On behalf of Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry, a consultation meeting was held at Chambre de Commerce, on 22.08.2010 at 10.00 am to 1.00 pm. The meeting was presided by its Secretary G. Sugumaran and about 50 volunteer in and around Puducherry were attended. The following resolutions were passed unanimously:

1)     We urge the Puducherry government to take steps to scrap the regional reservation in higher education in Puducherry, which is contravene to the Constitution of India and the Judgment delivered by the 11 Judges of Constitutional Bench in Indra Sawhney case. Otherwise, we will organize the people and students and fight against it.

2)    We urge the Puducherry government to get the approval of Medical Council of India for the Puducherry Government Medical College and start the courses in the current academic year itself to protect the interest of the students of Puducherry.

3)    We appreciate the Puducherry government for announcing the separate reservation for Muslims and Fishermen community providing 2 percent reservation in education and employment and also we press the government to issue the G.O. at the earliest enabling them to enjoy the reservation in the present academic year itself.

4)    The Home Ministry of India has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India to recall the whole judgment allowing the private port project in Puducherry. In this context we urge the Puducherry government to cancel the agreement entered with private port developer. The MHA has published the Special Audit Report on Puducherry port project in website, which was constituted by the MHA to probe the various complaints received against the project. The Report reveals lot of deficiency, irregularities and corruption in the port project agreement. In this juncture we urge the Central government to order for a C.B.I. enquiry in this regard.

5)    The village panchayat leaders of Puducherry are struggling for a long period demanding finance, office employees, application for welfare schemes and dilution of powers to the panchayats. We condemn the attitude of the Puducherry government which is totally neglecting the demands of the village panchayats. We urge the Puducherry government to consider their demands and proper implementation of the Panchayat Raj Act.

6)     In the selection process of post of TTGT, the Director of School Education Mr. Sundaravadivel and other officials indulged in mark scandal and corruption. In this regard we complained to the authorities with the bulk of evidence, but the government not yet took any action against the corrupt official is condemnable. We urge the Puducherry government to order for a C.B.I. inquiry.

7)    The petitions sent to the office of the Lt. Governor are not properly enquired and they were merely endorsed and sent to the authorities on whom the complaint was made for comments is a wrong precedent.  We request the Lt. Governor who is having the uppermost power to take stringent action against the erring officials to develop a corruption free administration in Puducherry.

8)    Federation for People’s Rights First State Conference will be held at Puducherry on January 2011 and Former Judges, Human and Social Rights activists will be invited for the conference.

9)    To run a newsletter in the name “Kural (Voice)” to take up the activities and issues taken by Federation for People’s Rights to the people.

10)    We thank the newspapers and visual media for extending the support for the activities of Federation for People’s Rights.

Human Rights Activists demanded the Puducherry Government to release the life prisoners who have completed 7 years imprisonment following the Tamilnadu Government.

On 22.06.2010 at 11 am at Puducherry Press Club, Peoples Union for Human Rights (PUHR) Tamilnadu Chapter President Prof A. Marx, Federation for People’s Rights (FPR) Secretary Mr. G. Sugumaran, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Puducherry Chapter President Mr. R. Abimannan, Village Panchayat Presidents Coordinating Federation Vice-Convener Mr. G.A. Jagannathan jointly met the press.

In the press conference Prof A. Marx told:

on the occasion of the World Classical Tamil Conference Tamilnadu Government announced to release various categories of 500 life prisoners who have completed 10 years imprisonment. We demand the Puducherry Government to release the life prisoners who have completed 7 years imprisonment following the Tamilnadu Government.

The Tamilnadu Government in the event of Anna Birth day released 472 and 190 life prisoners who have completed 10 years of imprisonment during 2006 and 2007 respectively. The government has also released 1405 and 10 life prisoners who have completed 7 years imprisonment during 2008, and  2009 respectively.

