Will the Verdict overhaul Political Meetings in Road-Sides?
( Madan Menon Thottasseri)
Probably what the Communist leaders like Pinarayi Vijayan desired to comment on the court verdict will not be simply that the roadside meetings will be impractical, but the culture descended from political predecessors was so deep-rooted in Kerala Politics without which they cannot visualise to magnetise people to their fold.
Let the verdict on ban on public meetings on road-sides gives an opportunity to all political parties to revamp their strategies to interface with the mainstream mass and propagate their doctrines on contemporary politics, throughout India.
In a true a democracy, nobody can be against Judiciary and at the same time nobody needs to advise judiciary as well. Judiciary represented by Judges have a mission in the political democracy being practiced in our country and are never unaware of ground realities, especially on the problems faced by people due to road-side meetings and hartals. Thus there is no need for the judiciary to take opinion or any stance from the State Government.
Unfortunately, not only in Kerala, but in all States, the government is nothing but the party or the coalition ruling the state itself. Though the common people will never worry about the lack of governance, they very often feel that there is no government to serve them in this democracy! Fortunately majority at the helm of affairs in Judiciary know these facts which prompt them to give historical verdicts at least once in a blue- moon. Those who oppose the court verdict should try to understand that Political Parties alone are not serving the citizens and Judiciary too plays a role to serve them to prevail democracy. Judiciary cannot be expected to inherit the legacy from the obsolete despotism of the gone century and have to audaciously come out with verdicts to nurse democracy by rescuing people, the pillars of the same.
Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan’s instant response while the issue got raised as a ‘submission’ as granted by the Speaker, went on bad taste, adding more ammunition to Opposition against him. Unfortunately the octogenarian C.M could not overcome his outburst and his unwarranted retort provoked the Opposition to take advantage of the issue. It was a disgrace for his Position and age to stand in the way of the Opposition leader Oommen Chandy while presenting the ‘submission’ stating that the ruling Party to restraint its cadre not to go to street and resort insulting judges. C.M had retorted -"do not forget that you (Congress) declared emergency to bypass the Allahabad court verdict. And do not forget the attack on former Supreme Court Judge V R Krishna Iyer by Rajiv Gandhi's goondas." When the Opposition objected to this and flocked to Speaker he had further damaged the show by standing up to comment- “ I stand corrected, it was Sanjay (Gandhi)”, instead of at least keeping himself tight-lipped though not regretted.
After the involuntary comment on late Prime Minister into the debate on the said ban, again V.S Achuthanandan failed to restrain his own rhetoric tongue while attending a meeting in the suburban Alappuza. He had avowed that “Rajeev was no better than Sanjay” on his endeavor to snarl at the Congress for the Bhopal tragedy and blamed Rajeev Gandhi to let flee Warren Anderson back to U.S.
The CM may even personally find it hard to accept the Court Order on the backdrop of his experience and perception of steering political transmission for decades but he has no propriety to say that it had breached the principles of general law. He must know his Position and its limits on the issue of pronouncement of Law. In fact V.S.Achuthanandan as CM had breached law.
It is interesting to note that the Home Minister of Kerala Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had declared in the state Assembly that a Review Petition will be filed at the High Court after the verdict on the Contempt of Court petition filed by “Niyama Sahaya Vedi”( Legal Help Forum) against M.V.Jayaraj for his insulting remarks against judiciary.
It may be a co-incidence that Cyriac Joseph, Judge in S.C had to a pay a trip to Kerala to deliver the K.K.Mathew Memorial Lecture at this time the judiciary in the state is panicked by the discounting comments by the ruling CPM camp. He could rightly convey the message that Judges cannot act like bulls in a China shop. His remark on power of Judges that are derived from Constitution–“they are not an unwanted, unauthorised group of people who wield self-acquired powers unaccounted for” should be enough for Kerala politicians to keep their blabbering lips shut and for just blink eyes if required!He had said that the hot-headed outbursts shows the mark of ‘lack of culture’. Actually it shows the reluctance of politicians to deviate from their culture of winning people through road-side meetings.
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