Justice Kabir assumed the office of acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court on January 11, 2005. His father, Jehangir Kabir was a leading Congress politician and trade union leader from West Bengal
in January 1977, M.H. Beg, who was junior to H. R. Khanna, was appointed Chief Justice of India by the Indira Gandhi government. This was against legal tradition, though it had started with A. N. Ray's appointment. This impingement into the independence of the judiciary was widely protested; subsequent law ministers, particularly Shanti Bhushan, initiated a series of measures to bring judicial appointments within the power of the Chief Justice, and not the executive
Justice Kabir assumed the office of acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court on January 11, 2005. His father, Jehangir Kabir was a leading Congress politician and trade union leader from West Bengal
in January 1977, M.H. Beg, who was junior to H. R. Khanna, was appointed Chief Justice of India by the Indira Gandhi government. This was against legal tradition, though it had started with A. N. Ray's appointment. This impingement into the independence of the judiciary was widely protested; subsequent law ministers, particularly Shanti Bhushan, initiated a series of measures to bring judicial appointments within the power of the Chief Justice, and not the executive
"I am proud to be an Indian. India is the only country where a member of the minority Parsi community with a population of 1,67,000, like myself, can aspire to attain the post of the Chief Justice of India. These things do not happen in our neighbouring countries."
Chief Justice Kapadia speaking at the Independence Day celebrations in the Supreme Court.
"Right to life, we have said, includes environmental protection, right to live with dignity. Now we have included right to sleep, where are we going? It is not a criticism. Is it capable of being enforced? When you expand the right, the judge must explore the enforceability."
Chief Justice Kapadia during a lecture on "Jurisprudence of Constitutional Structure"
Primary among these was the imposition of the state of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975, and the subsequent attempt to suppress her prosecution through the 39th Amendment. When the Kesavananda case was decided, the underlying apprehension of the majority bench that elected representatives could not be trusted to act responsibly was perceived to be unprecedented. However, the passage of the 39th Amendment proved that in fact this apprehension was well-founded. In Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court used the basic structure doctrine to strike down the 39th amendment and paved the way for restoration of Indian democracy
On 26 April 1973, Justice Ajit Nath Ray, who was among the dissenters, was promoted to Chief Justice of India superseding three senior Judges, Shelat, Grover and Hegde, which was unprecedented in Indian legal history. Advocate C.K. Daphtary termed the incident as "the blackest day in the history of democracy
Forbes described Rai as being among that rare breed of civil servants who know how to get work done in the government. A former colleague says Rai has an uncanny ability to cut through red tape. He was appointed as Comptroller and Auditor General of India with the backing of finance minister P. Chidambaram. But he has served up uncomfortable audit reports that have pinned many government departments beyond the baseline. He has consistently hit the headlines for his unforgiving audits, ranging from the scathing report on the shoddy preparation for the Commonwealth Games to the latest on spectrum allocations for second generation (2G) telecom services. Along with a vibrant media, an activist Supreme Court and an increasingly vociferous civil society, his supporters say, Rai has made his office into a powerful force for accountability and transparency in modern India. However , post his retirement and on closer scrutiny it appears that he ended up exceeding his constitutional mandate as CAG of India. The Joint Parliamentary Committee set up by the Indian parliament to look into the allocation of spectrum and the notional loss imputed by the CAG has held "On the question of auditing Government policy, the C&AG clarified during evidence: “We are very clear. We do not question the Government (policy).” However, while communicating the decision regarding conduct of audit of grant of licences and spectrum, the then DG Audit,P&T in his letter dated 18 November, 2009 to the Department of Telecommunications had stated:“The aspects of policy, decisions taken, selection and rejection criteria of applicants for licences,process of issue of licences to the selected operators, policy and procedure adopted for allocationof 2G spectrum, logic and reasons behind the policies in these matters will also be included in the examination”. The matter was referred by the Department of Telecommunications to the Ministry of Law and Justice. The view of the Ministry of Law and Justice was: “CAG Act, 1971nowhere provides that he has any duty or power to question the wisdom of the policy/law makers as policy decision may involve trial and error theory. CAG, CVC and other watchdog no doubt play a very significant role in any democracy but they