The Puducherry Government from 1999 to 2009 released only 11 life prisoners who have completed 14 years imprisonment in which 8 lodged in Puducherry Central Prison and 3 in Tamilnadu Prisons. In Puducherry Jail out of 78 life prisoners 43 have been serving for more than 7 years.

The Constitution of India Article 72 sanctioned power to the President of India and Article 161 to the State Governors and Section 435 of Criminal Procedure Code to the state Governments to take decision on the pre mature release of life convicts.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 1999 and 2003 sent a guidelines and procedure to all State Chief Secretaries and Union Territory Administrators to release the life convicts who have completed 7 years imprisonment.

Since, Puducherry is a Union Territory, the power to pre mature release of life convicts is vested with the Central government and the Territorial administration should approach the Centre and take steps to release the life prisoners.

All the life convicts in Puducherry jail are not indulged in murder. But, only a few prisoners have committed the murder crime. We have been pressing the Government for long time to fix cell phone jammer apparatus in the prison campus. The Government never took any action. The police was not willing for this, since they are tracing the crime through the cell phone communication of the prisoners.  If the police took stern action, the crime perpetuated from inside the prison can be prevented.

There are lot of norms and procedures for the premature release of the life prisoners. Merely the prisoners who have completed 7 years imprisonment are not released abruptly.   The data released by the Tamilnadu Prison IG Shyam Sundar reveals that out of 1405 prisoners released in 2008 in the event of Anna centenary celebration only 7 have returned to jail by involving only in minor crimes. So, the prisoners who have been released from jail will commit crime is unacceptable.

We accept that some organization indulge in illegal activities in the name of Human Rights. But we are not accepting the Tamilnadu Government’s G.O. restraining the organisations to use Human Rights in their organisation names.

We condemn the Tamilnadu police who have arrested the activists pasted posters opposing the World classical Tamil Conference. If there is right to support the conference, there should be right to oppose it also. One should not forget that the right to dissent is one of the fundamental principles of democracy. The Thirunelveli police have taken custody of the persons who have sent sms opposing the conference and they were threatened in the police stations. We demand the Tamilnadu Government to release the detained and arrested persons withdrawing the cases against them.

Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry Secretary G. Sugumaran issued a statement on 02.03.2010:

Federation for People’s Rights urges the Puducherry Government to sack M. Hariharan, Officer on Special Duty, Lalith Kala Academy and Sangeeth Natak Academy from service, since the charges against him were proved before the enquiry committee constituted by the Government to probe about his unauthorized foreign tours.

M. Hariharan presently Officer on Special Duty, Lalith Kala Academy and Sangeeth Natak Academy, is former principal of Bharathiar Palkalai Koodam. During 2007 and 2008 he frequently visited USA to attend various events without any prior permission or approval of the Government, which amounts to grave misconduct and insubordination. As per the CCS Rules, a Government servant should obtain prior permission or approval from the competent authority to visit foreign country is obligatory.

The Government after receiving complaints from various quarters instituted a departmental enquiry in this regard under the head of S. D. Sunderasan, JMD, Puducherry Textile Corporation. The enquiry officer conducted the enquiry and submitted the report to the Government recently. The report reveals that the charges leveled against M. Hariharan were proved beyond suspicion.

During his tenure as Principal at Bharathiar Palkalai Koodam he indulged in various corruption, irregularities, misappropriation and mal administration. Already two enquiry committees were constituted in this regard under the head of G. Theva Neethi Dass, then Director of Local Administration Department and Ragesh Chandra, Collector. These committee reports are also with the Government which is against the said delinquent officer.

The officials of Department of Art and Culture instead of taking severe action safe guarding the guilty officer. Due to massive agitation he was transferred from BPK. After assuming charge as OSD to Lalith Kala Academy on December 1999 to December 2009, he was paid Rs. 30,58,280/- as salary without performing any duty.

