (8) Article 226 under which the High Courts can issue writs of habeas corpus is an integral part of the Constitution. No power has been conferred upon any authority in the Constitution for suspending the power of the High Court to issue writs in the nature of habeas corpus during the period of Emergency. Such a result cannot be brought about by putting some particular construction on the Presidential Order in question.”

There is no doubt that the majority judgment of this court in ADM Jabalpur case violated the fundamental rights of a large number of people in this country. Commenting on the majority judgment, Chief Justice Venkatachaliah in the Khanna Memorial Lecture delivered on February 25, 2009, observed that the same be “confined to the dustbin of history”. The learned chief justice equated Justice Khanna dissent with the celebrated dissent of Lord Atkin in Liversidge v. Anderson. In fact, the dissent of Justice Khanna became the law of the land when, by virtue of the 44th constitutional amendment, Articles 20 and 21 were excluded from the purview of suspension during Emergency.

The suggestion that Supreme Court judgment can be violative of fundamental rights is an unusual one. It, however, shows the great doubt that is constantly entertained about the reasoning in ADM Jabalpur. The last words can be left to Seervai to record his views on Liversidge and ADM Jabalpur.

Delivering a lecture in the Bombay University on January 10, 1979, Lord Scarman said: “The House of Lords has put the Liversidge Case where it belongs – in a War Museum.”

Seervai concludes “It remains to add that the ADM Jabalpur case is the most glaring instance in which the Supreme Court of India has suffered most severly from a self-inflicted wound.” (Constitutional Law of India, third edition, H. M. Seervai, Page 1053 and 1048). 

Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Bombay Bar Association.

Ashok H. Desai is a senior advocate and former attorney general for India.

Learning How to Put the Country First – Sharad Pawar on Barrister Rajni Patel

An excerpt from ‘Remembering Rajni’, a book that is a collection of tributes to late barrister Rajni Patel.

Rajni Patel was a lawyer, trade union leader and politician – and much more – who dominated the political landscape of Bombay in the 1970s. He was a close associate and adviser of Indira Gandhi. A Cambridge-educated lawyer, he had been on the watch list of British authorities during his days in Britain and upon his return to India, got involved in cooperative movements and public life in general. His legal battles in the courts are legendary.

A new book by his wife Bakul Patel brings together tributes from well-known stalwarts of the time, from P.N. Haksar, Ram Jethmalani, Justice Krishna Iyer and many more. The foreword is by former president Pranab Mukherjee, who formally launched it an event in Mumbai last week.

In this excerpt from the book, former chief minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar recalls his friendship with Patel.

My association with Rajni Patel goes back to the 1960s, when I was in my last year of college and was a member of the Youth Congress, working in and around Pune.

In 1962, Krishna Menon the then foreign minister, contested elections as the Congress candidate from North Bombay. There was a section of the Congress Party that was not happy with this and we were organised as an informal group called the Anti-Menon Youth Front. Our leader was the well known Congressman S.K. Patil – he was supporting the candidature of Acharya Kulkarni. Many industrialists and Congress leaders were supporting us.

By this time, I had graduated from college and was working for the Party full-time in Bombay; the Party office was at Tilak Bhavan in Prabhadevi and I was staying there, too. The Anti-Menon Front’s work was also carried out from this office.

Krishna Menon’s campaign was being managed by Rajnibhai – I did not know him then, of course, but we all knew that he was supported by people like journalist Russi Karanjia, actor Dilip Kumar and other prominent citizens, as well as Left-leaning well-wishers who were not directly involved in the party, but were influential in their own way.

Remembering Rajni,
Bakul Patel,
Spenta Multimedia, 2018

As it happened, Menon eventually won, and those of us in the Anti-Menon Youth Front were summoned and ticked off by another leader, Y.B. Chavan who was very unhappy with us for working against a Congress candidate from inside the Party. His words still resonate with me – he said, “You must work with the Party or you should leave.”