being constitutional/statutory functionaries cannot exceed the role assigned to them under the Constitution/law. Even the Courts refrain to question wisdom of Government in policy matters unless the policy decision is patently arbitrary, discriminatory or mala fide”. The opinion of the Ministry of Law and Justice was communicated to the C&AG Office by the Secretary, Department of Telecommunications on 7 September, 2010. It is surprising that despite the clarification by the Ministry of Law and Justice, the audit of the policy and calculation of loss thereon was carried out unhindered. In this context, the Opinion of the Supreme Court of India dated 27 September, 2012 in response to the reference made by the President of India conclusively hit the nail on the head: “Alienation of natural resources is a policy decision, and the means adopted for the same are thus, Executive prerogatives.” In a democratic framework every organ of the Government is expected to exercise maximum caution and restraint not to trespass the boundaries already drawn up. The Committee would, therefore, like to uphold the prerogative of the Government in a Welfare State to formulate policies which should under no circumstance be subjected to audit or calculation of loss." His controversial tenure can at best be described as an attempt "to push the envelope too far. " All private-public partnerships (PPPs), Panchayti Raj Institutions and societies getting government funds should come within the ambit of the CAG. The PPP model has become a favourite mode of executing big infrastructure projects worth millions of rupees and these projects are not audited by the CAG.Now, 60 percent of government spending does not come under the scrutiny of the CAG. That is a huge amount and not accounted. When most of the indian politicians were opposing his activities, even at that time he did his duty very perfectly and aggressively. He is widely credited for the report on issue of Licences and Allocation of 2G Spectrum by United Progeressive Alliance, UPA government which resulted in a huge controversy in India. The report estimated that there was a presumptive loss of INR1766.45 billion (US$29 billion). In a chargesheet filed on 2 April 2011 by the investigating agency Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency pegged the loss at INR309845.5 million (US$5.2 billion) On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court of India on a public interest litigation (PIL) declared allotment of spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary" and quashed all the 122 licenses issued in 2008 during tenure of A. Raja (then minister for communications & IT in UPA government) the main accused. The court further said that A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away important national asset".However, the Presumptive Revenue loss calculation has never been established and has at best remained a conjecture .On 3 August 2012 when according to the directions of the Supreme Court, Govt of India revised the spectrum price to Rs 140 billion as reserve price for 2G spectrum and decided to sell airwaves in Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan for 1800 MHz band, and pan India for the 800 MHz band the response was poor to say the least . The Government then announced that it would auction the unsold spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from the 2012 spectrum auction, immediately after the first round, which began on 11 March, got over to comply with a Supreme Court order. The government also reduced the reserve price for 1800 MHz by 30% and for 800 MHz by 50% from the 2012 spectrum auction.Response to the 2013 spectrum auction was also very poor. While there were no bidders for spectrum in 1800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, MTS India was the only bidder for airwaves in 800 MHz band. Airtel and Idea were reluctant to participate in the spectrum auction for due to steep pricing of the auction. The main criticism to the report now emerging is that the CAG exceeded its constitutional mandate as it attempted in a sense to change the policy of the Government of India which at that point was to promote telecom growth and not revenue maximisation by arguing that spectrum could only be sold by auction and creating figures for Presumtive losses around it .However,the Honble Supreme Court Of India in the Presidential Reference (2012) has upheld the right of the Government to frame policy and said "The norm of “common good” has to be understood and appreciated in a holistic manner. It is obvious that the manner in which the common good is best subserved is not a matter that can be measured by any constitutional yardstick - it would depend on the economic and political philosophy of the government. Revenue maximization is not the only way in which the common good can be subserved. Where revenue maximization is the object of a policy, being considered qua that resource at that point of time to be the best way to subserve the common good, auction would be one of the preferable methods, though not the only method. Where revenue maximization is not the object of a policy of distribution, the question of auction would not arise. Revenue considerations may assume secondary consideration to developmental considerations.