So, we request the Puducherry administration to take steps to remove M. Hariharan from service to infuse confidence among the public. We are organising an Assembly Picketing Struggle on 12th March 2010 to press this demand.

Federation for People’s Rights (FPR) Secretary G.Sugumaran submitted a memorandum to the Lt. Governor of Puducherry on 18.02.2010:

We would like to draw your kind attention on the fraud allegedly committed by the Mumbai based company Tilaknagar Industries Limited, which manufactures the liquor including Mansion House Brandy as brand name, an Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL). More than 80 percent of the total volume, the said brand was distributed and sold in South India including Puducherry.

It is worth to note that the Govt. of Puducherry earns 70 % of the total revenue through various taxes imposed on sale of liquors. The said company swindled the Government money to the tune of about five crore rupees during the past three years.

The Government of Puducherry fixed and collects 58 percent sales tax for the IMFL products. The Government exempted four Distilleries running in Puducherry from the sales tax purely because of a murky deal. Various companies bottled the liquor in these companies and selling in order to reap the benefit of the said tax exemption. This leads

to a great revenue loss to the Government. In addition to the existing Excise Duty, an Additional Excise Duty was imposed, in order to compensate the loss incurred due to this exemption vide its order dated from 23rd April 2007 vide Government Notification No. 4703/DC(E)/SI/2007-II, issued by the Department of Revenue and Disaster Management.

The said Company followed the category of declared price range per case containing 8.64 / 9/12 bulk litres from Rs. 850 to Rs. 1049 as mentioned in the Government Notification. The company is paying Rs. 522 for each case for the brand Mansion House Brandy as per the above selected category to the Government. If the company crosses the next category it should pay excess Additional Excise Duty to the Government as per the said Notification.

In the intention to cheat the Government, the said company creates a new head as ‘Annual Turnover Profit’ in the cost card and selling the liquor. The company alters the accounts to maintain the above Rs. 850 to Rs. 1049 slab and getting back the excess money categorized as ‘Annual Turnover Profit’ from the Distributors and Wholesalers. By such manipulation it submits the accounts to Excise Department as if it is strictly following the slab of Rs. 850 to Rs. 1049.

Actually the company is selling the products exceeding the fixed slab Rs. 850 to Rs. 1049 by entering the next slab Rs. 1050 to 1349 as mentioned in the said Government Notification. If the company shows the next slab, it should pay Rs. 99 per case of product sold in Puducherry. Since three years after the issue of the said notification by the Government, this company has sold 5 lakh cases of products worth Rs. 300 crores. So, the company should pay Rs. 5 crores as Additional Excise Duty to the Government.

The company had cheated the Government by indulging in these fraudulent and unfair practices with intention to violate the law explicitly, which would surely cognizable under the penal offence. Puducherry Government is suffering a lot to mobilize fund to implement various public oriented schemes. In this context the above said company’s act of continuously committing this grave crime is a great betrayal to Public. Such unfair practice would only favours the liquor selling companies through various tax exemptions and its manipulation which would purely cause a huge revenue loss to the Exchequer.

We are also very much worried to hear the story of a single company which is cheating the Government to the tune of several crores of rupees. We expect your Excellency’s kind attention to probe the activities of other Liquor Companies also in Puducherry in this regard.

So, we humbly request your Excellency to order for a C.B.I. enquiry in the referred matter and initiate stringent criminal action against the company owners and others who were abetting to this crime by causing wrongful loss to the Government and thereby allowing to enjoy wrongful gain to the private players.

Federation for People’s Rights (FPR) Secretary G. Sugumaran issued a press release on 17.12.2009:

The Union Government had filed an appeal petition in Supreme Court to recall or modify its earlier Judgment delivered in Puducherry Port Development case. In this context, Federation for People’s Rights (FPR) earnestly request the Puducherry Government to terminate the agreement entered with a private firm, in the light of the infirmities and gross violation of the statutory provisions in awarding the contract.