Of course, I stayed on and in 1967, got elected to the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha from Baramati district, near Pune. I was 26 – the youngest member in the Assembly; I was also now heading the Congress’ Youth Wing in the state. In those days, the Party worked very differently from how things are done now – there was a rural group and another one that was based in Mumbai. There was a cultural gap between them. As the leader of the Youth Wing, I used to travel across the state and at the time, you didn’t stay at a Circuit House or in hotels, but with other Congress workers which built bonds and personal equations between people working in the Party.

This was an important time for the Congress. In the General Elections of 1967, George Fernandes, a trade unionist and member of the Samyukta Socialist Party, was the candidate contesting against S.K. Patil, who was a legendary figure. Back in 1967, no one knew George and no one expected him to win. He fought hard and his campaign slogan had only one sentence – “You can defeat Patil.” Eventually, he won and came to be known as George the Giant Killer. At the national level, the Congress Party was voted to power in the elections, but with a lesser margin than before and the central leadership – with Indira Gandhi as prime minister – was not very strong.

I have always found that when a stalwart is defeated, those who dislike him feel powerful and that is exactly what happened in Mumbai after S.K. Patil’s defeat. At this time, Rajnibhai, who had been working for the Congress but was not an office bearer, became more prominent. To me, it appeared that he was working behind the scenes to strengthen and support Mrs Gandhi’s leadership. He began to take more interest in the party’s affairs, but not the day-to-day running of it. Those who visited Mumbai from the Centre or from other states began making it a point to meet Rajnibhai and take his advice on various matters. At the same time, he was gathering support for Mrs Gandhi from a cross-section of society – the intelligentsia, businessmen, film stars, etc. Respected Bombay citizens like Dr L.H. Hiranandani and Dr A.V. Baliga would be part of meetings that Rajnibhai convened. All of this greatly raised Rajnibhai’s status within the Congress.

Mrs Gandhi used to take an active interest in the working of the Youth Wing at the time and as its Chairman, I had the opportunity to attend meetings with her a couple of times, which also made me understand that Rajnibhai was one of the people she trusted a lot and who influenced her.

Around 1969, Mrs Gandhi decided to introduce policies that would help the poorer sections of society and Rajnibhai played a very important role in the change of strategy. In the Congress, it was always true that those at the state level always had their gaze fixed upon Delhi and the moment you realised that someone was influential at the national level, you began looking up to them. Thus, Rajnibhai’s importance in the party circles grew and he eventually became president of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee in 1972.

I had, of course, been very aware of him and his work but had not yet met him or had a conversation with him directly until this time. In the early 1970s, just before he became president of the BPCC, Rajnibhai began organising many meetings and conferences – both at the national and state levels – and some of us would introduce ourselves to him when we got a chance to, which is how I met him. I was now the General Secretary of the Congress Party in Maharashtra and he, too, was watching my career. At the time, a serious drought had affected areas of Maharashtra and one of them was my constituency, Baramati. Rajnibhai used to raise funds for emergencies such as these by reaching out to his network of well-wishers and friends across the board.

One day, he called me to meet him. “Young man,” he said, “We are in a crisis and we have to work together. You have to encourage younger people to help. Their job should not be to concentrate on gaining a position but to help affected people.” He wanted us to go out into the field to help those who were affected. Many of us were inspired by his work and a Drought Relief Committee was set up. I remember, he organised all kinds of supplies, including medicines which were donated by pharma companies and his contacts in the transport sector ensured that truckloads of these supplies were on their way to the drought victims.

1971 was a significant year – it began with general elections and ended with India’s resounding victory in the war against Pakistan. Mrs Gandhi, who had been voted to power again, led the country to victory and Bangladesh was formed. The country was in a jubilant mood. In that year – just before he became president of BPCC, as I have mentioned earlier – Rajnibhai’s influence and importance in the Congress was very high. As for myself, I was now a Minister of State for Home in the V.P. Naik-led Government in Maharashtra and had become a regular visitor at Rajnibhai’s office in Cuffe Castle. I turned to him for advice, especially when it came to administration and organisation. He would always remind me that while I had to do well as a minister and work in the State Legislature, I also had the responsibility of looking after and building up the party at the grass-roots level. I took this advice and recruited more youngsters into the Vidhan Sabha. And I was not the only one he was mentoring – there were about 60 to 65 of us who were supported by him and who supported him. He was also now consulted regularly by chief ministers from across the country and across party lines.

