The Indian Judiciary...

The judiciary

The Supreme Court's backsliding on the Ramjanmabhoomi Temple-Babri Masjid case, religious conversions and cow slaughter at different points of time over the years has done disservice to Indian secularism.

Manoj Mitta

December 10, 2015 | UPDATED 13:31 IST

It was arguably the biggest blow to secularism recorded by india today in its 40-year history. The cover story of the December 31, 1992 issue depicting the demolition of the Babri Masjid was aptly titled: "A Nation's Shame". It was on the heels of this shameful incident in Ayodhya- and its immediate repercussions in Bombay in the form of riots and blasts-that I joined the magazine, with a brief to strengthen its reportage of law and justice.

One of my priorities, naturally, was to follow up on the developments in the Supreme Court on the Babri Masjid front. Although the demolition had taken place on a Sunday, a bench headed by Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, reacting with alacrity, held a special hearing the same evening at his residence. The assault on the mosque was in defiance of the "symbolic kar seva" which the bench had allowed to be per-formed peacefully at the disputed site. At the special hearing on December 6, 1992, Venkatachaliah was widely reported to have thundered that the destruction of the Babri Masjid was the gravest ever contempt committed against the apex court. In response, the counsel for the alleged contemners, K.K. Venugopal, withdrew from the case saying, "My head hangs in shame."

The expectations of accountability rose higher when Venkatachaliah went on to become Chief Justice of India barely two months after the fateful day. But all through the 20 months he held that key post, Venkatachaliah steered clear of taking any action against Kalyan Singh for reneging on his written commitment, as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, to protect the mosque. On the last day of his tenure, in October 1994, Venkatachaliah did give Singh a token one-day imprisonment, but that was only for a smaller contempt committed by him at the same site four months before the demolition.

For the far more serious violations related to the demolition, all that the Supreme Court verdict said was: "Though the proceedings for suo motu contempt against the then chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh and its officers in relation to the happening of 6-12-1992 were initiated, those are pending and shall be dealt with independently."

Vandalised house of Mohammad Akhlaq, who was killed on suspicion of eating beef.

Despite such solemn assurance, those proceedings have never been dealt with, independently or otherwise. It's as if, after Kalyan Singh's perfidy, it was the Supreme Court's turn to let down the nation. Beginning with Venkatachaliah, successive judges have balked at taking contempt action against anybody for the vandalism that had avowedly been carried out as a prelude to the construction of the Ramjanmabhoomi Temple. In retrospect, the Supreme Court seems to have placed religious sentiments of the majority community over the rule of law. Venkatachaliah kept away from this contempt aspect even when he constituted a five-judge bench towards the end of his tenure to hear a challenge to the Centre's acquisition of 67 acres in Ayodhya post-demolition.

In an India Today interview with Venkatachaliah on the eve of his retirement in October 1994, I asked him why he had belatedly woken up to Ayodhya-related matters. Denying any extraneous considerations, he blamed the delay on systemic deficiencies in the Supreme Court. "Our system of assessing the competing priority of cases is not fully developed," he said. "I admit there is some ad hocism in it. We don't have any rules or regulations for assessing competing priorities. That needs to be done as a policy of court management. Each bench decides its priorities according to its own discretion."

If the prioritisation of cases was indeed left to the discretion of each bench, what prevented Venkatachaliah, as Chief Justice, to take up Ayodhya matters with due urgency? "That was not entirely in my hands," he claimed. "The constitution of a bench is sub-ject to the availability and commitments of my brother judges." The reply was hardly convincing as only a little earlier, the Supreme Court had promptly taken contempt action against a bar leader who had been found to have abused an Allahabad High Court judge. The errant lawyer was suspended from practising for three years and even given a deferred jail term of six weeks. Pointing out the contrast, I asked Venkatachaliah how the contempt involved in the Babri Masjid demolition was any less serious than the one related to the judge-browbeating case. "You cannot compare cases in that manner," he asserted, seeking refuge in technicalities. "The proceedings on the December 6 event expanded as more parties sought to be impleaded. Their applications for additional contemners were allowed. The service of notice on these additional contemnors has taken a long time, thereby delaying the case."

