The Indian Supreme Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (C.B,I.) neither to seek directions from higher authorities nor send any report to them reganling the multicore “hawala” scandal. The C.B.1. is normally answerable to the prime minister who Is it’s in charge minister, The C.B, 1, has booked several colleagues of prime minister Rao as well as the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Lal Krishan Advani, in cases of corruption, The BJP leadership is understandably angry with the prime minister and feels that he has adopted a policy of pick and choose in the C.B.1, action in the hawala case, The party’s senior leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Alleged on the basis of a CBT document that the hawala operator businessman Jain gave Rs 3.5 crore to Narasimha Rao, too. The CBI did not give any weight to the charge; the matter went to the Supreme Court which passed the above mentioned order. This has created a few controversies, Constitutional experts feel that the court’s order amounts to redistributing the ministerial portfolios, a power exercise by the country’s President on a recommendation made by the Prime Minister, Not long ago, the supreme court had made highly uncharitable remarks about certain statements and conduct of the chief election commissioner T.N. Seshan to which a section of the media had taken exception. Similarly, in a case of contempt of court initiated against The Hindustan Times, the court’s judges described the editor. The executive editor and the political editor as a bunch of irresponsible persons and wondered as to why the newspaper’s employers had recruited a journalist like Chanan Mitra on its staff. While the court was entirely right in giving Mitra and his colleagues a dressing-down for the objectionable writing in the newspaper, its oral observations have caused many an eyebrow to be raised. The newspaper in its article had criticized the court judges for ordering Criminal cases against certain police officers of Punjab for killing people in fake encounters, and had wondered whether the judges needed psychiatric treatment All these developments indicate that acclimate of confrontation is building up between the Parliament and the executive on the one hand and the judiciary on the other. It should be noted that certain top police officers of Punjab are alleged to be behind The Hindustan Times in its attack on the judiciary. In the Indian constitution’s scheme of things, there is hardly any scope for conflict between the various wings but the problem arises when certain wings do not act in accordance with the constitution or act extra judicially. For instance, the Indian prime minister informally empowered the police and security forces to extra judicially kill Sikhs and Muslims in Punjab and Kashmir and elsewhere. Thus the police killed several thousands of Sikhs in Punjab, Some of these ‘Cases reached the supreme court which rightly ordered the registration of criminal cases against them. But this judicial intervention upset certain fascist elements in the government and the media. ‘While the court’s dressing down of the journalist and his colleagues have been widely supported, what has been taken exception to be the Oral remarks made by the judges? In the context of the court order for the CBI in the hawala case, the Supreme Court evidently had two options: one, it should have asked the CBI to straightaway write a criminal case against Rao and two. It should have asked the CBI not to seek instructions from the prime minister in respect of hawala enquires. The court opted for the second course. Earlier. The court had given sufficient indications to Rao to I ease his office but the latter appears to be too insensitive to those indications. Nothing could be more insulting to a prime minister than a court’s order that his officers need not report to him. Any one in Rao’s place would have made an issue out of it and had either ignored the order or would have resigned to force the issue in an election. The problem with Rao and his government, however, is that on the controversies at hand, they do not enjoy the masses’ support. The people are sick of corruption and official highhandedness. That is why Rao and company are not making an issue of the court’s orders. But the situation is moving towards a confrontation and a possible amalgamation of the powers of the executive and the judiciary in the hands of the judiciary, this could not be called a healthy trend. The public could to expect much relief from the judiciary because the Indian courts are slow-moving, expensive and inaccessible to the common man. The relief could come only from a responsive and democratic minded Parliament and executive, which is not in sight in India. The first and foremost application of democratic principle would be an opinion poll in Punjab and Kashmir to ascertain from the public Whether they would like to opt out of India or stay with it This just Could not be thought of. The alternative is chaos and that is what is prevailing today.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 6, 1996
