Pratap Bhanu Mehta - The biggest casualty in the Alok Verma affair has been the SC’s authority
NB: A timely comment on the creeping decimation of the Indian constitution and rule of law; the most alarming feature of which is the manner in which the suspicious death of Judge Loya was taken over from the Bombay High Court by the SC under the last CJI and then dismissed. We have short memories, but let us remember that two of Loya's friends, Advocate Shrikant
Khandalkar and retired District Judge Prakash Thombre also died mysteriously. A third, Mr Uike, narrowly escaped death. Read the details here. Loya himself had complained of pressure, and was fearful enough to ask his friends for their advice. He was deprived of security from November 20, 2014 till December 1, the day he allegedly died of a heart attack. More may be read below:
Investigate The Death Of CBI Judge Who Was Hearing The Sohrabuddin Sheikh Case, Says Justice AP Shah. (The silence of India's mainstream Hindi and English media is deafening)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta - The biggest casualty in the Alok Verma affair has been the SC’s authority
The ouster of Alok Verma is another step in the cavalier destruction of institutions. Each step to use the law to resolve the CBI crisis has led not to the reinstatement of the rule of law but the extension of an arbitrary rule by law. And no institution comes out of this crisis with its reputation intact. It has to be said, with all due respect to the Lordships, that the Supreme Court of India has, in this entire episode, returned one of its most cringe-worthy performances in recent memory. The interventions of the Court have produced opaqueness rather than transparency, and the continued subversion of due process, ironically in the name of due process.
Terrifying implications of the SC's Staines Judgement
RSS and Modi brazenly intimidating the Supreme Court
Investigate The Death Of CBI Judge Who Was Hearing The Sohrabuddin Sheikh Case, Says Justice AP Shah. (The silence of India's mainstream Hindi and English media is deafening)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta - The biggest casualty in the Alok Verma affair has been the SC’s authority
The ouster of Alok Verma is another step in the cavalier destruction of institutions. Each step to use the law to resolve the CBI crisis has led not to the reinstatement of the rule of law but the extension of an arbitrary rule by law. And no institution comes out of this crisis with its reputation intact. It has to be said, with all due respect to the Lordships, that the Supreme Court of India has, in this entire episode, returned one of its most cringe-worthy performances in recent memory. The interventions of the Court have produced opaqueness rather than transparency, and the continued subversion of due process, ironically in the name of due process.
Terrifying implications of the SC's Staines Judgement
RSS and Modi brazenly intimidating the Supreme Court
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
In retrospect, the chain begins with Vineet Narain, a well-intentioned judgment that produced a range of anomalies, not the least of which was making the Chief Justice (or his nominee) part of the appointment process of a CBI director. But more proximately when Alok Verma went to Court, it could not decide whether it wanted to merely rule on the question of the CVC’s powers, or go into the substance of the allegations against Verma. The Court said it wanted to rule on the question of powers. But if so, the entire process was mysterious. It could have ruled on that question in two minutes. Why ask for a CVC report under sealed covers, when that is irrelevant to settling the jurisdiction question? Why appoint Justice A K Patnaik to oversee the CVC’s report?
It is also unclear what standing the Court has granted to its own nominee Justice Patnaik’s observations. Verma alleges they are not aligned with the CVC. If so, that is a significant issue the Court or the Committee should have resolved. In short, the Court itself created fire and fury; it decided to do process after examining the substance, and then devolved the question back to the appointing committee.
In retrospect, the chain begins with Vineet Narain, a well-intentioned judgment that produced a range of anomalies, not the least of which was making the Chief Justice (or his nominee) part of the appointment process of a CBI director. But more proximately when Alok Verma went to Court, it could not decide whether it wanted to merely rule on the question of the CVC’s powers, or go into the substance of the allegations against Verma. The Court said it wanted to rule on the question of powers. But if so, the entire process was mysterious. It could have ruled on that question in two minutes. Why ask for a CVC report under sealed covers, when that is irrelevant to settling the jurisdiction question? Why appoint Justice A K Patnaik to oversee the CVC’s report?
It is also unclear what standing the Court has granted to its own nominee Justice Patnaik’s observations. Verma alleges they are not aligned with the CVC. If so, that is a significant issue the Court or the Committee should have resolved. In short, the Court itself created fire and fury; it decided to do process after examining the substance, and then devolved the question back to the appointing committee.