Split on verdict

The technicalities cited by Venkatachaliah, a widely respected judge, for his alleged helplessness did little credit to the Supreme Court, reputedly the most powerful and activist court in the world. The reason I recall this interview is to draw attention to the backsliding on the issue of secularism on more than one occasion since the Babri Masjid demolition. Given the centrality of secularism to the idea of India, such backsliding is indicative of more than the routine dysfunctionality of the judiciary. Tied to the failure of the Supreme Court to dispose of the contempt case against Kalyan Singh & Co was, for instance, an unedifying split along religious lines within the five-judge bench which decided the validity at the same time of the Centre's acquisition of 67 acres from Hindu groups around the disputed site.

The two non-Hindu members of the bench, Justice S P Bharucha and Justice A.M. Ahmadi, struck down the measures taken by the Centre as they "favour one religious community and disfavour another". On the other hand, the three Hindu members of the bench, Venkatachaliah, Justice J.S. Verma and Justice G.N. Ray, upheld the acquisition subject to the caveat that whatever land was found unnecessary for the adjudication of the dispute "must be restored to the undisputed owners".

The majority verdict of 1994 came to haunt the country in 2002 as, quoting from its passages, VHP laid claim to the acquired land even while the title dispute was pending. Declaring plans to begin the construction of a temple on the acquired land in the vicinity of the disputed site, VHP mobilised kar sevaks from across the country to a mahayagna in Ayodhya. It was then that the Godhra train-burning incident took place in Gujarat, triggering a series of dramatic and far-reaching events which culminated in Narendra Modi's ascent to the office of Prime Minister in 2014.

More than the dithering on the contempt matter, the backsliding in the Ayodhya context is evident from the farcical state of the criminal proceedings. To begin with, they are still at the stage of trial even after a lapse of 23 years. This has partly to do with the accused of the Babri Masjid demolition being split into two groups which are being tried separately on varying degrees of charges in two different courts in two different districts. While some 40 unknown kar sevaks are being tried in Lucknow for conspiring to demolish the mosque, eight Sangh Parivar leaders, including L.K. Advani, M.M. Joshi and Uma Bharati, are being tried in Rae Bareli on the lesser charge of addressing an unlawful assembly. Although the CBI special court had framed the conspiracy charge against both groups in 1997, the Allahabad high court four years later gave a reprieve to the leaders on the ground of a defect in a related executive notification.

Frowning upon conversion

As successive governments in Uttar Pradesh declined to cure the procedural flaw picked by the high court, it has resulted in the leaders being tried separately in Rae Bareli only for the lesser charge. The implication, much as it may stretch one's credulity, is that the leaders delivered inflammatory speeches in Ayodhya on the fateful day without being involved in the conspiracy to demolish the mosque. Repeated attempts to redress this anomaly have been spurned by the apex court.

The backsliding on secularism did not of course begin with the Ayodhya issue. Take the Supreme Court's ruling way back in 1977 on the equally contentious issue of conversions. It glossed over the pro-conversion declaration made in the Constituent Assembly by drafting committee member K.M. Munshi that it would be "open to any religious community to persuade other people to join their faith". Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, the two states that first passed anti-conversion laws, had however been mindful of Munshi's liberal definition of the freedom of religion and belief. So those two laws prohibited only the conversions made on the basis of extraneous factors such as force, fraud or allurement.

But the Supreme Court verdict, authored by Chief Justice A.N. Ray, frowned upon conversions based even on persuasion. It said, "If a person purposely undertakes the conversion of another person to his religion, that would impinge on the freedom of conscience." Having sidestepped the Constituent Assembly debates, Ray gave no explanation for disagreeing with the founding fathers on conversions.

Allowed to get away

Following Ray's example, Verma, the author of the 1994 Ayodhya judgment, upheld Hindutva in a subsequent case without any reference to the man who had coined that term, Vir Savarkar. This allowed Verma to assert that Hindutva, despite being conceived by Savarkar as a political ideology of Hindu supremacy, could not be "equated with narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry".