Rajni Patel with Indira Gandhi. Credit: Special arrangement

In early 1975, Mrs Gandhi wanted to replace V.P. Naik with S.B. Chavan as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra; when we first heard of her intentions, my associates and I were not happy with it. And then one morning, Rajnibhai called me and asked me to accompany him on a trip to Delhi; he was going to meet Mrs Gandhi and the top leadership, along with P.K. Sawant who was the president of the Congress Party in Maharashtra. As it turned out, they deliberated on how best to facilitate this change of guard and Rajnibhai played a very key role in the whole matter. He requested me to organise a meeting with Y.B. Chavan who was a minister at the Centre at the time – the idea was to include him in the plan, in order to not upset anyone and have as much support as possible. I saw, first-hand, how Rajni negotiated with everyone involved and made sure that the transition was as smooth as possible. Eventually, S.B. Chavan did take over as Maharashtra chief minister and a few months after that, Mrs Gandhi imposed a state of Emergency in June, 1975.

Initially, the country was positive about the Emergency. There was a feeling that law and order was improving, prices of essential commodities were coming down and a number of programmes were being implemented for the poor. After some time, however, an authoritarian approach was adopted by the governments, both at the Centre and in the states. And Sanjay Gandhi, Mrs Gandhi’s younger son, began to gain more prominence and influence. That was also the time when certain chief ministers forgot that this is a democratic country, and that their power was given to them by the people and they could not just bypass public sentiment. They started behaving like autocrats. Unfortunately, the Maharashtra Chief Minister was one of them.

Sanjay Gandhi began touring the states and I remember one time when I was a minister in the S.B. Chavan-led government; we were all asked to line up at the airport to welcome him. Some of us did not do so because he held no position in the Congress – he was Mrs Gandhi’s son and that was no reason for senior ministers to queue up for him. However, there were people in the party who supported Sanjay and his policies such as forced sterilisation of young men. S.B. Chavan was a big supporter of this birth control programme and as Sanjay set targets to meet, Chavan would pass these numbers on to the party workers. The entire government machinery and party machinery were now working to meet those targets. Many of us started observing public reaction – it was not positive but no one was voicing dissent. I also heard that certain senior Congress leaders were not ready to toe this line and one of them was Rajnibhai; I think he also expressed this opinion to Mrs Gandhi, saying that she was not aware of ground realities. Eventually, she had to lift the Emergency and she lost the general elections that followed in 1977.

The Janata Party came into power at the Centre and in Maharashtra the two factions of the Congress Party – one led by Brahmanand Reddy and the other by Mrs Gandhi – decided to pool votes and form the government. Initially, the chief ministerial candidate was Vasantdada Patil but there were members who were unhappy with that choice. Some of us decided to dissociate from the Congress Party and everyone encouraged me to take the initiative. I was in two minds about breaking the party. At that time, Rajnibhai heard of these developments and asked to see me. I was honest with him and said, “I don’t want to keep you in the dark. The younger leaders feel that Vasantdada is not the right person to continue as chief minister because he is toeing Mrs Gandhi’s line, which is not liked by many.” Rajnibhai said that this problem could be solved and cautioned me against destabilising the government.

However, one morning, when the Assembly was in session, I submitted my resignation, along with other ministers. Chandra Shekhar was the Janata Party president and he decided to support us. His party and a certain section of the Congress elected me as their leader – I was made Chief Minister of Maharashtra. My relations with Rajnibhai cooled. For the first six months, Rajnibhai would not even answer a phone call from me. He had been a victim of the Emergency and Sanjay Gandhi’s policies; now to see us breaking away from the Congress was terrible for him.