This righteous officer was replaced by Shashi Kant Sharma.A person with a dubious trackrecord that shows hints of allegiance to the ruling Congress led UPA.His choice caused deep misgivings about the continued independence of the CAG and the motivations of a government that has been repeatedly chastised by the Supreme Court for failing to respect the autonomy of independent institutions. Prashant Bhushan questioned the selection of former Defence Secretary saying that there was conflict of interest in this appointment as CAG. The Government was accused of having deliberately selected a person to render CAG toothless to help the Reliance audit of the Krishna-Godavari Basin. Shashi Kant Sharma remained in important positions in the defence ministry for the entire ten year period of the two UPA Governments. The manner in which his appointment had been made adversely was thought of to possibly affect the perception of impartiality that is necessary for an independent constitutional office-holder
"I am proud to be an Indian. India is the only country where a member of the minority Parsi community with a population of 1,67,000, like myself, can aspire to attain the post of the Chief Justice of India. These things do not happen in our neighbouring countries." Chief Justice Kapadia speaking at the Independence Day celebrations in the Supreme Court.
"Right to life, we have said, includes environmental protection, right to live with dignity. Now we have included right to sleep, where are we going? It is not a criticism. Is it capable of being enforced? When you expand the right, the judge must explore the enforceability." Chief Justice Kapadia during a lecture on "Jurisprudence of Constitutional Structure"
Primary among these was the imposition of the state of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975, and the subsequent attempt to suppress her prosecution through the 39th Amendment. When the Kesavananda case was decided, the underlying apprehension of the majority bench that elected representatives could not be trusted to act responsibly was perceived to be unprecedented. However, the passage of the 39th Amendment proved that in fact this apprehension was well-founded. In Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court used the basic structure doctrine to strike down the 39th amendment and paved the way for restoration of Indian democracy
On 26 April 1973, Justice Ajit Nath Ray, who was among the dissenters, was promoted to Chief Justice of India superseding three senior Judges, Shelat, Grover and Hegde, which was unprecedented in Indian legal history. Advocate C.K. Daphtary termed the incident as "the blackest day in the history of democracy
The recent most notable case is of Justice Katju.A retired supreme court judge, who has been appointed chairman of PCI by the UPA. Unsurprisingly, has taken a hard-stance against BJP and Modi in particular. This amounts to gross violation of work and moral ethics. Notable for saying that 90% of Indians are fools; this is the same guy who went all out in defence of Sanjay Dutt, based solely on his celebrity status; even though the SC had found him guilty(Note: Sanjay Dutt, along with his family-mother,father and sister are candidates of INC.The same INC that gains praises from this 'supposed to be neutral' Katju.For this he has been the eye-candy of the media, not to adore; but as a punching bag with all the controversies he seems to carry.Most notably was when Madhu Trehan took it out on Katju in a episode on the online news channel Newslaundry. The whole tirade began with Katju's article
This was followed by a well asserted backlash by Jaitley.
And then it was followed by interviews to all the MSM.
If you have not been reading Media Crooks, you have been missing one of the sanest, most incisive commentator on Indian current affairs you could ever find anywhere — mainstream media, social media, off-line, online, wherever. I am an unabashed admirer of Media Crooks. I am a fan.
Media Crooks sets the gold standard that very few observers are capable of achieving. Take his expert fisking today (link provided below) of Mr Katju, an ex-judge of the supreme court of India who writes a lot of politically motivated stuff and is often in the media spotlight. Katju deserves to be taken to the cleaners and MC does it with aplomb and ruthless precision.
Here’s an extended excerpt:
Despite being a judge who would be expected to care for facts JK [Justice Katju] still chose to peddle fake and unverified numbers of Muslims killed in Gujarat 2002 in his article. And, of course, he makes readers believe only Muslims were killed and not Hindus. If this is not political tinkering, what is? On February 18 in a chat with Rahul Kanwal and Meenakshi Lekhi on Headlines Today JK used more spurious nonsense to defend himself. He cited women’s bellies being slashed and ripped and burnt. This gory tale doesn’t come from anywhere but appears to be from Arundhati Roy’s wonder world of fiction. I had quoted the whole fake story of Suzy Roy in “SC exposes media’s clean shit” after the SC didn’t accept Zakia Jafri’s petition against Modi. For her bogus story in Outlook magazine, Arundhati had apologised but JK uses similar stories without an iota of evidence. Is he fit to be the PCI chairman? When told that Modi has been elected by people, JK nonchalantly says “we all know how elections are won”. Is he suggesting all elections in India are also spurious or is it only when it comes to Modi? The only major case of election-fraud in a court is not related to Modi but to P. Chidambaram.
