Editorial, 'BE OPEN AND DO GOOD' in Law Animated World, 31 August 2009, Vol. 5: Part 2, No. 16 issue

BE OPEN AND DO GOOD

is basically what is required of, and what people in general desire from, our superior courts’ judges to fulfill their constitutional obligations. Though not elected, and not removable save by impeachment in parliament, these judges nevertheless are public servants and as such cannot escape public scrutiny of their conduct and situation. As Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) had rightly said: “The public servants – legislators, executives, and judges alike – must be in every fact the servants of the people. The people must have the right to make and unmake these public servants, in order to hold them strictly accountable for their stewardship. … the people must not sur¬render to the Judiciary, any more than to the executive or legislative branches of the government…” And Frankfurter J (1882-1965) said: “Judges as persons, or courts as institutions, are entitled to no greater immunity from criticism than other persons or institutions. Just because the holders of judicial office are identified with the interests of justice they may forget their common human frailties and fallibilities.” As such the present controversy about disclosure of assets by Judges is quite regrettable and though it is set to some rest by the recent decision of our Supreme Court judges not only to disclose their assets but also ‘net’ify those declarations, still some problems remain as judges – even Mr. Justice Kannan, the first to publicly declare his assets – have reservations as to whether the information may not be used to harass them. He asks: “Should a judge be answering everyone how he has got the wealth that he has declared? Imagine a judge enquiring into allegations of disproportionate wealth case of a bureaucrat. …what if the litigant asks the judge, ‘how did you obtain your wealth, before asking me to explain my riches?’...” and wants some further curbs on action pursuant to such declarations. The answer is, that is a common problem for all public servants, and judges already have more secure constitutional safeguards. But I am certain Kannan J would also agree with us that even judges cannot be allowed to amass assets disproportionate to their legitimate incomes, and if they do so, then they must be accountable to and actionable by the people 

Jhoot ka Saamna!?, article by I. Sasi at p. 83 in Law Animated World, 15 August 2009 issue

Young Minds Abode:

JHOOT KA SAAMNA?

Recently two litigations were launched against the show "Sach Ka Saamna" (Confront Truth) being aired on Star Plus alleging it was destroying Indian moral and cultural values. I don't know about the values position but I think the show should be banned due to some basic reasons:
First of all, the credibility of the polygraph machine, upon which the whole show is based, is questionable. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Despite claims of 90-95% reliability, critics charge that rather than a "test", the method amounts to an inherently unstandardizable interrogation technique whose accuracy cannot be established. A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test's average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance. Critics also argue that even given high estimates of the polygraph's accuracy a significant number of subjects (e.g. 10% given a 90% accuracy) will appear to be lying, and would unfairly suffer the consequences of "failing" the polygraph. In the 1998 Supreme Court case, United States v. Scheffer, the majority stated that "There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable" and "Unlike other expert witnesses who testify about factual matters outside the jurors' knowledge, such as the analysis of fingerprints, ballistics, or DNA found at a crime scene, a polygraph expert can supply the jury only with another opinion..." Also, in 2005 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals stated: “Polygraphy did not enjoy general acceptance from the scientific community.” Charles Honts, a psychology professor, states that polygraph interrogations give a high rate of false positives on innocent people.
The polygraph test is used in interrogation to obtain clues/admissions from the suspects, not as a proof… The disclaimer says that the statements revealed by participants are not to be used by a third party, but it is as useless as a "Smoking is injurious to your health" sign on cigarette packets. In a program that reaches millions of people across India one cannot control transformation of … people's perception by just a disclaimer on the bottom. One should be more responsible.
Secondly, the questions asked in the show are quite ambiguous - such as "Did you ever think of murdering your wife?" What could be the answer? Yes, he might have thought so on an occasion when he was very angry with his wife, or might have thought of it jokingly. But with heartbeat sounds in the background and close-ups of astounded faces of wife, husband and relatives, the truth is exaggerated and miscarried to the audience. His relationship is about to fall for nothing. Questions like "Did you ever think this..." do not have a particular answer. He/she may have thought it in one pressure occasion or … may have not. The type of questions asked in actual interrogation usually involve certainties like "Did you ever take drugs?" With the type of questions asked here, the credibility of the Sach ka Samna polygraph test falls below 50%.
Let us suppose a sincere and honest minister is on the show and he is asked: "Did you ever think of swindling public moneys?" What could he truly reply? May be, he may have thought about it in some extreme situations previously or may have thought about it in a lighter vein. For him the answer is certainly ‘No’. But, if the polygraph test disproves that answer the minister’s current reputation in society is finished. He will be rattled in parliament and may be he will never get elected again. The point is you should not show any bloody thing on television with putting just a disclaimer on it just as you ought not to show a girl stripping nude in public even if that really happened.
Lastly the whole point of a game show is destroyed here, since the quiz master can easily gauge for which questions the participant says the truth and for which he hesitates. So he can more or less control the endurance of the participant in the show by choosing appropriate questions. Once the quiz master knows what the participant would most probably answer for the question asked, it is not a fair game any more.
Life is a complicated thing and for many questions, one can't answer in a simple yes or no. Compelling the participants to opt for such dichotomies destroys their reputation and character in public. So, the bottom-line is, one (Siddhaarth Basu in particular) should not go copying every English show without thinking whether it is right or wrong.
- I. SASI, II yr, B.Tech., IIT, Madras.