The provocation for the Hindutva judgment of 1995 was election petitions challenging allegedly communal speeches delivered by Shiv Sena leaders in a Maharashtra assembly election. On one of those petitions, Verma allowed Manohar Joshi to get away with the promise of establishing the first Hindu state in Maharashtra. Verma's controversial reasoning was: "In our opinion, a mere statement that the first Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra is by itself not an appeal for votes on the grounds of his religion but the expression, at best, of such a hope." Setting a dangerous precedent, Verma said that the promise of a Hindu state was not a "corrupt practice" under the election law "even though we would express our disdain at the entertaining of such a thought".

The backsliding on cow slaughter, another topical subject, is even more unmistakable. In 2005, the Supreme Court reversed its own position on whether Article 48 of the Constitution permitted the slaughter of animals that had ceased to be "milch and draught cattle", meaning when they were too old to provide milk or carry loads and plough fields. The earlier ruling, given in 1958 by a five-judge bench headed by Justice S.R. Das, said that the ban on cow slaughter envisaged by Article 48 did not extend to the cattle that was "not capable of milch or draught". As a result of the 1958 verdict, various states allowed the slaughter of cattle that could be classified as "useless". But all this changed in 2005 when a seven-judge bench headed by Justice R.C. Lahoti ruled that the Article 48 ban extended to all cattle, irrespective of their age and the strain they put on the availability of fodder. In his classic, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Granville Austin wrote: "Article 48 shows that Hindu sentiment predominated in the Constituent Assembly." Clearly, the expansive interpretation given in 2005 to Article 48 detracted further from India's commitment to inclusiveness.

Whatever the legal sophistry behind all such backsliding on secularism, it puts in perspective India Today's spirited headline at the time of the Babri Masjid demolition, "A Nation's Shame". The editors who chose that headline could not have imagined though that there was another shame in store: the failure so far to punish any of the people responsible for what has been rated as the worst setback to secularism after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. Within two years of Gandhi's murder, eight were convicted for conspiracy though their alleged leader, Savarkar, was acquitted for want of evidence. The contrasting trajectories of the 1948 and 1992 crimes undermine the common assumption that the institutions of the rule of law in India have matured and become more robust.

EXCERPT

November 15,1993

BJP stumps the court

...Did the Supreme Court itself not embolden the kar sevaks by its inaction after the construction of a platform at the Ayodhya site in July 1992 in defiance of its status quo order? Did Attorney General Milon Banerjee not inform the court on November 27,1992, that the Intelligence Bureau had warned of danger to the mosque? Did the judges still not grant permission for a symbolic kar seva, and even direct that the permission should be widely publicised? How could the Uttar Pradesh government have thereafter prevented large crowds from congregating at the site? Further, did the state not repeatedly tell the court that it would under no circumstances resort to firing at the kar sevaks? How can the court now fault it for not firing at those who crossed the police cordon and destroyed the mosque?

The Supreme Court gave room for such questions by attaching to its contempt notices, copies of an application for a contempt case filed by senior advocate O.P. Sharma. It simply used the allegations against each individual contained in his application to level, contempt charges against Kalyan Singh and the officers. Thus, though the court issued the notices suo motu, the contempt charges were actually levelled through Sharma's application. As it happened, the thrust of Sharma's allegations was that the tragedy could have been averted if only Kalyan Singh and the six officers had imposed Section 144 of Cr.P.C. and prevented the kar sevaks from congregating in lakhs. The court seems to have realised its vulnerability in this regard once the seven persons filed their counter-affidavits.

by Manoj Mitta

Manoj Mitta is a fellow with National Endowment for Democracy, Washington DC. He is working on his third book, which is on the impunity for caste violence.

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-today-40th-anniversary-manoj-mitta-the-judiciary-babri-masjid/1/543146.html

Plot allotment row casts shadow on new 42nd CJI

A two-decade-old controversy over housing society plot allotments to some of the most prominent members of the Indian judiciary has become relevant once again as Supreme Court judge HL Dattu assumed the most powerful judicial office in the country on Sunday.