The appointing
committee was predictably divided along political lines, so the honour of the
deciding vote went to an honourable judge. We are sure he had the most
honourable of motives. But when the Supreme Court has just made such a song and
dance about due process, surely a little more concession to the idea of a fair
hearing for the accused would have made sense. It is true that the committee
was under no obligation to give Verma a direct hearing. But the CVC’s actions
and credibility are itself under a cloud; Justice Patnaik’s role in relation to
the CVC report is not clear. In this context, to take a CVC’s indeterminate
report as decisive is to give to the CVC, by the backdoor, the very power over
Verma’s future that was in contention. The Court made a pretence of due
process, only to see its nominees seem to deny the importance of natural
justice. We have, first, the farce, and then the tragedy.
The leader of the
largest Opposition party, in his dissent note, reveals something of the
contents of the CVC report. But that dissent note also creates lawyerly
confusion. It seems to make two different arguments. The first argument is the
standard that should be deployed. It seems to suggest that in case of criminal
charges the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt. This is correct but
irrelevant. The mandate of the committee is simply to ask the question whether
there is sufficient reason to think that Verma’s continuation as head of an
institution would pose a risk to the institution of the CBI. In some
circumstances, this may not even require elaborate evidence like “unimpeachable
witnesses” or “pecuniary benefit”, even circumstantial evidence can be enough
to take this call. So the standard invoked is plain wrong. The second argument
seems to be that the CVC report does not contain any material that could give
reason to think that Verma’s continuation posed any threat to the integrity of
the CBI. But since all the relevant material is under “sealed covers,” thanks
to our new jurisprudence, the public can never know how credibly to take this
claim. All sides have the cover of secrecy.
But the texts of these
proceedings gain their potency from the context and subtext. The context is
twofold: The first is the growing institutional murkiness in the handling of
the Rafale deal. Whatever the truth of it may be, the Supreme Court botched up
the matter by its ill-argued and factually-incorrect order in the case. The bad
handling of one case related to Rafale may be a mistake, but the bad handling
of another case that is indirectly related to Rafale reeks of more than The
second is the Narendra
Modi government’s record with independent institutions: Its assaults
on institutions ranging from the RBI to the CBI. In fact, one of the odd things
that seems to distinguish Modi’s rule has been the creation of conflicts
between law enforcement agencies and the executive, which often get reflected
in civil wars within law enforcement agencies themselves. This was a pattern in
Gujarat and is being repeated again. So this episode is yet another in a train
of institutional decimations. Even if the prime minister had good reason to act
as he did in this instance, the context makes his actions less than
self-evidently credible.
The biggest casualty
of this affair has been the Supreme Court’s authority. The government, on the
other hand, has done nothing to allay the suspicion that any independent
officer or agency that stands in the way of the government will be
unceremoniously mowed down. Its extraordinary haste and contempt for process,
now with the prime minister’s imprimatur over it, raises many disturbing
questions. And all the staples of law, natural justice, due process, transparency,
separation of powers, distinctions between appointing and disciplinary
authority stand blurred. There is one silver lining to all of this. The
pretence of the judicial and technocratic fraternity that institutions of
accountability can be insulated from politics has again been punctured. We have
got into this mess because the courts made up institutional rules as we went
along, without any internal coherence. We forgot the one fundamental truth of
parliamentary democracy: Unless the Parliament acts as an institution of
accountability, all other institutions will be distorted. Now that the
judiciary and executive have both created an institutional morass, we are on a
hope and a prayer that democracy can save us.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/tragedy-after-farce-alok-verma-cbi-director-removed-fired-supreme-court-modi-panel-5534312/
see also
The cultural non-politics of the RSS
The cultural non-politics of the RSS
मध्यमार्ग का अवसान : दिलीप सिमियन (The Broken Middle, EPW, November 2014)
Ajmer blast case: Two including a former RSS worker get life imprisonment
RSS leader announces Rs 1 crore reward for beheading Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan
List of serious criminal charges against new UP CM Yogi Adityanath
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
List of serious criminal charges against new UP CM Yogi Adityanath
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
The emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
Indian judiciary has weakened the voice of inclusive, integrationist Kashmiri Muslim
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
Indian judiciary has weakened the voice of inclusive, integrationist Kashmiri Muslim
Very short list of examples of rule of law in India
Ulema now demand expulsion of Taslima Nasrin
Terrifying implications of the Staines judgement
Murder of TP Chandrasekharan 2012
Terrifying implications of the Staines judgement
Murder of TP Chandrasekharan 2012