In addition to the bellies-ripped story, JK also cites the killing of Ehsan Jafri as a planned attack. It took Meenakshi Lekhi to point out to him that leading the killers of Jafri was not a BJP man but a Congress MLA called Meghsingh Chaudhary . . .
I doubt anyone in the media or any observer would deny that the campaign against Modi was the biggest witch-hunt in India. The hunters who participated benefited financially, in position and in influence. There is no reason not to criticise Modi but it is the proportions and usage of spurious information and analogies that make JK look more like Teesta Setalvad or Mallika Sarabhai. . . In his interview with TimesNow Jaitley mentioned how as Law Minister he had experienced senior judges on the verge of retirement clamouring for post-retirement postings. He also mentioned that some judgements just around the pre-retirement phase could be affected by such lust. With his open political campaign that is intended to benefit the Congress party, JK now has people wondering about the conduct and motives of judges themselves. By his conduct and utterances JK has pushed people into wondering if judges are above political persuasions when they are in office. This is the dangerous lump on the breast that cannot be ignored. In my previous post I have not attributed any motives to JK’s biased, prejudiced and spurious articles and nor have any of his critics in the current episode.
. . .
. . . In my earlier post on this topic I had wrongly mentioned JK has an opinion on everything under Pluto. No Mr. JK, it seems your favourite planet is Uranus.
For all the corruption and scams that the Congress has been mired in, JK doesn’t have much to say about it. His conduct and frequent outbursts and outrage does make one worry about the conduct of our judges. In recent times SC judges have received postings on various statutory bodies immediately on retirement. There isn’t any cooling period post retirement anymore. Meenakshi Lekhi pointed another important aspect of JK’s behaviour and political persuasions. With so much of bias and prejudice against the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi, how can a member of this party who has a complaint to be heard by the PCI chairman ever expect him to be fair and impartial? This alone is good enough reason for JK to resign or to be sacked. The awful truth also is that without the “justice” tag, without the “PCI Chairman” tag and most of all, without the “anti-Modi” tag JK wouldn’t be allowed to write in the media. Not just writing, being anti-Modi is like a license to write with spurious analogies and information. This time everyone called JK’s bluff. It looks like the cats may survive their nine lives but spuriousity certainly killed the Katju.
Katju's lies
in January 1977, M.H. Beg, who was junior to H. R. Khanna, was appointed Chief Justice of India by the Indira Gandhi government. This was against legal tradition, though it had started with A. N. Ray's appointment. This impingement into the independence of the judiciary was widely protested; subsequent law ministers, particularly Shanti Bhushan, initiated a series of measures to bring judicial appointments within the power of the Chief Justice, and not the executive
Justice Kabir assumed the office of acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court on January 11, 2005. His father, Jehangir Kabir was a leading Congress politician and trade union leader from West Bengal
in January 1977, M.H. Beg, who was junior to H. R. Khanna, was appointed Chief Justice of India by the Indira Gandhi government. This was against legal tradition, though it had started with A. N. Ray's appointment. This impingement into the independence of the judiciary was widely protested; subsequent law ministers, particularly Shanti Bhushan, initiated a series of measures to bring judicial appointments within the power of the Chief Justice, and not the executive
"I am proud to be an Indian. India is the only country where a member of the minority Parsi community with a population of 1,67,000, like myself, can aspire to attain the post of the Chief Justice of India. These things do not happen in our neighbouring countries."
Chief Justice Kapadia speaking at the Independence Day celebrations in the Supreme Court.
"Right to life, we have said, includes environmental protection, right to live with dignity. Now we have included right to sleep, where are we going? It is not a criticism. Is it capable of being enforced? When you expand the right, the judge must explore the enforceability."