After six or seven months, there were severe floods in West Bengal. The chief minister, Jyoti Basu, who was also a friend of Rajnibhai, rang me to ask for assistance. In those days, whenever and wherever there was a calamity, people depended on Bombay to help. I contacted Rajnibhai and said, “I know that you are unhappy with us but Jyoti Basu has contacted me. It is a tradition in Bombay that whenever there is a calamity, we help.” He agreed to see me and the first thing he said was, “You know I am very fond of you but your action of splitting the Party was not appropriate. But now, I am going to forget about it. You are the Chief Minister and we have an important responsibility to West Bengal.” Of course, he worked day and night to raise funds and also supported me wholeheartedly again.

In 1980, Mrs Gandhi came back to power and now Sanjay’s influence was very strong. Though I never discussed it with Rajnibhai, all of us could see that he did not like Sanjay’s policies and he took a conscious decision to disassociate himself from the Party. He focused instead on the construction of Nehru Centre, which was his brainchild. On many occasions, I remember him, Bakulben and the architect, I.M. Kadri discussing the details of its construction. Rajnibhai raised funds for it and was supported by several eminent citizens, as well as important people from the scientific community. Everything that Nehru Centre is today, is because of Rajnibhai’s vision.

There are many reasons why Rajnibhai was a great leader. Since I witnessed him in the Party, I can say that when S.K. Patil was the leader of the Congress in Maharashtra, the perception of him in the eyes of the common man was that he was the representative of rich people and of industrial houses. At that time, the Shiv Sena started gaining support because of the Marathi-speaking population and the working-class from different communities were not happy with the Congress. It was Rajnibhai who revived the Congress in Mumbai city with mass support as the BPCC chief.

One of the most important organisations in Mumbai at that time was the Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh, which had about 2,00,000 members from nearly 80 textile mills. Rajnibhai headed it. He also had the support of over 1,00,000 dock workers and of the workers of important public sector companies like Indian Oil and LIC. He also started taking interest in providing housing for low-income people.

I recollect that one day, he called me into his office and introduced me to a gentleman called K.M. Goenka who owned 200 or 300 acres of land in Gokuldham, in the suburbs. Rajnibhai wanted me to exempt Goenka’s project from tax and in return, Goenka would have to provide flats to workers. He specified that these flats should be 600 sq ft in size and have two bedrooms. He told Goenka that the per square foot rate should be Rs 60 and if he agreed to all of these conditions, he would be exempted from taxes. It all worked out and Rajnibhai even arranged for loans through his connections in banking, so that the workers could purchase these flats. It was the first major successful affordable housing scheme in the city.

Personally, I had a wonderful equation with him. In stature and age, we were never the same but he treated young people as colleagues, friends and equals. If something went wrong, he would sit and explain the situation, and try to help us. He gave me the opportunity to see the world and interact with important national and international personalities. He would take me on his travels and encourage me to take more responsibility at the national level. He wanted me to be confident and prepared for the highest posts in the country.

The most important thing I learnt from him is to always consider the country’s interest, not just your own. And whenever there is a problem anywhere in the country, if you have the opportunity to help, you should help. I recall in 1993, when there was an earthquake at 4 am in Latur, Maharashtra I was there within two hours. I was then the chief minister and I stayed there for 15 days and our rehabilitation project was hailed as a model, even by the World Bank. In fact, when Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji was the prime minister, there was an all-party meeting in Delhi where Sonia Gandhi raised the issue that India had no disaster management plan. When we discussed it, everyone suggested I take the responsibility of developing it. And let me say, in all honesty, that my whole involvement and association with this subject, which has won praise and respect for me in India and around the world, was because of Rajnibhai and what he taught me.

He was a man who never held or even lobbied for a position in the Government, but he remained a man who was everything to everybody.

Read: Ram Jethmalani’s Submission Against BJP Being Asked to Form Govt in Karnataka

“To say the least the behavior of the Governor is that of a complete corrupt and malicious slave of somebody else.”

New Delhi: Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani approached the Supreme Court on Friday (May 18) against the swearing in of B.S. Yeddyurappa as the chief minister of Karnataka. He called the governor’s decision to ask the BJP to form the government a “gross and blatant abuse” of constitutional power.

Jethmalani was not allowed to make his submission. Reproduced below is the full text of the submission he was going to make.