New Chief Justice of India Justice Dattu, and two of his Supreme Court colleagues – TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda – are among the judges who accepted the plots in defiance of a 1995 ruling by the Karnataka high court that judges were ineligible to participate in the land scheme.

The issue of the allotments has surfaced repeatedly since 1994 when the first judges purchased the plots from the society meant for court employees.

Justice HL Dattu takes oath as the new Chief Justice of India on Sunday. (Photo Courtesy: Doordarshan)

Recently another top Judge, KL Manjunath, has seen his planned elevation to Chief Justice the Punjab and Haryana high court complicated by his participation in the allotment row, which has been cited in press reports as among the factors motivating a possible impeachment bid against him.

The state government originally acquired the land for the project from farmers in 1991 and sold it to the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees House Building Cooperative Society (KSJDEHBCS) at a huge subsidy so that it could fulfill the ‘public purpose’ of housing court employees who could not afford alternative accommodation.

However, soon after the colony was formed near the Bangalore airport, judges too started enrolling as members and accepting the steeply discounted plots.

Sale deeds with HT show that Justice Dattu was first allotted a 2,400 sq. ft. plot by the society for Rs. 61,598 at Rs. 15 per sq. ft. on June 30, 1997.

He was allotted another 4,000 sq. ft. plot on October 26, 2002, for Rs. 1,02,666 at Rs. 25 per sq. Land in the surrounding areas was selling for no less than Rs. 1,500 a sq. ft. at the time.

A society official, who helped HT in this investigation, claimed that Justice Dattu surrendered the first plot in February 2003 after other members objected to the double allotment.

On June 21, 2010, he gifted the other plot to his grandson Mihir Adithya who was three years old at the time.

According to local realtors who spoke to HT, a minimum of Rs. 8,000 per sq. ft. is now the going rate in the area. At those prices, the plot justice Dattu acquired for just over a lakh in 2002 and subsequently gifted to his grandson is worth more than Rs. 3 crore today.

Documents obtained by HT indicate that the judicial employees’ society irregularly allotted plots to at least another 73 judges between 1994 and 2006.

See: List of 73 judges

The society by-laws define a member as “an employee of the judicial department in Karnataka [who] has put in a minimum continuous or intermittent service of five years in Karnataka.” But judges, as affirmed by repeated Supreme Court rulings, are not employees of the department.

The matter of judges benefitting from this subsidised project meant for court employees was taken to the Karnataka high court through a writ and resulted in a ruling that the allotment to judges was an “irregularity”.

A division bench of the high court ruled on October 12, 1995: “A reading of Clause-7 of the bye-laws, in our view, by no stretch of imagination can include the judges of High Court or Supreme Court (sitting, transferred, retired)."

In an exclusive to HT, Justice (retd) MF Saldanha, who was part of the division bench, spoke about the ethical and legal questions arising out of the allotment.

Watch: Justice (retd) Saldanha's interview to HT  

But the allotment to judges did not stop. Judges Dattu, Thakur and Gowda purchased the plots from 1996 onwards, after this ruling was passed. Nearly 50 judges accepted plots from the society after the high court ruling.

A joint legislature committee of the Karnataka assembly submitted a report in 2007 and added: “It is most unfortunate that the KSJDEHBCS, which should have been a model to other house building cooperative societies, has itself become the leading law- breaker without the least fear or care for the law, propriety of public interest. It has indulged in acts of favour, cronyism and capricious indifference to law at its will. Obviously, High Court judges and powerful persons as its members and beneficiaries will ensure immunity to all its illegal acts.”

Although the committee’s report was put in cold storage, the issue came alive again with the appointment of former Supreme Court judge Shivraj V Patil as Karnataka Lokayukta in 2011. A media expose of the plots received by him from the judicial employees’ society forced him to resign as the state’s anti-corruption ombudsman just over a month after he took charge.

