PaRCha - JNU - AISA - 2006 ID-2897
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The Scales of Judgement: Weighed Against the Poor and Deprived I 18.10.06.
AISA .
Judiciary Can't Be Above Public Scrutiny and Democratic Process l! .
Finally, people's campaigns forjustice for Priyadarshini Mattoo have succeeded: Santosh KumarSingh, her stalker who raped andkilled her in 1996, has been held guiltya full decade later. Priyadarshini, a DU studentofLaw Faculty, had filed FIRs four times complaining ofsexualharassment bySantosh, also a seniorstudent of Law. Despite this, the police never filed any sen·ous charg.es against Santosh. Since his father was a senfor.officer of the Delhi Police, the police deliberately weakened the case ofrape and murder against Santosh. This son of an influential father was acquitted by a trial .
courtin 19·99. The acquittalofSantosh despite all evidence against him was aslap in the face of justice. It took amassive .
publiccampaign andmass outrage forthe High Courtto finallyrecognise that the trailcourt, in acquittingSantosh, 11fflUrderedjustice andshockedjudicialconscience". The entire case shows that Court verdicts cannot be above public scrutiny-itis the dutyofcitizens to protestagainstbiasedjudgements and to ensure that Courts dojustice ratherthan serve the influential. .
A latin American proverb says: 'Justice is like a snake-itonly bites the barefooted'. The Police always favour the rich and powerful; for the minorities, the dalits, the women, the poor, 'police' has always spelt fear. discrimination, custodial torture and violence. Increasingly nowadays, our Courts too are passing judgements voicing the concerns of the elites, against the rights of the poor and the deprived, are arrogantly trying to usurp the powers of the legislature and place themselves above demoaacy. .
The Supreme Court's latest directive chastising the Government for OBC quotas in educational institutions,anddemanding the Standing Committee Report be placed before it, is yet another sign of this growing authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of the Courts. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to Interfere in the functioning of the Parliament and the process of lawmaking. Its role is to uphold laws, not to dictate what Jaws can or cannot be passed, as long as the laws are not unconstitutional. · .
The Mandai Commission recommendations which were the basis for reservations in jobs have already been upheld by the Supreme Court a decade back. There is no call for the Supreme Court to suddenly demand that a fresh data -the data that is good enough for job reservations is also good enough for educational reservations. At any rate, Supreme Court's blatantbias in favour of the anti-reservationists is shown in its approval for payment of salary to striking doctors. The Court is always very quick to punish striking workers and to pass directives against strikes-but in case it is doctors on-strike againstthe deprived sections and backward castes, it is protecting them! This has encouraged the striking doctors to keep flexing their muscles. They continue to indulge in blatant abuse and discriminatory behaviour towards daliUOBG doctors and medical students in AIIMS, and the state of the AIIMS management is exposed when students and staff die of dengue even insideAIIMS itself. When the demand is raised that the Director be held responsibility for mismanagement and for the spreading virus of casteism (far worse than dengue) in the AllMS hostel, the doctors have once again threatened to go on strike. At a time when thousands of people are In danger of losing their lives thanks to the dengue epidemic, these doctors, confident of their backing by the Supreme Court itself, threaten a strike! .
Courts are not above democracy; they are accountable to the people and must answer their questions: .
.
. A PIL has been filed against SEZs, and SEZs are nothing but blatant reservation of the country's richest .
.
resources and greatest privileges for the greedy corporates. Why is the Supreme Court not declaring a moratorium on SFZs, which grve corporates a free hand to rob farmers of land, deprive workers of rights, destroy the environment, and undermine national sovereignty by creating 'foreign' territory on Indian soil? .
.
.
The Supreme Court crossed all limits of insensitivity and inhumanity when it told slum-dwellers, "If you can't afford to rent a house, why do you come to the city?", branded them as "encroachers" whose numbers "keep growing and growing". The Supr,eme Court keeps ordering demolitions of slums to make way for .
.
.
game-parks, and small shops to make way for malls. .
The Supreme Court itselfhas passed a judgement that Sardar Sarovar Dam oustees in the Narmada Valley must get irrigated land as compensation for land, and that rehabilitation of the displaced must be complete one full year before the height of the dam was raised. But the dam height kept being raised, despite the fact that entire villages .
are yet to be rehabilitated and land-for-land rule in compensation has been blatantly violated. Yet the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to such violations and upheld the raising of the height of the damI .
Emboldened by the Supreme Court, the YFE in JNU has once again begun its campaign. They forget that their claims of standing for 'Equality' lie in tatters after their blatant casteist leaflet branding recipients of reservation as 'sub-standard human beings', 'inferior mortals', 'fit only for stealing and unfit to study in JNU'. Standing for equality means consistently .
challenging elitism and injustlce. lfYFE really stands for Equality, why don't they speak out against SEZs? Why did the YFE never bring out a single leaflet condemning the ABVP's murderous assault on Prof. Y K Sabharwal at Ujjain? Their silence reveals their unity with the greedy corporates and the Sangh Pariv~r-both the corporate world and the Sangh had backed the YFE's campaign against reservations. .
Democratic citizens needto be vigilant, andspeak outagainst evetymove bythe Courts to Infringe onpeople's rights andsubvert our democratic processes, ensuring that the UPA Governmentpasses the Quota Bill without furtherdelay. .
sd/-Satya Venkata Siddhardha Kr. D., President, AISA, JNU Sd/-Sandeep Singh,Vice-President, AISA. JNU .
, .
t .
I .
' .
\ .
I t ' \ .
. .
a .
~\ .
I .
I .
~ .
J .
...,_. __...., sd/-Awadhesh, Gen. Secy., AI'::>A. Jl'iu--.
'-· \. .
.
.