Chief Justice Kapadia during a lecture on "Jurisprudence of Constitutional Structure"
Primary among these was the imposition of the state of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975, and the subsequent attempt to suppress her prosecution through the 39th Amendment. When the Kesavananda case was decided, the underlying apprehension of the majority bench that elected representatives could not be trusted to act responsibly was perceived to be unprecedented. However, the passage of the 39th Amendment proved that in fact this apprehension was well-founded. In Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court used the basic structure doctrine to strike down the 39th amendment and paved the way for restoration of Indian democracy
On 26 April 1973, Justice Ajit Nath Ray, who was among the dissenters, was promoted to Chief Justice of India superseding three senior Judges, Shelat, Grover and Hegde, which was unprecedented in Indian legal history. Advocate C.K. Daphtary termed the incident as "the blackest day in the history of democracy
Forbes described Rai as being among that rare breed of civil servants who know how to get work done in the government. A former colleague says Rai has an uncanny ability to cut through red tape. He was appointed as Comptroller and Auditor General of India with the backing of finance minister P. Chidambaram. But he has served up uncomfortable audit reports that have pinned many government departments beyond the baseline. He has consistently hit the headlines for his unforgiving audits, ranging from the scathing report on the shoddy preparation for the Commonwealth Games to the latest on spectrum allocations for second generation (2G) telecom services. Along with a vibrant media, an activist Supreme Court and an increasingly vociferous civil society, his supporters say, Rai has made his office into a powerful force for accountability and transparency in modern India. However , post his retirement and on closer scrutiny it appears that he ended up exceeding his constitutional mandate as CAG of India. The Joint Parliamentary Committee set up by the Indian parliament to look into the allocation of spectrum and the notional loss imputed by the CAG has held "On the question of auditing Government policy, the C&AG clarified during evidence: “We are very clear. We do not question the Government (policy).” However, while communicating the decision regarding conduct of audit of grant of licences and spectrum, the then DG Audit,P&T in his letter dated 18 November, 2009 to the Department of Telecommunications had stated:“The aspects of policy, decisions taken, selection and rejection criteria of applicants for licences,process of issue of licences to the selected operators, policy and procedure adopted for allocationof 2G spectrum, logic and reasons behind the policies in these matters will also be included in the examination”. The matter was referred by the Department of Telecommunications to the Ministry of Law and Justice. The view of the Ministry of Law and Justice was: “CAG Act, 1971nowhere provides that he has any duty or power to question the wisdom of the policy/law makers as policy decision may involve trial and error theory. CAG, CVC and other watchdog no doubt play a very significant role in any democracy but they being constitutional/statutory functionaries cannot exceed the role assigned to them under the Constitution/law. Even the Courts refrain to question wisdom of Government in policy matters unless the policy decision is patently arbitrary, discriminatory or mala fide”. The opinion of the Ministry of Law and Justice was communicated to the C&AG Office by the Secretary, Department of Telecommunications on 7 September, 2010. It is surprising that despite the clarification by the Ministry of Law and Justice, the audit of the policy and calculation of loss thereon was carried out unhindered. In this context, the Opinion of the Supreme Court of India dated 27 September, 2012 in response to the reference made by the President of India conclusively hit the nail on the head: “Alienation of natural resources is a policy decision, and the means adopted for the same are thus, Executive prerogatives.” In a democratic framework every organ of the Government is expected to exercise maximum caution and restraint not to trespass the boundaries already drawn up. The Committee would, therefore, like to uphold the prerogative of the Government in a Welfare State to formulate policies which should under no circumstance be subjected to audit or calculation of loss." His controversial tenure can at best be described as an attempt "to push the envelope too far. " All private-public partnerships (PPPs), Panchayti Raj Institutions and societies getting government funds should come within the ambit of the CAG. The PPP model has become a favourite mode of executing big infrastructure projects worth millions of rupees and these projects are not audited by the CAG.Now, 60 percent of government spending does not come under the scrutiny of the CAG. That is a huge amount and not accounted. When most of the indian politicians were opposing his activities, even at that time he did his duty very perfectly and aggressively. He is widely credited for the report on issue of Licences and Allocation of 2G Spectrum by United Progeressive Alliance, UPA government which resulted in a huge controversy in India. The report estimated that there was a presumptive loss of INR1766.45 billion (US$29 billion). In a chargesheet filed on 2 April 2011 by the investigating agency Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency pegged the loss at INR309845.5 million (US$5.2 billion) On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court of India on a public interest litigation (PIL) declared allotment of spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary" and quashed all the 122 licenses issued in 2008 during tenure of A. Raja (then minister for communications & IT in UPA government) the main accused. The court further said that A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away important national asset".However, the