The Lokayukta’s post remained vacant for 17 months after Justice Patil’s resignation as the then BJP government struggled to find a judge who had not benefited from the scheme. Every time the government announced a candidate, the media would expose his allotment. Matters came to a head when the then governor HR Bhardwaj refused to approve the appointment of a former judge following media reports about his plot.

The present Lokayukta, Justice Y Bhaskar Rao, also a plot allottee, was appointed in an atmosphere vitiated by protests from sections of the opposition and hostile reports in the media.

The ethical question that laid siege to the Karnataka Lokayukta’s office for 17 months, however, did not prevent the mobility of judges through the collegium system of judicial appointments. Many went on to preside over various high courts in the country as well as the Supreme Court of India.

Indeed, justice Dattu and Justice Thakur are today ranked second and third in terms of seniority in the apex court’s panel of 26 judges. They are also members of the collegium that vets and appoints judges to the higher judiciary.

HT met justice Dattu at his farmhouse and had a tele-conversation with Justice Gopala Gowda on September 12 to seek a response. Both judges declined to comment but said that a letter written to the society president by former Chief Justice of India, MN Venkatachalaiah, who is also an allotee, clarified everything.

Society president K Sippe Gowda told HT, “Justice Gowda called me a few minutes ago and asked me to give you that letter. But I have lost it. I don’t know where it is.” Asked how he could lose such an important document, he said, “I didn’t think it was that important.”

Justice Thakur did not respond to repeated requests for comment sent through his staff.

Today, the two colonies formed by the society are bustling centres of real estate trading with some of the biggest builders in the city hawking luxury apartments costing in excess of Rs. 2 crore.

Despite a condition in each sale deeds requiring owners to construct a house within two years of receiving a plot those allotted to judges Dattu, Thakur and Gowda remain vacant.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/controversy-over-plot-allotment-casts-shadow-on-new-cji-dattu/article1-1269346.aspx

Modi modern-day Nero: SC

NEW DELHI: Calling the Gujarat government modern-day Neros looking elsewhere when innocent children and helpless women were burning, the Supreme Court on Monday issued an unprecedented order quashing the acquittal of all 21 accused in the infamous Best Bakery case and directed its retrial in a Maharashtra court.
Monday's SC order may affect BJP's poll prospects in Gujarat
Allowing appeals filed by key witness Zahira Sheikh and the Gujarat government, a Bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat gave this landmark order. It's the first time an order for retrial and reinvestigation has been passed even though both the trial court and the high court acquitted the accused.

When Gujarat was engulfed with communal riots in the aftermath of the burning of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002, a mob set fire to Best Bakery at Vadodara on March 1, resulting in the death of 14 people. Zahira, an eye-witness to the incident, lost her family in the incident.

Lambasting the Gujarat government for its laxity in bringing the guilty to book, the apex court said, "The modern day Neros were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be protected."

The court, while directing the Gujarat government to appoint a new public prosecutor, directed the Director General of Police to oversee further probe and ordered the trial be conducted on a day-to-day basis.
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The Bench directed the governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra to give adequate protection to witnesses and victims "so that they can depose freely without any apprehension of threat or coercion from any person".

The court again set a precedent by asking the Gujarat government to consult victims and witnesses before appointing a public prosecutor.

"Though witnesses or victims do not have any choice in the normal course to have a say in the matter of appointment of a public prosecutor, in view of the unusual factors noticed in this case, to accord such liberties to the complainants party would be appropriate," Justice Pasayat said.

Holding that free and fair trial of the case was still not possible in Gujarat, the Bench said: "Keeping in view the peculiar circumstances of the case and the ample evidence on record, glaringly demonstrating subversion of justice delivery system with no congenial and conducive atmosphere still prevailing, we direct that retrial shall be done by a court under the jurisdiction of Bombay High Court."

The court also criticised the Gujarat high court for making "irresponsible" remarks against activists, including Teesta Setalvad, and even against the National Human Rights Commission.