§

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

In the matter of
Dr. G. Parmeshviara & Anr. V. Union of India
WP (C) Diary No. 19482/2018
Written Submissions on Behalf of Shri Ram Jethmalani, Senior Advocate

1. The Governor is a Democratic Public Servant and he cannot act in violation of the well-known constitutional principles.

The judgment of the 5-judge Bench in Rameshwar Prasad(VI) v. Union of India reported as (2006) 2 SCC I at Para 165 clearly states as under:

“165. If a political party with the support of other political party or other MLAs stake claim to form a government and satisfies the governor about its majority to form a stable government, the governor cannot refuse formation of the government and override the majority claim because of subjective assessment that the majority was cobbled by illegal and unethical means.”

2. The judgment of this Hon’ble vourt in Chandrakant Kavlekar v. Union of India reported in (2017) 3 SCC 758 should also read in the light of the above said principle.

3. Even if the matter was not covered by any Supreme Court judgment, a decent governor with some knowledge of democratic principles and rule of law must have acted in a different manner. It more than obvious that some superior force has compelled him to make a mockery of the democratic principles and the constitution.

4. The governor must have a council of ministers under Article 163 to aid and advise the governor.

5. The election of this [government] is undemocratic, shameless, unconstitutional and totally a denial of the decent democratic principles.

6. The BJP must have done its best to secure a majority and it failed whereas its opponents had a readymade majority which was entitled to form the government as a matter of law and decency. To say the least, the behaviour of the governor is that of a complete corrupt and malicious slave of somebody else.

7. No case of any kind has arisen to justify this insulting and unconstitutional action of the governor.

8. Even a layman totally ignorant of legal principles would have had the decency and wisdom to hear those whose political standing he tried to destroy.

SIT on Black Money Is a Public Authority Open to Scrutiny, Information Commission Rules

Whistleblower Herve Falciani, a former HSBC Bank employee, had said in 2015 that the Indian authorities weren’t using all the information he provided on people stashing black money abroad.

Whistleblower Herve Falciani, a former HSBC Bank employee, had said in 2015 that the Indian authorities weren’t using all the information he provided on people stashing black money abroad.

The SIT must be opened to greater public scrutiny, the CIC said. Credit: Reuters

The SIT must be opened to greater public scrutiny, the CIC said. Credit: Reuters

New Delhi: In a landmark ruling, the Central Information Commission has clarified that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Narendra Modi government to investigate all matters relating to black money is a ‘public authority’ under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. Therefore, it must be brought under greater scrutiny of the public.

The order came after a petition by Venkatesh Nayak, an RTI activist and programme coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. He hailed the decision as a “very positive step in the direction of expanding the regime of transparency to bodies that meet the criteria of a ‘public authority’ but do not comply with the provisions of the RTI Act”.

Order’s significance

What makes the order critical is that very little information has been provided in the public domain by the SIT, which is headed by two retired justices of the Supreme Court and comprises senior representatives of various ministries, departments and agencies engaged in ensuring law enforcement and tax compliance.

The investigating agency was set up soon after the National Democratic Alliance government came to power in May 2014. However, a year and a half later, in November 2015, a world-renowned whistleblower named Herve Falciani – also a former employee of the HSBC Bank – had stated that “the authorities in India were allegedly not doing enough to make use of the materials that he had supplied to them about illegal funds stashed abroad by individuals and corporate entities of Indian origin,” according to Nayak. He added that this prompted him to file an application with the central public information officer (CPIO) of the SIT on black money in the department of revenue, of the finance ministry.

Also read: India Has Not Responded to My Offer of Help, Says HSBC Whistleblower

Saying that the SIT was constituted in compliance with the directives of the Supreme Court in the matter Ram Jethmalani and others vs Union of India and others, Nayak added that the apex court later also directed the Centre to disclose the list of entities who had stashed away black money in the Ram Jethmalani case.

RTI plea had sought details of whistleblower’s complaint, action taken

Nayak said he had then asked for copies of the letter written by Falciani to the chairman of the SIT, the response of the chairman to Falciani, all the file notings on the SIT files and documents pertaining to details of action taken on Falciani’s letter, the list of reports submitted by the SIT to the Centre and the apex court, the reports submitted, and the information required to be disclosed suo motu by the SIT under Section 4(1) of the RTI Act.

