By K Raveendran
The contempt of court notice sent by the Supreme Court to the Secretary of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for sending a letter to Republic TV editor in chief Arnab Goswami, ‘intimidating’ him for approaching the court against the privilege notice issued by the state assembly has a few unexplored angles.
The Vidhan Sabha secretary’s case is that the proceedings in the house are confidential and unless the Speaker permits, the privilege notice (served on Arnab Goswami) cannot be used in a court of law as there are various prohibitions in force.
The court was furious that a responsible officer of the assembly dared to prevent someone from approaching the court, which it said was unprecedented. It said no authority in the country can penalise somebody for coming to the court, which is a fundamental right granted to every single person under Article 32 of the Constitution.
“There is no doubt that if a citizen of India is deterred in any way from moving the court in exercise of his right under Article 32, it would amount to serious interference in the administration of justice in the country”, the order said.
Chief Justice S A Bobde, who issued the order, pointed out that there was only one instance of someone having been prevented from approaching the court. That happened in the 1940s, when a letter to the court from a prisoner was withheld by the jail superintendent, for which the officer was issued a contempt of court notice by the chief justice of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
One of the offences cited by the assembly official against Arnab Goswami, among many others, is that he referred to the chief minister, other ministers and officials by their names, without the salutation of ‘honourable’.
While it is true that the archaic practice is still prevalent as far as official procedures go, the assembly official must be living in a fool’s paradise to expect everyone else, including members of the media to address these people with the honorific. The original concept of a leader or a legislator would have warranted such respect to the elected representatives, but going by the calibre of people occupying those positions right now certainly does not deserve such reverence.
Many of our elected representatives, at different levels, are thugs and criminals and they cannot be equated with the more respectable among them, who deserve respect. But even in their case, imperialist practices and salutations are jarring to the traditions of true democracy, where ‘we the people’ are the masters and everyone else a servant. The assembly officer needs to be given a refresher course on parliamentary democracy, of which Fourth Estate is an essential part.
A much-awaited move to debar criminals from contesting elections has not made any material progress, except for mechanical response from contestants to queries of the Election Commission, which are often incomplete, inaccurate and often meant to mislead.
An amicus curiae’s report in connection with a PIL in the Supreme Court recently threw light on the shocking state of affairs. A whopping 2,556 sitting MLAs and MPs from 22 states have criminal cases pending against them. If former MPs and MLAs from these states are also included, the number rises to almost double. In nearly 200 cases, the offences involving these elected representatives are the ones punishable with life imprisonment.
There is clearly a void in the law relating to the problem, but the responsibility of addressing it gets tossed between the executive, judiciary and the Election Commission.
A Supreme Court judgment in this regard had called for a strong new law by parliament to make it mandatory for political parties to revoke membership of persons against whom charges are framed in heinous and grievous offences and not to field such persons in elections.
But the court refused to go beyond making such a recommendation, citing the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ that exists between the powers and authority of the executive, legislature and the judiciary. It is a matter of great irony that persons charged for an offence punishable with imprisonment for five years or more are liable to be declared as disqualified and yet such people remain lawmakers who then control civil servants and other government machinery. (IPA Service)