Expunging the "irresponsible" remarks passed by the high court, Justice Pasayat said, "The high court appears to have miserably failed to maintain required judicial balance and sobriety in making unwarranted references to personalities and their legitimate move before competent courts -- the highest court of the nation, despite knowing fully well that it could not deal with such aspects or matters."

Taking the entire chronology of events right from the date of incident to the judgement of the trial court and that of the high court, the apex court said, "If one cursorily glances through the records of the case, one gets a feeling that the justice delivery system was being taken for a ride and literally allowed to be abused, misused and mutilated by subterfuge.

"The investigation appears to be perfunctory and anything but impartial without any definite object of finding out the truth and bringing to book those who were responsible for the crime," it said.

In a stinging criticism of the public prosecutor, the court said he acted more as a "defence counsel" and added "the trial court in turn appeared to be a silent spectator, mute to the manipulations and preferred to be indifferent to sacrilege being committed to justice."

The court felt there was no seriousness on the part of the state government to pursue its appeal before the high court challenging the acquittal of all 21 accused.

"This is clearly indicated by the fact that the first memorandum of appeal filed was an apology for the grounds. A second amendment was done, that too after this court expressed its unhappiness over the perfunctory manner in which the appeal was presented and challenge made," it said.

Justice Pasayat said all these sadly reflected on the quality of determination exhibited by the state and the nature of seriousness shown to pursue the appeal.

"Criminal trials should not be reduced to be the mock trial or shadow boxing or fixed trials," he said and added: "Judicial criminal administration system must be kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical political wills or agendas and properly insulated from discriminatory standards or yardsticks of the type prohibited by the mandate of the Constitution."

The court refused to be drawn into the plea to stop media from writing about the case on the ground that they were holding trial through their articles.

"This is sensitive and complex issue, which we do not think it proper to deal in detail in these appeals. The same may be left open for an appropriate case where the media is duly and effectively represented," Justice Pasayat said.                     

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Modi-modern-day-Nero-SC/articleshow/612448.cms?curpg=2

Independence of Indian Judiciary is at stake...

National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014 has been passed by both the houses of the parliament. This bill is a serious threat to our country, recently we have seen the Gopal Subramaniam case where govt marked its protest for his appointment appointment as SC judge because he represented cases against Modi & Co ultimately he withdrew his name from the post. Contrary to that govt. recommended U.Lalit for elevation as SC judge, U.Lalit represented cases of Modi & Co. and he is the favourite of govt. The bill was under pipeline since UPA was in power now BJP lead NDA govt has cleared it from both the houses.

Govt (whether its BJP, Congress or any party of Tom, Dick harry) wants to make the Constitutional courts a caged parrot like CBI which will approve every evil act of govt. Its high time mark your protest against the bill and make people aware of the evil design of govt. Today we have seen the governments dancing to the tune of corporates and approving each and every act of corporates. Above all the politicians need to tame the judiciary, because due to the the electoral reform brought by it will spoil the career and ill aspiration of many corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. To protect the interests of common man we need an independent and strong judiciary. The corruption in judiciary is not so lethal as this steps of government which will make the judiciary a puppet just like our Hon'ble President who has no option but to speak the govt.

The Act and the constitutional amendment attacks the independence of judiciary and the basic structure theory laid down in landmark case Keshavnand bharti...I am very happy to hear the news that legendary Sr. Advocate Fali Nariman has announced that he is going to challenge the Act and the constitutional amendment in Supreme Court and I am highly optimistic that the Act & the constitutional amendment will be struck down by the Supreme Court and will be declared null & void. We are going to witness a landmark case after Keshavnand.

by: Md Shadab Ansari

Sania Mirza and the story of Muslim discrimination

July 28, 2014 13:24 IST

The reality is that even successful Muslims are made to suffer because of their faith, and the opposition to Sania Mirza is part of the same story of discrimination, says Kashif-ul-Huda.

It all started with a simple tweet on July 21. Sania Mirza, excited about her appointment as brand ambassador of the newly-formed state of Telangana, wanted to share the good news with her 1.89 million Twitter followers. But as there was no official announcement yet, all she could say was that a big and exciting news was coming out tomorrow.

