Dirty Tricks

Is India turning into a banana republic? How could a former prime minister of India not know of constitutional propriety? Janata Dal (S) chief HD Deve Gowda sent private letters to the chief justice and other judges of the Karnataka High Court challenging an infrastructure project that he opposed while his party was in government. The case is being currently adjudicated so Deva Gowda’s action amounts to contempt of court, or a disregard for the due process of law.
From the time the project was sanctioned by his predecessor and arch-rival S M Krishna, Deve Gowda has been trying to scuttle it. His argument is that 2,289 acres of land sanctioned by the Congress government is in excess of that required for the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP). Deve Gowda authored a booklet, BMICP - A case study in fraud and collusion to defeat the ends of justice and defraud courts, copies of which he sent to the judges.
Deve Gowda has a legitimate argument that there are several defects in the BMICP project, but how could he have not known that it is a violation of judicial procedure to privately lobby judges on a matter under adjudication? Chief Justice P.D Dinakaran pointedly asked, “When the matter is pending before this Bench, how can he write such a letter?” He added that Deve Gowda should have come to the court or filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) if he was aggrieved.
The Supreme Court has, in principle, ruled in the favor of the BMICP and handed the case over to the Karnataka High Court. Although the High Court has converted Deve Gowda’s letter into a PIL, and the case will be heard on February 2, the court expressed shock at his naivete. It does not speak much for him that despite being a former prime minister and chief minister, Deve Gowda has such little understanding of the law of the land. The rough and tumble of Indian politics is fraying the Constitution at the edges. The Supreme Court has become increasingly wary of this. Perhaps the Karnataka High Court should not have been so lenient.
[This appeared in the in-house newspaper of the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media on January 15, 2009. It came as the leader on the opinion & editorial page. Picture courtesy - Google images]