However, Nayak lamented that the CPIOs in the Ministry of Finance “played soccer” with his RTI application before a CPIO from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) finally rejected access to the information sought for the first four queries on the grounds that they would hamper ongoing investigations and thus claimed exemption under Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act. As for the last three queries, he said the information was received by his office in a fiduciary capacity [exemption under Section 8(1)(e)] and transferred the matter back to the office of the SIT.

Attempt to belittle whistleblower

What also irked the RTI activist was the attempt by the CPIO to belittle the whistleblower. “The CPIO referred to the suppliers of materials (such as Mr Falciani) as ‘certain persons claiming to be whistleblowers’,” said Nayak, adding that “such replies are but natural in a situation where the government is keen on diluting the Whistleblower Protection Act instead of implementing it.”

The first appellate authority (FAA), Nayak said, upheld the CPIO’s rejection order but directed that the entire RTI application be sent to the black money SIT for taking a decision afresh. It was after a 140-day futile wait for a reply that Nayak finally filed a complaint before the CIC to declare the SIT as a ‘public authority’ under the RTI Act.

His appeal said that being a multi-member body, as per the Centre’s May 2014 notification, the SIT was clearly a ‘body’ and as this body was constituted by a notification in the official gazette. Therefore, the SIT met both the criteria for being recognised as a public authority under Section 2(h)(d) of the RTI Act.

In his order on October 10, chief information commissioner Bimal Julka accepted this argument while relying on reasoning and case law to support the decision. He declared the black money SIT a public authority under the RTI Act. He also copied the order to Department of Personnel and Training, and Nayak is now hopeful that the department will come up with guidelines on this subject.

After Partition, Sindhis Turned Displacement Into Determination and Enterprise

Sindhis, who had become homeless and penniless overnight, built schools, colleges and became doctors, helping not only themselves but countless others.

Sindhis, who had become homeless and penniless overnight, built schools, colleges and became doctors, helping not only themselves but countless others.

Sindhi, Sindhis, 1947 Partition, Partition at 70

Credit: Shyam Chandiramani

In 1947, when India was partitioned, Punjab and Bengal were divided but Sindh was left intact. In the province, it was believed that nothing would change – the Hindus had been a minority for centuries, they were the ones with the wealth and power. However, when the time came, the best they could do was escape with their lives. Hordes of prosperous people became homeless and penniless overnight. A large majority had never left Sindh before. They crossed the new border to settle in unfamiliar lands with unfamiliar food, language and customs, stepping from a zone of sparse rain into monsoon country. They quickly got used to reading left to right instead of right to left.

What made it a tremendous feat was that they simply picked up the pieces and kept moving without looking back. It wasn’t just a few individuals or families who did this – it was the entire community. The Hindu Sindhis, a rather heterogeneous mass for historical reasons, and without any central binding force, behaved in this moment of trauma as one entity.

In the early days, there was searing pain, confusion, bitterness and fear – but all that was bundled up and shoved aside to focus on planning and working towards a better future. Families held together, helping each other. Those already living outside Sindh opened their doors. In Pune, Professor Tarachand Tolani of College of Engineering, welcomed over 60 of his wife Shana and his relatives into their home. Over the next few months she fed and cared for them, at the cost of her own health, while he helped them find their feet and settle into homes and livelihood of their own.

One of their distinguished houseguests was a dear friend, Tillumal Advani, acting principal of Dayaram Jethmal Sind College, Karachi. Tarachand’s daughter Maya Thadani, eleven years at the time, remembers with affection T M Advani’s habit of quoting Shakespeare. His family lived with the Tolanis for months while he commuted frequently to Bombay, determined to re-create his college. He faced the bureaucracy with determined dignity and in six months of having lost their homeland and material possessions, he and his small band of ‘refugees’ had founded Jai Hind College, which soon became one of the best colleges in Mumbai.