Presumptive Revenue loss calculation has never been established and has at best remained a conjecture .On 3 August 2012 when according to the directions of the Supreme Court, Govt of India revised the spectrum price to Rs 140 billion as reserve price for 2G spectrum and decided to sell airwaves in Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan for 1800 MHz band, and pan India for the 800 MHz band the response was poor to say the least . The Government then announced that it would auction the unsold spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from the 2012 spectrum auction, immediately after the first round, which began on 11 March, got over to comply with a Supreme Court order. The government also reduced the reserve price for 1800 MHz by 30% and for 800 MHz by 50% from the 2012 spectrum auction.Response to the 2013 spectrum auction was also very poor. While there were no bidders for spectrum in 1800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, MTS India was the only bidder for airwaves in 800 MHz band. Airtel and Idea were reluctant to participate in the spectrum auction for due to steep pricing of the auction. The main criticism to the report now emerging is that the CAG exceeded its constitutional mandate as it attempted in a sense to change the policy of the Government of India which at that point was to promote telecom growth and not revenue maximisation by arguing that spectrum could only be sold by auction and creating figures for Presumtive losses around it .However,the Honble Supreme Court Of India in the Presidential Reference (2012) has upheld the right of the Government to frame policy and said "The norm of “common good” has to be understood and appreciated in a holistic manner. It is obvious that the manner in which the common good is best subserved is not a matter that can be measured by any constitutional yardstick - it would depend on the economic and political philosophy of the government. Revenue maximization is not the only way in which the common good can be subserved. Where revenue maximization is the object of a policy, being considered qua that resource at that point of time to be the best way to subserve the common good, auction would be one of the preferable methods, though not the only method. Where revenue maximization is not the object of a policy of distribution, the question of auction would not arise. Revenue considerations may assume secondary consideration to developmental considerations.
This righteous officer was replaced by Shashi Kant Sharma.A person with a dubious trackrecord that shows hints of allegiance to the ruling Congress led UPA.His choice caused deep misgivings about the continued independence of the CAG and the motivations of a government that has been repeatedly chastised by the Supreme Court for failing to respect the autonomy of independent institutions. Prashant Bhushan questioned the selection of former Defence Secretary saying that there was conflict of interest in this appointment as CAG. The Government was accused of having deliberately selected a person to render CAG toothless to help the Reliance audit of the Krishna-Godavari Basin. Shashi Kant Sharma remained in important positions in the defence ministry for the entire ten year period of the two UPA Governments. The manner in which his appointment had been made adversely was thought of to possibly affect the perception of impartiality that is necessary for an independent constitutional office-holder
"I am proud to be an Indian. India is the only country where a member of the minority Parsi community with a population of 1,67,000, like myself, can aspire to attain the post of the Chief Justice of India. These things do not happen in our neighbouring countries." Chief Justice Kapadia speaking at the Independence Day celebrations in the Supreme Court.
"Right to life, we have said, includes environmental protection, right to live with dignity. Now we have included right to sleep, where are we going? It is not a criticism. Is it capable of being enforced? When you expand the right, the judge must explore the enforceability." Chief Justice Kapadia during a lecture on "Jurisprudence of Constitutional Structure"
Primary among these was the imposition of the state of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975, and the subsequent attempt to suppress her prosecution through the 39th Amendment. When the Kesavananda case was decided, the underlying apprehension of the majority bench that elected representatives could not be trusted to act responsibly was perceived to be unprecedented. However, the passage of the 39th Amendment proved that in fact this apprehension was well-founded. In Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court used the basic structure doctrine to strike down the 39th amendment and paved the way for restoration of Indian democracy
On 26 April 1973, Justice Ajit Nath Ray, who was among the dissenters, was promoted to Chief Justice of India superseding three senior Judges, Shelat, Grover and Hegde, which was unprecedented in Indian legal history. Advocate C.K. Daphtary termed the incident as "the blackest day in the history of democracy
The recent most notable case is of Justice Katju.A retired supreme court judge, who has been appointed chairman of PCI by the UPA. Unsurprisingly, has taken a hard-stance against BJP and Modi in particular. This amounts to gross violation of work and moral ethics. Notable for saying that 90% of Indians are fools; this is the same guy who went all out in defence of Sanjay Dutt, based solely on his celebrity status; even though the SC had found him guilty(Note: Sanjay Dutt, along with his family-mother,father and sister are candidates of INC.The same INC that gains praises from this 'supposed to be neutral' Katju.For this he has been the eye-candy of the media, not to adore; but as a punching bag with all the controversies he seems to carry.Most notably was when Madhu Trehan took it out on Katju in a episode on the online news channel Newslaundry. The whole tirade began with Katju's article
This was followed by a well asserted backlash by Jaitley.