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA - 2006 ID-2897
.
I .
' .
·'" .
·.· .
' .
.
The Scales of Judgement: Weighed Against the Poor and Deprived I 18.10.06.
AISA .
Judiciary Can't Be Above Public Scrutiny and Democratic Process l! .
Finally, people's campaigns forjustice for Priyadarshini Mattoo have succeeded: Santosh KumarSingh, her stalker who raped andkilled her in 1996, has been held guiltya full decade later. Priyadarshini, a DU studentofLaw Faculty, had filed FIRs four times complaining ofsexualharassment bySantosh, also a seniorstudent of Law. Despite this, the police never filed any sen·ous charg.es against Santosh. Since his father was a senfor.officer of the Delhi Police, the police deliberately weakened the case ofrape and murder against Santosh. This son of an influential father was acquitted by a trial .
courtin 19·99. The acquittalofSantosh despite all evidence against him was aslap in the face of justice. It took amassive .
publiccampaign andmass outrage forthe High Courtto finallyrecognise that the trailcourt, in acquittingSantosh, 11fflUrderedjustice andshockedjudicialconscience". The entire case shows that Court verdicts cannot be above public scrutiny-itis the dutyofcitizens to protestagainstbiasedjudgements and to ensure that Courts dojustice ratherthan serve the influential. .
A latin American proverb says: 'Justice is like a snake-itonly bites the barefooted'. The Police always favour the rich and powerful; for the minorities, the dalits, the women, the poor, 'police' has always spelt fear. discrimination, custodial torture and violence. Increasingly nowadays, our Courts too are passing judgements voicing the concerns of the elites, against the rights of the poor and the deprived, are arrogantly trying to usurp the powers of the legislature and place themselves above demoaacy. .
The Supreme Court's latest directive chastising the Government for OBC quotas in educational institutions,anddemanding the Standing Committee Report be placed before it, is yet another sign of this growing authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of the Courts. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to Interfere in the functioning of the Parliament and the process of lawmaking. Its role is to uphold laws, not to dictate what Jaws can or cannot be passed, as long as the laws are not unconstitutional. · .
The Mandai Commission recommendations which were the basis for reservations in jobs have already been upheld by the Supreme Court a decade back. There is no call for the Supreme Court to suddenly demand that a fresh data -the data that is good enough for job reservations is also good enough for educational reservations. At any rate, Supreme Court's blatantbias in favour of the anti-reservationists is shown in its approval for payment of salary to striking doctors. The Court is always very quick to punish striking workers and to pass directives against strikes-but in case it is doctors on-strike againstthe deprived sections and backward castes, it is protecting them! This has encouraged the striking doctors to keep flexing their muscles. They continue to indulge in blatant abuse and discriminatory behaviour towards daliUOBG doctors and medical students in AIIMS, and the state of the AIIMS management is exposed when students and staff die of dengue even insideAIIMS itself. When the demand is raised that the Director be held responsibility for mismanagement and for the spreading virus of casteism (far worse than dengue) in the AllMS hostel, the doctors have once again threatened to go on strike. At a time when thousands of people are In danger of losing their lives thanks to the dengue epidemic, these doctors, confident of their backing by the Supreme Court itself, threaten a strike! .
Courts are not above democracy; they are accountable to the people and must answer their questions: .
.
. A PIL has been filed against SEZs, and SEZs are nothing but blatant reservation of the country's richest .
.
resources and greatest privileges for the greedy corporates. Why is the Supreme Court not declaring a moratorium on SFZs, which grve corporates a free hand to rob farmers of land, deprive workers of rights, destroy the environment, and undermine national sovereignty by creating 'foreign' territory on Indian soil? .
.
.
The Supreme Court crossed all limits of insensitivity and inhumanity when it told slum-dwellers, "If you can't afford to rent a house, why do you come to the city?", branded them as "encroachers" whose numbers "keep growing and growing". The Supr,eme Court keeps ordering demolitions of slums to make way for .
.
.
game-parks, and small shops to make way for malls. .
The Supreme Court itselfhas passed a judgement that Sardar Sarovar Dam oustees in the Narmada Valley must get irrigated land as compensation for land, and that rehabilitation of the displaced must be complete one full year before the height of the dam was raised. But the dam height kept being raised, despite the fact that entire villages .
are yet to be rehabilitated and land-for-land rule in compensation has been blatantly violated. Yet the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to such violations and upheld the raising of the height of the damI .
Emboldened by the Supreme Court, the YFE in JNU has once again begun its campaign. They forget that their claims of standing for 'Equality' lie in tatters after their blatant casteist leaflet branding recipients of reservation as 'sub-standard human beings', 'inferior mortals', 'fit only for stealing and unfit to study in JNU'. Standing for equality means consistently .
challenging elitism and injustlce. lfYFE really stands for Equality, why don't they speak out against SEZs? Why did the YFE never bring out a single leaflet condemning the ABVP's murderous assault on Prof. Y K Sabharwal at Ujjain? Their silence reveals their unity with the greedy corporates and the Sangh Pariv~r-both the corporate world and the Sangh had backed the YFE's campaign against reservations. .
Democratic citizens needto be vigilant, andspeak outagainst evetymove bythe Courts to Infringe onpeople's rights andsubvert our democratic processes, ensuring that the UPA Governmentpasses the Quota Bill without furtherdelay. .
sd/-Satya Venkata Siddhardha Kr. D., President, AISA, JNU Sd/-Sandeep Singh,Vice-President, AISA. JNU .
, .
t .
I .
' .
\ .
I t ' \ .
. .
a .
~\ .
I .
I .
~ .
J .
...,_. __...., sd/-Awadhesh, Gen. Secy., AI'::>A. Jl'iu--.
'-· \. .
.
.
.