When shall 'we' stop pampering the outlaws!

From the kid-glove treatment meted out by both, the government and the judiciary to the serial law-breakers squatting on public roads of Delhi and of late, elsewhere in the country, the people are aghast.

Dismayed at the submissive attitude of the constitutional authorities to Shaheen Bagh protestors whose fundamental rights to vent protests is recognised at the cost of millions of others, the law-abiding citizens are finding themselves unsecured and helpless.

Clearly, such an indifference to the rights of non-protestors is nothing but the breach of Constitutional obligation by these Constitutional bodies upon whom rests the duty to protect the rights of 'all' the people, and not just a group of protestors.

And see the tone and tenure of protests. They hold the national flag in their hands but shout slogans like Bharat Tere Tukde Honge, We want Azadi and even Pakistan Zindabad and Hindustan Murdabad. Certainly, by no stretch of the imagination, such venomous utterances could be called as lawful protests.

The two months' journey of anti-CAA, NPR, NCR has now assumed the alarming proportion. Now the new pitch is,15 crore Muslims versus 100 crore Hindus wherein the Muslims are exhorted to affront Hindus physically to overpower the latter.

Earlier, in shameless open defiance to the constitution, these anti-national, communal elements with the help of terrorists and extremists of all hues from within and outside the territories dumped the lawfully passed statutes by passing unlawfully resolutions in some state legislatures.

These acts are, indeed, an insult to the constitution and constitutional bodies like Parliament and office of the President of India which are instrumental in passing the laws.

The situation has reached its boiling point. We are at the crossroads. Jehadi and terrorist forces are hell-bent upon to create a civil war-like situation in the country which is evident from the provocative speeches of the Tamasha managers.

Therefore, before the law-abiding people are constrained to take law in their hands, the government must act firmly, quickly and decisively though it should have done so quite early when the Tamasha of Shaheen Bagh commenced.

Still, if for the reasons best known to the government, it maintains stoic silence, the President should invoke his powers and dismiss the worthless central government, dissolve Parliament and State legislatures and impose the President Rule.

Such a course of action is needed to protect the constitution and its cherished ideology. For, if the nation has to survive, its Constitution must survive!

SC on bail petitions

A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari has deprecated the unduly long delay in disposing of the bail petitions by the courts.

Dealing with the appeals against the High Court order in Motamarri Appanna Veeraraju alias MAV Raju vs. State of West Bengal, the court while expressing its displeasure at keeping the bail petition pending since August 2008 and just extending interim orders from time to time, observed that " the application for bail or anticipatory bail is a matter of moment for the accused and protracted hearing thereof may also cause prejudice to investigation and affect the prosecution interests which cannot be comprehend..."

Delhi Bar protests

The Bar Association of Delhi High Court came out with a resolution to abstain from the court work in support of Justice Dr S Muralidhar whose transfer order to Punjab & Haryana High Court has been issued.

For decades, the power of transfer is considered as the sole prerogative of the appointing authority. The appointing authority may be depending on the exigencies of work, transfer an employee. In several cases, this stand has been taken by the courts and the same has been vindicated by the higher courts.

But now, strangely enough, the Delhi High Court's representative body has opposed the transfer of one of its long-serving judges on the ground of lack of transparency and arbitrariness. This is, indeed, transgressing the mutually drawn limits by the judiciary and the bar. Therefore, such practice needs to be nipped in the bud.

Compensation for train passenger

The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court in a recently delivered judgement held that the deceased heirs were entitled to compensation even if he died in the wrong train during alighting from the same.

The deceased Arjun Gawande had boarded the Bhubaneswar Express with two valid tickets knowing well that the train had no stoppage at Badnera station. While alighting he accidentally fell and died.

The Railway Claims Tribunal rejected the claim for compensation by the deceased's family members stating that the Railway was in no way liable for the death of the deceased who tried to alight at a station where the train had no scheduled stop. The court, relying on the apex court's judgements awarded Rs 8 lakh as compensation to the deceased legal heirs.

Of mood and adjournment

Though it may sound strange, it is true that the Punjab & Haryana High Court has considered the ' mood of the court' as 'sufficient cause' to grant an adjournment to a lawyer.

After Justice Rajiv Narain Raina dismissed four petitions in quick succession, the counsel for the next case, KS Sidhu got alarmed and when his case was called out, he pleaded for an adjournment stating that it appeared the mood of the court was not good.

The court obliged Sidhu but added that all the four dismissed cases were worthless. The provision for adjournment of a case is found in Order VIi, Rules 1 & 2 of the CPC. According to it, the court may grant adjournment if sufficient cause is shown. However, not more than three adjournments in the whole case can be sought.

Pride of Telangana

The Telugus in general and the people of Telangana, in particular, have a reason to rejoice.

Saritha Komatireddy, daughter of Geetha Reddy and Hanumanth Reddy has been appointed as a judge in the US district court in New York. She is a prosecutor and teaches Law in the Columbia Law School, New York. Both her parents hail from Telangana.