And then it was followed by interviews to all the MSM.
If you have not been reading Media Crooks, you have been missing one of the sanest, most incisive commentator on Indian current affairs you could ever find anywhere — mainstream media, social media, off-line, online, wherever. I am an unabashed admirer of Media Crooks. I am a fan.
Media Crooks sets the gold standard that very few observers are capable of achieving. Take his expert fisking today (link provided below) of Mr Katju, an ex-judge of the supreme court of India who writes a lot of politically motivated stuff and is often in the media spotlight. Katju deserves to be taken to the cleaners and MC does it with aplomb and ruthless precision.
Here’s an extended excerpt:
Despite being a judge who would be expected to care for facts JK [Justice Katju] still chose to peddle fake and unverified numbers of Muslims killed in Gujarat 2002 in his article. And, of course, he makes readers believe only Muslims were killed and not Hindus. If this is not political tinkering, what is? On February 18 in a chat with Rahul Kanwal and Meenakshi Lekhi on Headlines Today JK used more spurious nonsense to defend himself. He cited women’s bellies being slashed and ripped and burnt. This gory tale doesn’t come from anywhere but appears to be from Arundhati Roy’s wonder world of fiction. I had quoted the whole fake story of Suzy Roy in “SC exposes media’s clean shit” after the SC didn’t accept Zakia Jafri’s petition against Modi. For her bogus story in Outlook magazine, Arundhati had apologised but JK uses similar stories without an iota of evidence. Is he fit to be the PCI chairman? When told that Modi has been elected by people, JK nonchalantly says “we all know how elections are won”. Is he suggesting all elections in India are also spurious or is it only when it comes to Modi? The only major case of election-fraud in a court is not related to Modi but to P. Chidambaram.
In addition to the bellies-ripped story, JK also cites the killing of Ehsan Jafri as a planned attack. It took Meenakshi Lekhi to point out to him that leading the killers of Jafri was not a BJP man but a Congress MLA called Meghsingh Chaudhary . . .
I doubt anyone in the media or any observer would deny that the campaign against Modi was the biggest witch-hunt in India. The hunters who participated benefited financially, in position and in influence. There is no reason not to criticise Modi but it is the proportions and usage of spurious information and analogies that make JK look more like Teesta Setalvad or Mallika Sarabhai. . . In his interview with TimesNow Jaitley mentioned how as Law Minister he had experienced senior judges on the verge of retirement clamouring for post-retirement postings. He also mentioned that some judgements just around the pre-retirement phase could be affected by such lust. With his open political campaign that is intended to benefit the Congress party, JK now has people wondering about the conduct and motives of judges themselves. By his conduct and utterances JK has pushed people into wondering if judges are above political persuasions when they are in office. This is the dangerous lump on the breast that cannot be ignored. In my previous post I have not attributed any motives to JK’s biased, prejudiced and spurious articles and nor have any of his critics in the current episode.
. . .
. . . In my earlier post on this topic I had wrongly mentioned JK has an opinion on everything under Pluto. No Mr. JK, it seems your favourite planet is Uranus.
For all the corruption and scams that the Congress has been mired in, JK doesn’t have much to say about it. His conduct and frequent outbursts and outrage does make one worry about the conduct of our judges. In recent times SC judges have received postings on various statutory bodies immediately on retirement. There isn’t any cooling period post retirement anymore. Meenakshi Lekhi pointed another important aspect of JK’s behaviour and political persuasions. With so much of bias and prejudice against the BJP, particularly Narendra Modi, how can a member of this party who has a complaint to be heard by the PCI chairman ever expect him to be fair and impartial? This alone is good enough reason for JK to resign or to be sacked. The awful truth also is that without the “justice” tag, without the “PCI Chairman” tag and most of all, without the “anti-Modi” tag JK wouldn’t be allowed to write in the media. Not just writing, being anti-Modi is like a license to write with spurious analogies and information. This time everyone called JK’s bluff. It looks like the cats may survive their nine lives but spuriousity certainly killed the Katju.
Katju's lies
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