Nalini Advani’s story is less known but equally striking. In 1946, she passed her matriculation with distinctions in mathematics and science and took admission in Dayaram Gidumal National College, Hyderabad (Sindh) planning to study as much as anyone possibly could – but the college remained closed. One day, their lane was looted, luckily the family was spared. Along with her parents and 11 siblings, Nalini (or Savitri as she was known before marriage) arrived in Bombay with nothing. Her father, Chabaldas Malkani, got a job as a health demonstrator in one of the army camps in distant Kalyan, converted by the government to accommodate the large number of immigrants entering Bombay.

Savitri Badlani and Koshalya Bijlani in Larkana, Sindh, in 1946

Savitri Badlani and Koshalya Bijlani in Larkana, Sindh, in 1946. Credit: Kartar Jaisinghani, photo shot by Nand Jaisinghani

The elder boys started working and the younger ones were admitted into schools. Nalini and her sisters were eager to get back to their studies, but the expenses and the commute made it impossible. Nalini spent her time teaching her siblings and started sewing at home to supplement the family income. When Chabaldas was transferred to Mulund, he approached the panchayat with an idea. They set up the education board Mulund Colony and asked for volunteer teachers. Nalini jumped at the opportunity. The Jai Bharat School was opened in one room. Children sat on the floor and three volunteer teachers taught, working two shifts. At the end of the month, fees were collected and the process of buying furniture for the school began. In three months, the board could afford to put its teachers on a small salary.

Nalini quickly proved herself and was appointed vice principal. Principal L.T. Keswani had been an education officer in Sindh, now living with his family in a nearby camp. Later, another reputed educationist, H.K. Gidwani, joined as principal. So this tiny fledgling school was able to provide a good standard of education. Nalini began working towards the School Teacher Certification under Keswani and, not surprisingly, got it with a first class. In 69 years, the Jai Bharat School has grown into a huge institution.

What distinguishes these stories and so many others like them is the spirit of determination which fuelled the building of something good, strong and useful – not just to the person concerned but to endless others. All around the country – in many parts of the world – Sindhis entered the mainstream, freely dissolving their own cultural identity. In Bombay, Larsen & Toubro had so many Sindhi engineers that it was called Larsen & Toubrani in jest. And the number of Sindhi lady doctors was also startlingly large – dozens of young girls had been sent by their parents in Sindh to Delhi, to study at Lady Hardinge Medical College and live in the hostel there, since the 1930s.

Very few talked about what they had left behind. There was a strong consciousness that they were the lucky ones. Many families had sent their women and children off to safety and when violence came to their door, most quietly packed what little they could carry, if anything, and left. There was some embarrassment that they had seen too few trains filled with corpses or people burnt alive in their homes and places of worship – and no villages of women forced to jump into wells. When Sindhi filmmakers – Govind Nihalani (Tamas) and Ramesh Sippy (Buniyaad) – set out to create blockbuster partition sagas, they chose the more dramatic Punjab stories instead.

The easy acceptance of new realities cost the Hindus of Sindh their culture. With no place of their own where Sindhi was spoken on the streets, there was no context for the language to develop. In fact, Sindhi was not even considered an Indian language till 1967. Too small and scattered a community to be considered a vote bank, they never had political representation and it was left to the smart lawyers of the community (the inimitable Ram Jethmalani, actually), backed by anguished Sindhi writers and intellectuals, to have Sindhi accepted in Schedule VIII of the constitution. In those 20 years, parents had been busy trying to give their children an easier start to the new life by speaking to them in local languages. Most ignored the efforts made by the artists, writers and singers of the community to retain the culture. Very little of their output was translated to enter the mainstream.

The eroding of the Sindhi brand identity began right after partition. Averse to easy hand-outs, for basic survival they began trading at margins well below those of the entrenched trade cartels of Mumbai and were branded ‘cheats’. To create housing for themselves and their displaced community, a very large number quickly erected a range from swanky apartment blocks to low-cost housing for the impoverished. Who knew how much was going into their pockets? Everywhere you looked, Sindhis were using their enterprise, identifying and fulfilling customer needs and growing to prosperity. Bollywood’s Sindhi caricatures reinforced the monolithic stereotype. The actual reality, although widely prevalent, lies mysteriously buried under the awful misrepresentation.