The Government of Puducherry evolved a plan to develop the existing port and entered in to a agreement with a private concern with an estimated cost of Rs. 2600 crores on 2005. The Government had transferred 153 acres of its owned land around the existing port site, to the private firm without obtaining prior permission from Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which is the competent authority as established by law. It also attempted to acquire the private lands in and around the Thengaithittu village.

As the people of Puducherry firmly believed that their fundamental basis for existence would be jeopardized on implementing the port project, they embarked into intensive agitation against the Government’s wrong decision. Following the agitation launched jointly by Political Parties and Social Movements, the Government announced that the port project would be kept in abeyance. It is worth to note here that FPR played a vital role in these struggles.

Following the Madras High Court and Supreme Court Judgments in the Port Project case, the Puducherry Government had determined to execute the project and announced the same in public.

At this juncture the Government of India, particularly the MHA has preferred an Appeal Petition in the Supreme Court of India to recall or modify the decision delivered earlier. The SC admitted the petition and had taken on file. In the light of this new development, the issue gains significance.

MHA had pointed out various Infirmities and violation of Rules and Regulations, Statutory Provisions of Puducherry Administration Act, Puducherry Rules of Business, Governance of UT Act and Constitution of India.

The Government had violated in the bid process, selection of bidder, terms of contract, disproportionate quantum of lease amount, constitution of governing body, etc. The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home affairs, Planning Commission have recorded the violation of the rules to the core and undue favoritism shown to the private firm, which has been found guilty by the SEBI authorities. Besides the terms of contract has caused huge monetary loss to the Exchequer. The matter has been taken cognizance by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) which is yet to receive its reply from the Puducherry Government.

Further, it has been pointed out by the Government of India that handing over of 153 acres of state owned land to private firm is beyond the jurisdiction of Puducherry Government, as the power vest only with the MHA.

The lease amount has been fixed as 3.06 lakhs per annum for the above said land payable to the Government by the private firm. As per the normal procedure in practice in the states like Andhrapradesh, is that the lease amount should be 2% of the fair market value of the land. Hence, the lease amount to be collected figures around 14.5 crores. Hence, the Government has shown undue favour to the private firm causing substantial loss to the Government.

The Honble Minister for Port Mr. E. Valsaraj is behind all the illegalities and favoritism, and he should own responsibility for the whole affairs. We also request the Government to come out with a white paper in this regard.

Hence, the Government should take steps to terminate the said illegal agreement, forthwith. If the Government is failing to rescind the said contract, FPR will be in fore front to moblise the people and organise struggles against the Puducherry administration.

K.Balagopal, the synonym for the human rights movement in Andhra Pradesh is no more. He passed away suddenly on October 8th at 10.00 PM of a peptic ulcer. His death at the age of 57 has left everyone associated with human rights and democratic movements in a state of shock. Activists and supporters of the human rights movement are still finding it difficult to accept the reality of his death.

In a short span of two days after his death, it is impossible to come to a comprehensive assessment of his life, three decades of his rights activism and its characteristics.Our attempt here is therefore only tentative. He was the fifth child of Kandala Parthanatha Sarma and Nagamani. Due to his father’s frequent transfers he studied at different places in A.P, from Nellore to Srikakulam. He did his PUC in Kavali and B.Sc in Tirupathi. After completing M.Sc and Ph.D in Mathematics at the Regional Engineering College in Warangal, he joined Indian Statistical Institute at New Delhi for research. Dissatisfied with life there, he came back to Warangal to be with the democratic movements and joined the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee. After joining Kakatiya University as a lecturer in Maths, he started taking a much more active role in the rights movement.

He was an exceptionally brilliant student and a recipient of several gold medals. He was also an opening batsman for the cricket team of Venkateswara University. While pursuing Ph.D he became a member of the editorial committee of a renowned international journal of mathematics. His task was to review complex research in mathematics and explain the same to the readers in a simple style.

