Editorial of LAW ANIMATED WORLD, Vol. 4: Part 1, 15 May 2008, No. 9 issue

LAW ANIMATED WORLD
A world law fortnightly published from Hyderabad, India.
Editor: I. Mallikarjuna Sharma
ADVISORS: Dr. Lakshmi Sahgal (INA Colonel), V.R. Krishna Iyer (Former Judge, SC), B.P. Jeevan Reddy (Former Judge, SC), P.A. Choudary (Former Judge, APHC), Surendra Mohan (Ex-MP), Prof. R.V.R. Chandrasekhara Rao (Politics), Umesh Chandra (Senior Advocate, Lucknow), Ravi Kiran Jain (Senior Advocate, Allahabad), Colin Gonsalves (Senior Advocate, Delhi), K. Subba Rao (Senior Advocate, Bangalore), K.G. Kannabiran (Senior Advocate & National President, PUCL), Ms. Chandan Ramamurthi (Advocate, Delhi).
Volume 4: Part 1 15 May 2008 No. 9
C O N T E N T S
1. May Day Message 1
2. Law News: $1.4 trillion Indian ‘Black Money’ in Swiss Banks 2
3. Lakshmi Bai: Rani of Jhansi 3-4,by I. Mallikarjuna Sharma 73-74
4. Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. 5-32,Union of India (IND-SC) 45-72
5. RTA v. Grand [AUS-HC] 33-44
6. May Day: Made in America 75
7. May Day Poems Walter Crane and Alfred Hayes 76
Pictures: Left to right: 1. May Flowers; 2. Militant worker; 3. Labour Armed.
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MAY DAY MESSAGE

It is not only a jolly holiday for workpersons all over the world but is also their fighting day and as rightly stated by Old Al, it is the workingman’s New Year’s Day. It is also a day for dedication of all democracy and liberty lovers to the cause of labour and the general welfare of the masses. However, we find that the situation of the working classes in our country is quite bleak and though we have a high-sounding Constitution and some labour welfare statutes too, in reality there are no proper institutional safeguards and remedy mechanisms to quickly resolve their disputes. So much so that while the better placed, status-holding government employees walk away with several monetary, statutory and other benefits from time to time, the ordinary workpersons are deprived of even the basic remedy of knocking a labour court directly, except in cases of unjust termination. The superior courts are also not paying due attention to their weals and woes, and in these days of fast progressing LPG economy, they are prone to lend more attentive ears to the employers. Writ petitions by needy employees in various High Courts lie pending for years together without even minimum interim reliefs granted. The cosy airconditioned environment perhaps makes them forget the blistering conditions of the working people for whom the ultimate justice may be too late when, if at all, it reaches. We are not able to understand why workmen should be barred from directly going to a labour court for the many grievances they have, when the more comfortably placed Government employees can directly approach an Administrative Tribunal for all and sundry causes. Needless to say, it is only a militant upsurge of the working classes for quick remedial justice that can win them their just rights but are the Indian workers in a position to rise up and agitate? §§§