Sindhis have been cut off from their ancestral homeland for 70 years and now, with the migrant generation nearly all gone, their heritage and living memory of it has gone too. Nowadays, there is widespread regret for the loss of the mother tongue. Some are bemused by occasional spurts of yearning for a lost indefinable something; some assign their existential crises to ‘trans-generational’ partition trauma. And some are surely gathering the courage to look beyond the shaming stereotype and feel proud of their seamless integration into global communities and of the numerous Sindhi refugee success stories that abound.

Saaz Agarwal is a Pune-based author and painter.

Two Decades After the Uphaar Cinema Fire, Families of Victims Still Battling for Justice

The families are opposing the mercy plea filed by the accused Gopal Ansal, which the home ministry has forwarded to the AAP government and the lieutenant governor for inputs.

The families are opposing the mercy plea filed by the accused Gopal Ansal, which the home ministry has forwarded to the AAP government and the lieutenant governor for inputs.

Fifty nine were killed in the fire at Uphaar Cinema in Delhi on June 13, 1997. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: Exactly 20 years ago, on June 13, 1997, 59 lives were lost in a fire at Uphaar Cinema in South Delhi, and as the friends and relatives of the victims gathered today to mourn their loss, there was also a sense of dismay for being “denied justice” in the case.

Not only is the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy not satisfied with the judgment in the case delivered by the Supreme Court on February 9, it also believes that through a mercy petition, attempts are being made to even deny whatever sense of solace the order may have provided.

The petition has been filed by the noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani on behalf of Gopal Ansal, the builder and owner of the cinema hall, who was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison.

Victims disappointed with judgment

In a statement, Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who had lost both her children, Unnav and Unnati, in the tragedy, said the victims waited tirelessly for two decades only to be “deeply disappointed and distressed by the judgement they finally received”.

Stating that the “verdict is certain to go down in history as a travesty of justice,” she said that it showed a “pro-establishment mindset”.

“Such a judgement will only embolden the owners of public spaces to violate safety rules and compromise on safety, with no thought of endangering human lives. It is a well-known fact that law breakers are always ahead of law makers, but it is for the courts to see that justice is done and law breakers are brought to book,” said the aggrieved mother who has over the last 20 years waged a battle against the accused despite being gravely threatened.

Since the apex court had shown leniency towards the main accused on account of his age, Krishnamoorthy questioned this reasoning saying there were a plethora of Supreme Court judgements in which the court had incarcerated convicts for life despite their old age.

She cited a recent  judgement (Abdul Wahid vs State Of UP) in a 40-year-old case in which the Supreme Court sentenced a 90-year-old man to life imprisonment.

“Age of the appellant and the time elapsed since occurrence is of no relevance. Undue sympathy would do more harm to criminal justice system in addition to undermining the public confidence in the efficacy of the system,” she said.

‘Fit to play golf, not to serve jail term’

In the light of the reasoning provided by the apex court, she also demanded to know why in the case of accused Sushil Ansal, who at 76 is “fit to play golf, carry on his business activities and also make plans to relocate overseas”, the Supreme Court had found him too old to serve the jail time.

The court had while reviewing its 2015 judgment ordered a one-year jail term to Gopal but allowed the elder brother Sushil to walk free because of his age after he had served a five-month sentence. Krishnamoorthy said she has learnt that now attempts are being made to secure a mercy plea for Gopal as well.

Jethmalani files mercy plea, MHA forwards it to L-G

“We have also received information recently that a mercy petition has been filed on behalf of Gopal Ansal by senior advocate Ram Jethmalani. The same has been received by the Ministry of Home Affairs and forwarded to the lieutenant governor of Delhi for his opinion,” Krishnamoorthy said.

“We are shocked that the Ministry of Home Affairs has bothered to entertain such a blatantly undeserving petition on behalf of a convicted mass murderer. We trust that our hopes will not be dashed further by the L-G by entertaining this petition.”

Talking to The Wire, Krishnamoorthy said she would be appealing to both the L-G Anil Baijal and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to oppose the mercy petition as and when it reaches them.