He was elected to the post of the General Secretary of APCLC in 1983 and carried out that responsibility for 15 years. He took up the leadership of the organization when the repression on the Naxalite movement had just begun. In the process of exposing fake encounters he visited every nook and corner of the state. He expanded the organization from its confined location in a few cities to every small town in the state. Inspired by his activist practice, numerous young people were attracted to the organization. In order to inculcate the consciousness of human rights in muffasil areas he identified issues that are specific to each district and worked through them. By enabling the district activists to articulate the local rights issues, he shaped the organization in such a way that wherever a violation of rights took place, they would raise their voice against it. Even though many civil liberties leaders such as Gopi Rajanna, Dr.Ramanatham, Jaapa Lakshma Reddy and Narra Prabhakar Reddy were killed, he did not lose heart. Instead, he tried to infuse courage among the fellow activists. He remained unfazed in the face of direct repression too. Arrested under TADA, he spent three months in Warangal prison but always believed that it is quite natural for activists to be arrested or imprisoned. His response to attacks on his person exemplified his democratic temperament. When he was attacked by ABVP activists in 1984, kidnapped by the Khammam police in 1989, fatally attacked in Kottagudem in 1992 and even mauled in the presence of National Human Rights Commission in 1993, he refused to pause even for a day. Speaking to the media after he was released by his kidnappers, he suggested that they should focus more on the repression of the rural youth, rather than on him.

Balagopal’s success lay in making the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee stand by the people of Andhra Pradesh, especially in opposing the repression unleashed by the state government in the name of containing naxalism. His efforts in developing APCLC into a pioneering organization in opposing state violence in India are unparalleled. Working relentlessly, he sought to extend the civil liberties activism and practice from the confines of urban intellectual debates onto a much broader basis. When Dalits were attacked during the initial years of Telugu Desam regime, his was one of the first democratic voices to be raised. During the anti-Mandal agitation he wrote the first analytical essay in support of reservations for backward castes from a human rights perspective and thereby widened the horizons the human rights movements.

Under Balagopal’s leadership the perspective and practice of human rights movement grew to become interdependent and began to draw strength from each other. He strongly believed that the priorities and perspective of the movement should be reconfigured through practice, while practice needed to move in step with changes in perspective. In this process of reflection he came to recognize that the absence of rights did not arise solely from class dominance but also from other modes of dominance and oppressive practices therein. As all forms of institutionalized dominance impede enjoyment of rights, human rights movement should desist from choosing one kind of violations as its priority, he cautioned. Raising the issue of undemocratic activities of various movements for a critical discussion, he argued that a human rights movement need not support every action that other movements do in the name of struggle.

He thought that there was much that the human rights movement could learn from every democratic movement against different forms of dominance. The task for the human rights movement is to articulate the aspirations and demands of these movements in the language of rights so that they attain universal validity. The agenda that he outlined for human rights movements was: to work for the institutionalization of already recognized rights, to struggle for the recognition of un-recognized ones, and most importantly, to cultivate democratic values and culture in the spheres of law, administration and societal thinking. He envisaged a broad based and autonomous human rights movement which would be accountable to the people. Due to the differences of opinion emerging from such a reflection, he left APCLC to form Human Rights Forum (HRF) with a few comrades. Over the last ten years, HRF’s growth from 32 member organization to an active and energetic 300 member strong organization owes a lot to the untiring efforts of Balagopal. His vision lay in creative alignment of human rights theory with practice and in cultivating among common people a spirit of commitment to social responsibility and faith in democratic values.