The speculation started right away, so five minutes later she followed it up with this tweet: 'Find it amazing that when a woman says 'sharing a good news', how many ppl just assume that it's bout having a kid!! Nobody is pregnant.. relax.'

But Sania Mirza is not just a woman, so her discrimination is not confined to her gender. She is a Muslim woman, and that too married to a Pakistani. The announcement the next day, that she had been appointed brand ambassador for Telangana, was bound to bring her more trouble even though no one is more qualified than her to be in that position.

When she was still playing singles, Sania was the highest ranking Indian tennis player among both genders. Even today, she is the highest ranked Indian doubles player (#5 WTA ranking), Leander Paes is ranked at 13 and Rohan Bopanna is at 20 on the ATP doubles ranking. Not just Indian women, even Indian men do not come close to her achievements on the tennis court. There cannot be a better person to put Telangana on the world map.

But it was never about her qualification, or even her marriage. Her marrying a Pakistani is just icing on the cake for those opposing her appointment, the main reason for opposing her is nothing but communalism where everyone is reduced to just their religious identity.

There is no denying the fact that Islamophobia has grown at an alarming rate in India. With ease of access to byte-size world news, all in-depth reporting has got reduced to the headline that gets tweeted and Facebook likes and shares on images that reinforce stereotypes.

The Indian media has also taken a lead from its US counterpart and its reporting after 9/11 where any bad news about Muslims gets exaggerated and extended coverage. This was bound to have its repercussions; reports of discrimination against Muslims have grown at the same rate.

Discrimination against Muslims in education, employment, housing, and government services has become a routine affair. Discrimination is an important factor behind why Muslims lag behind in socio-economic indicators.

For example, if religion-based discrimination is removed from the 1950 Presidential Order, then Muslim Dalits can avail of the same benefits of reservations that Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist Dalits get. This unconstitutional order discriminates against Muslims and Christians and 64 years later, while Hindu Dalits have benefited from reservations in education and employment, Muslims as a community lag behind the Dalits.

This discrimination has become so institutionalised that it affects Muslims from the lowest rung of the economic ladder as well as Muslim celebrities with a huge fan following. Most of this discrimination goes unspoken and unreported barring a few news items like Muslim celebrities not getting housing or that they are being opposed or criticised more harshly for their statements and their actions more minutely scrutinised.

Start any discussion about discrimination against Muslims in India and someone is bound to rattle off names of successful Muslims from different professions -- A P J Abdul Kalam, Azim Premji, the Khans of Bollywood, Sania Mirza, etc. As if the success of a few Muslims is enough to show that there is no religion-based discrimination in India.

The reality is that even successful Muslims are made to suffer because of their faith. The opposition to Sania Mirza is part of the same story of discrimination.

'I am an Indian who will remain an Indian until the end of my life.'

'I strongly condemn any attempts by any person, whosoever, to brand me an outsider.'

These two tweets by Sania Mirza show that she represents a change in the Muslim youth where there is no confusion about their national identity. Hundreds of years ago Mirza's ancestors may have come from foreign lands (Mirza suggests Uzbek or Turkish origin) and made India their home; now their descendant travels the world for her conquests on the tennis court and shuttles between Dubai and Hyderabad, but there is no doubt in her mind that it is India that is her home.

Photograph: PTI Photo

Kashif-ul-Huda is the editor of the Web site TwoCircles.net and tweets at @kaaashif.

Source: http://m.rediff.com/news/column/sania-mirza-and-the-story-of-muslim-discrimination/20140728.htm

HC orders forced retirement of munsif.

PATNA: Patna high court on Tuesday ordered forced retirement of a judicial officer, Shambhu Verma, at a full court meeting presided by Chief Justice Rekha M Doshit here. Verma was a munsif at the Bhojpur district court and alleged to have taken a bribe of Rs 5 lakh through his peon Kavita Devi.