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Editorial 'SHARING SOVEREIGNTY' in Law Animated World, 15 August 2009 issue. Volume 5: Part 2, No: 15

SHARING SOVEREIGNTY

Courtesy: Reliance Industries Ltd. British North Sea Oil Platform; Courtesy: Wikipedia
on acceptable lines and satisfactory terms between the States and the Union is quite essential if even the quasi-federalism as existing now in our country is to survive and continue without calamitous crises. It is to be regretted that once Pakistan was a certainty, our constitution framers, in an over-reaction, adopted a basically centralist constitution ignoring the federal sentiments prevailing among other sections of the people of India. As a result of the current constitution, the States are left with nothing but sand and small stones to feed their mouths with all major minerals allotted to the Union share. All the residual powers which were originally intended to reside in States were taken away to strengthen the Union. And Article 297 vests all powers over the territorial waters and resources thereof exclusively in the Union and the Apex Court has also opined that natural gas in any form is an exclusive central subject, even overriding the item 25 of the States List. There is nothing akin to American federalism where Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas up to 3 nautical miles is the exclusive preserve of the State of Texas. The dispute over the natural resources in territorial waters is raging in Britain too and no wonder if the Scottish demands for independence over North Sea Oil disputes alleging that England is depriving her of billions of pounds of oil and gas revenues, to the tune of £2300 per a Scot per year, and that Scotland would be happier and better developed if freed from the clutches of the Union, also crop up in our country in no distant future though it is not sure how democratically our Union would deal with such demands. The present controversy about the Krishna Godavari Basin Oil and Natural Gas reserves and the injustice being done to the State of Andhra Pradesh in not paying any royalties and not allocating needed volumes of gas for its industries and domestic supply purposes is but an indication in that direction ...

India: Teachers who gang-raped their own students linked to Modi government

India: Teachers who gang-raped their own students linked to Modi government

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People invent a new magic weapon: the shoe

People invent a new magic weapon: the shoe

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Editorial, 'MACAULAY'S MEN', in the 31 July 2009 issue of LAW

MACAULAY’S MEN

Even Thomas Babington Macaulay, an avowed imperialist, who worked for the creation of “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect,” through the introduction of English education in India, was careful to state the compulsion: “We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language.” And he considered English better suited than Arabic/Sanskrit for the purpose and proceeded – that resulting in the formation of the English educated baboodom in India as faithful servant of the British Rule. We know what enormous sufferings and humiliations we had to undergo in the struggle for our independence and how thousands of freedom fighters had sacrificed their tan-man-dhan for the cause. Since no self-respecting country or nation can/would ever develop without shedding the colonial/foreign domination trappings and all the developed countries have so progressed due to literature and education prospering in their own mother tongues, it was presumed that once we become free, our national languages will take the place of English and that would be a sure way to success of our collective striving for social justice and all-round development. But, alas, that has not come to be because of the machinations of Macaulay’s Men entrenched in the country’s elite – that despite the constitutional mandates to promote Hindi and other regional languages and ‘restrict’ the use of English. Now it is sad to note that in making an unwarranted observation recently, hinting that if the kids are not taught in English medium, they would eventually be not fit even for clerical jobs, even our superior judges have degraded themselves. They ought to have remembered at least Gandhiji’s outburst: “To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them. The foundation that Macaulay laid of education has enslaved us. … It is we, the English-knowing men, that have enslaved India…” if not the more reasoned and widely accepted opinions of Tagore, Zakir Husain, Radhakrishnan, and so many other eminent persons who guided our country’s ‘tryst with destiny’. §§§

Editorial, LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME, in 15 July 2009, Vol. 5, Part 2, No. 13 issue of LAW ANIMATED WORLD.

LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME

has at last been judicially recognized, albeit by only one High Court in India, and approved as part of a person’s right to live with personal liberty and privacy. Socratic love was said to have incensed God who poured down fires of hell and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah according to the conservative version and, ever since, the same sex love came to be shunned and banned in the Western world. There is no instance of explicit prohibition of the same in the Hindu culture though certain punishments have been prescribed for same sex practices in Manu Smriti, which Code, incidentally, is reviled by many of the dalit and downtrodden sections in our country. Scholarly studies did not find any plausible grounds to substantiate the Biblic or Islamic versions of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and even indicate the possibility of natural catastophes behind it, but right from the Justinian prohibition up to the incarceration of Oscar Wilde the Western world did not seem to recover from this trauma. Wilde was but one champion of the gay rights movement we may say, and ever since the Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights movement has gained currency first in the West and slowly all over the world, and liberal sections of the society are more and more coming to view these ‘deviations’ as but ‘natural variations’ of sexual urges and manifestations in human society. In India replete with superstitions and blind hatreds between communities, the third sex, as they are called, have always been subject to much social revulsion and ostracism, which course needs correction – especially, in the mindsets of a majority of the people. Already we see conservative religious, communal and political sections up in arms against this salutary decision promoting the fundamental right to life and gender equality and the ball now seems to be in the Supreme Court. We have all the confidence in the humane and liberal essence of our apex court and hope it would surely not reverse but affirm this much-needed liberal, humane correction to a superstitious legal cum socio-political blunder.   §§§