After joining the civil liberties movement Balagopal wrote numerous analytical commentaries on various social and political phenomenon in Andhra Pradesh. In the last ten years, all the anonymous essays published in the ten Human Rights Bulletins (Journal of HRF) were authored by him. His book on D.D.Kosambi, introducing Kosambi’s new thinking on historiography to Telugu readership remains till today, a standard textbook for Telugu medium students in History Departments. For intellectuals outside Andhra Pradesh, his essays in Economic and Political Weekly remained the most important source to understand what was happening in the state. Many economists of yesteryears recall with admiration his reviews of Cambridge University publications in economics. His essay on the Chintapalli incident where the police burnt thousands of tribal houses in Visakhapatnam district won the national award for journalism given by PUCL. To conduct public inquiries into human rights violations all over the country, he established Indian People’s Human Rights Commission along with Nandita Haksar and Sebastian. In a sense, it served as the basis for the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission. Balagopal is known to people of Kashmir, Manipur, Chattisgarh, Tamilnadu and Karnataka which saw extensive human rights violations in recent times. He visited these states many times with other civil liberties organizations and brought out several reports.

Despite rising to immense heights in the human rights movement he chose to live a simple and ordinary life. He practiced what he believed in his everyday life. He did not have any life outside the movement. From 1981 till his last breath, he used all his energies in struggles for justice for poor people and protecting their rights. For rural people his name is synonymous with ‘rights’. Intellectuals consider him as a thinker who advocated human rights norms to evaluate the democratic quotient of any social and political phenomenon. He stood out as an intensely committed lawyer in a profession increasingly beset with corruption. He not only provided a moral compass to peoples’ lives but also diligently carried out the responsibility of warning them about impending threats to public interest.

Balagopal was deeply disturbed by the opportunism displayed by the intellectuals in the state after the death of Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy. His caution to the members of Human Rights Forum on the eve of its third State conference on 2nd and 3rd October would well be heeded by these intellectuals too, “This (Human Rights Forum) is a new experiment in the history of peoples’ movements in our state. If we do not sustain it, it is not only a defeat for us but also a blow to the democratic belief that ideals can bring people together. If we sustain it and take it forward successfully, we would have strengthened the spirit of democracy itself”.

Explaining the philosophy of Narendranath, his long standing friend in the human rights movement, who passed away in July this year, Balagopal said, “As long as people are suffering, one cannot rest in peace”. These words describe Balagopal’s philosophy of life too.

Inviting you all to work towards the fulfillment of such a democratic vision…

Human Rights Forum (HRF).

Condolence Message issued on 10.10.2009 by G.Sugumaran, Secretary, Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry:

Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry express deep heartfelt condolence for the sudden death of Dr. K. Balagopal, a prominent Human Rights Activist of India and it is a great loss to Human Rights Movement.

Dr. K. Balagopal, was born in Anantapur District in Andhrapradesh, obtained Doctorate in Mathematics and worked as a lecturer in Kakatia University at warrangal. After leaving his job he dedicated to Human Rights as full time activist.

On 8th October 2009, night, due to chest pain, he was taken to a private hospital at Hyderabad and the Doctors there told that he was already dead.

As General Secretary of “Andhrapradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC)”, he struggled against the state oppression on Naxalite movement. He also concentrated in fighting against the Custodial Violence, Fake Encounter killings and Abolition of Death Penalty.

Since, he had confident opinion against any form of violence; he developed difference with naxalite movement and quitted APCLC. Then founded “Human Rights Forum (HRF)” and continued his service on Human Rights.

He worked for more than 10 years as lawyer at Andhrapradesh High Court at Hyderabad and argued to get a historical Judgment on fake encounter that if an encounter occurs, a case should filed under Section 302 IPC against the police personals who involved.

He was a left intellectual and his uncompromised and honest writings were well recognized by the intellectual community around the world.

I am closely associated with him from 1992 and in 1996 I was a member in an All India Fact Finding Committee and facing high risk from Police toured with him in naxalite prone four districts of Andhra to probe fake encounter killings.

In 1998, his voice is the first against the Death Penalty, while 26 persons were awarded Death Sentence in Rajiv Gandhi murder case. Consulting with him, we organised a two day All India Conference in Puducherry for Abolition of Death Penalty in India.