One Sunil Kumar had complained against Verma, alleging while he was hearing his election petition, he had favoured the opposite party by taking a bribe of Rs 5 lakh. Following the complaint, an inspecting judge conducted an inquiry into the matter and submitted its report which confirmed the allegation to the standing committee of the high court.

In a meeting of the standing committee held on February 25 this year, the committee recommended forced retirement of the officer. The full court comprising all the judges of the high court led by Chief Justice confirmed the committee's recommendation on Tuesday. The matter will now go to the state government for its final approval.
There were about 12 allegations against Verma of different natures. As per sources, Verma was to retire on January 31 in 2019. He is a 1986-batch judicial officer.

During the current year, this is the fourth case of stern action by the high court against a judicial officer. Earlier this year, Ajay Srivastava of Jehanabad was forcibly retired. Then three judicial officers were sacked for involvement in a sex scandal, and only a few days ago the SDJM of Sherghati in Gaya district, Ram Sajan was suspended for seeking sexual favours.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/HC-orders-forced-retirement-of-munsif/articleshow/31436065.cms

Bihar Cabinet Approves Dismissal of Three Judges.

A full court meeting of the Patna High Court chaired by Chief Justice Rekha M Doshit, held Saturday, has recommended to the Bihar government that a sub-judge, an ad hoc district and sessions judge and a principal judge be dismissed for engaging in “undesirable activities” last year.

The three judicial officers had allegedly crossed over to Biratnagar in Nepal after the 2013 Republic Day function and were “found with some women during a police raid” at a hotel.

A full-court meeting decision is final in matters of dismissal. The state government is likely to issue dismissal orders for the three officers of the Bihar Judicial Services this week. The three are Komal Ram (then judicial magistrate at Araria and now sub-judge at Nawada court), Jitendra Nath Singh (then additional district and sessions judge at Ara and at present ad hoc district and sessions judge at Ara) and Hari Niwas Gupta (then principal judge at family court, Samastipur, and at present principal judge, family court, at Muzaffarpur).

Though their detention had not been recorded, a Nepali newspaper had carried a report on the alleged incident on January 29, 2013, leading to an internal inquiry by the Patna High Court.

A seven-member standing committee meeting — headed by the chief justice — unanimously recommended the dismissal of the three, on February 5.

Singh said his family was “in a state of shock”. “Though I have not got official communication about the HC full committee recommendation to dismiss me and two others from service, I have heard about it. What can one say when I was not given a chance to tell my side of the story? In my 24-year service, no one could raise a finger on my integrity of character and now my image is sullied in one stroke.”

Singh added that while he had little option but to respect the high court’s decision, he would explore his legal options soon.

Ram maintained his version that he had been in Purnea on the said dates. Gupta was unavailable for comment.

Ram, Singh and Gupta are alleged to have left for Biratnagar after the function at their respective offices on January 26, 2013. They are said to have checked into Metro Guest House and Hotel, near the bus stand of the town.

As per the report carried by Nepali newspaper Udghosh, a Biratnagar police team led by inspector Pradip Singh had conducted raids at the hotel and found the three judges in objectionable position. However, according to the paper, when the police team learnt that the three persons in question were officers of the Bihar Judicial Services, they had been allowed to leave without their detention being recorded.

Earlier, following prima facie findings, Ram, Singh and Gupta had been demoted by the state government.

Investigation by Purnea district judge Sanjay Kumar had traced the location of their mobile phones to near Forbesganj (Araria) along the Indo-Nepal border on 26-27 January, 2013. While Ram claimed that he had been with his family in Purnea on 26-27 January, 2013, the two other judges had said they were present in Nepal on these days.

The Bihar Police said they had also found that the mobile numbers of the judges had been in silent mode between January 26, 2.30 pm, and 11 am, January 27. After 11 am, their mobile phones were seen as operational in India.

Source:http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Bihar-Cabinet-Approves-Dismissal-of-Three-Judges/2014/02/12/article2051278.ece

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/patna-hc-seeks-dismissal-of-3-judges-for-undesirable-activities/