Responses to CC Campaign
We are encouraged
by the energetic response from our readers to the campaign initiated
by Communalism Combat last month in support of eminent jurist Mr.
H.M.Seervai’s opinion that the Supreme Court should recall its order,
admit the Special Leave Petition and decide the matter on merits in
the Saamna case. We have accepted the suggestion of the Delhi-based
People’s Movement for Secularism (PSM) for a public meeting in Delhi
in the last week of March or April to focus attention on the issue. We
are also thankful to the Urdu Times and Hamara Mahanagar, for
translating the text of the appeal in Urdu and Hindi and printing them
in their papers.
Meanwhile, we
reproduce below some of the responses received by us so far. We are
also reproducing the appeal for those who may have missed the January,
1995 issue of Combat.
Response 1
D’Souza vs. State of Maharashtra
Why SC should have admitted the petition
There are
several reasons why the Supreme Court ought to have allowed the
Special Leave Petition which was filed against the judgement of the
Bombay High Court in J.B.D’Souza vs. State of Maharashtra and
heard the appeal on merits.
In the first
place, a bare reading of the extracts from the editorials of Bal
Thackeray in his paper, Saamna, which have been reproduced in
the high court judgement, would lead any unbiased reader to the
conclusion that they consist of communalist propaganda of the most
rabid type.
They amount to
“promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion,”
which is an offence under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. They
also contain “imputations, assertions prejudicial to national
integration” which constitute an offence under section 153B of the
Indian Penal Code.
The high court
has held that the statements in the editorial do not constitute an
offence because they refer only to anti-national Muslims or to those
Muslims who supported the two-nation theory. The judgement of the high
court, however, does not show that the editorial refers to the
existence in India of any other type of Muslims who are patriotic and
who did not support the two-nation theory.
The rejection
of the Special Leave Petition is bound to give the impression, not
only to the editor of Saamna but also to writers of other
journals, that this type of communalist propaganda does not have any
penal consequences.
It was all the
more necessary for the Supreme Court to hear the case on merit
because, for the first time after independence, the secular democracy
of India is in real danger. Thackeray’s political party, Shiv Sena, is
allied with another all-India political party which has been fomenting
Hindu communalism for the last 4 or 5 years, with the purpose of
getting votes and coming to power.
Thousands of
Indians, the majority of whom belong to the Muslim community, have
been killed in communal riots which resulted from this vicious
propaganda. Majority communalism has now spread amongst some sections
of the police force and also amongst some of the higher echelons of
the bureaucracy.
In the recent
nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in S.R.Bommai’s case, the court
rightly held that secularism is one of the basic features of our
Constitution. That being so, it is the obvious duty of the Supreme
Court to protect the secular character of the Indian state.
The high court
has observed in the penultimate paragraph of its judgement that the
D’Souza writ Petition deserves to be dismissed because it is not
desirable, in view of the presently restored communal harmony, to
“reopen the old issues afresh.”
Apart from the
fact that communalist propaganda is very likely to continue in the
country in the pursuit of power politics, for some years to come, past
experience has shown that the attitude adopted by the high court does
not serve the purpose of preserving communal harmony.
The lesson to
be drawn is that those who foment communal riots or actively
participate therein should be promptly tried and punished for their
offences. The dismissal of D’Souza’s writ petition by the high court
and the refusal of the Supreme Court to interfere with that decision
would give a wrong signal that one can indulge in rabid communal
propaganda even during a period of communal tension without any fear
of criminal prosecution.
V.M.Tarkunde
(The writer is the founder-president of the People’s Union for
Civil Liberties—PUCL)
Response 2
February 14, 1995
Mr. A.Ahmadi
Chief Justice
Supreme Court of India
Tilak Marg, New Delhi
India.
Sir,
On behalf of myself, of the directors of NRISAD and its many
members and supporters, I write this to express our shock and dismay
at the manner the justice system of India has failed the secular and
democratic aspirations of the people of India.
I refer to the
judicial matter concerning the Shiv Sena chief, Bal Thackeray, who
must indeed be gloating self-righteously at the Supreme Court’s
dismissal of the Special Leave Petition in the Saamna case, as
he indeed must have when the Bombay High Court earlier gave its
verdict in the same case. Regarding himself above law, Bal Thackeray
after all has been arrogantly flouting his contempt for judiciary
publicly declaring his intention to “piss on the court’s judgements”,
and by calling most judges “plague-ridden rats against whom direct
action should be taken.”
Such scornful
views of the Shiv Sena chief about judiciary could be easily dismissed
had they not been a part of his and his organisation’s total agenda
which have been posing a most serious threat to not only the lives and
property of Indian citizens but also to the constitutional, moral and
social fabric of Indian society.
Although
living thousands of miles, and in many cases, many generations away
from India, we people of the Indian origin deeply cares for what
happens in that society. We take pride in the history of India and in
the multi-cultural, multi-religious social tapestry woven over a
period of many centuries. People of many faiths, many religions,
affiliations and many distinct cultural identities have contributed to
form the composite Indian way of life and civilisation. We feel very
concerned that this rich heritage is being threatened by the forces of
bigotry and fascism which are trying to convert India into a “Hindu
Rashtra”. Having followed the sayings and doings of Bal Thackeray and
his organisation, we maintain that they are part of these threatening
forces.
On the matter
of the judgement of the division bench of the Bombay High Court in
J.B.D’Souza vs. State of Maharashtra, and the subsequent order of
the Supreme Court dismissing the Special Leave Petition, we have
followed at length the views of legal experts like H.M.Seervai, Nani
Palkhivala, Soli Sorabjee, Fali Nariman and retired Justice Hosbet
Suresh of the Bombay High Court. Like them, we too are concerned and
alarmed.
We appeal to
you to consider the opinion of the constitutional scholar, H.M.Seervai,
that the Supreme Court of India should recall its order, admit the
Special Leave Petition, and decide the Saamna case on merits.
We have been given to understand that a precedent for such recall
exists, and national interest demands it. Failure to do this would
send out a dangerous signal to the country.
We hope that
the Supreme Court of India will live upto the supreme mandate given to
it by the people of India: to uphold the rule of law in the country.
Yours
sincerely,
Hari P. Sharma
President, NRISAD
Non-Resident Indians for Secularism and Democracy
8027, Government Street
Burnaby, BC, V5A 2E1
Canada
Response 3
The editors
‘Communalism Combat’
Bombay
As desired by you, I got xerox copies of the
appeal on inland letters. This will help like-minded people to post it
to the Chief Justice of India without financial or other difficulty.
Presently, about 50 copies have been posted. In the next phase, I
intend to go to the extent of 1,000 copies.
Yours sincerely,
Dalit M.A. Saleem
Head,
Department of Commerce
Tara Government
Degree College
Sangareddy—502001
Dist. Medak, Andhra Pradesh.
Follow Up of CC
Cover Story, January 1995, Crime and Punishment |