I also participated in an All India Fact Finding Committee with him to probe the violence against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka. This is the last moment I met him. He concentrated and fought for the poor Tribal people, who were affected by the projects of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in his last period.

The people of different walks of life of Andhra including the political leaders of Congress and Marxist - Leninist Parties condoled for his death. I deeply convey my heartfelt condolence to the family members and associates of Dr. K. Balagopal.

Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Secretary, G. Sugumaran and Association for the Protection of Irula Tribals, Co-ordinator Praba. Kalvimani jointly met the press on 08.10.2009 at press club at Puducherry and told the following:

We, the Human Rights Activists belongs to Association for the Protection of Irula Tribals, Tamilnadu and Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry jointly submit this memorandum for your kind and favourable action to save the Rights of the Scheduled Tribe Irula community.

The residents of Rettanai Village of Villupuram District, Tamilnadu one Ezhumalai and his wife Sakunthala both belongs to ST Irula community, worked in private brick kiln in karikkalampakkam Village at Puducherry. In Tamilnadu and Puducherry there is a practice that the brick kiln owners will give advance amount and take the ST Irula community people as bonded labourers to work in their brick kilns. In this case also the said Ezhumalai and his wife Sakunthala was paid Rupees 36,000/- as advance and they worked for some period in the brick kiln and went to their village to stay for some period.

The above said brick kiln’s owner one Venkatesh and his three henchmen went to the said Ezhumalai daughter Dhanam’s house 0n 24.09.2009 at Vikkravandi village and enquired about her parents, who were the labourers in their brick kiln. She told that their parents are gone to work in a brick kiln. But suddenly the said Venkatesh and his henchmen dragged her husband Viji S/o Ganesan and abducted him in car and disappeared. Then they contacted her over phone and threatened her to produce her father Ezhumalai and mother Sakunthala or otherwise give the said paid advance money.

The hapless Dhanam approached the Association for the Protection of Irula Tribals and with their assistance drafted a complaint and lodged it in the Vikkaravandi Police Station on 25.09.2009, for necessary action to secure her abducted husband. But, the Police as usual acted very lethargically and never took any steps to file FIR and trace the abducted person. Due to the continuous effort from the Tribal Association, atlast the Police filed the referred FIR on 26.09.2009. Meanwhile, the accused Venkatesh after knowing that the FIR was filed against him surrendered with the abducted person in the said Vikkaravandi Police Station. The Police instead of remand him to Judicial custody and lodge him in jail, left him free due to some political pressure from various quarters.

We infer from the reliable source that the Union Minister for State Mr. V. Narayanasamy (Congress), Puducherry Embalam Constituency MLA Mr. R. Rajaraman (DMK), Tamilnadu Kandamangalam MLA Mr. Pushparaj (DMK) and others pressurized the Police not to remand the said Venkatesh and were in the background of his illegal release.

The said political interference against a ST Irula Tribal is shocking and very unhealthy and in a strictly view it will attract penal offence under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Regarding this incident, we both submitted a written complaint to the Superintendent of Police, Villupuram District on 28.09.2009 for necessary action. But till date no action was taken on our complaint.

We would like to point out the following speech delivered by Honourable Prime Minister   Dr. Manmohan Singh in a conference of State Ministers of Welfare and Social Justice at New Delhi on 07.09.2009.

“Reports of atrocities against SCs, STs and senior citizens continue to appear with disturbing regularity. I have in fact written to the chief ministers of all states recently to enforce the provisions of the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. It is shocking that conviction rate for cases of atrocities against SCs and STs is less than 30% against the average of 42 per cent for all cognizable offences under IPC. The state governments need to give more attention to this issue.”

The Supreme Court in its very recent Judgment delivered by Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph, while dismissing the appeal filed by Kedar Narayan Parida and others challenging the Orissa High Court Judgment has slammed the political pressure and influence in criminal cases to let off the accused.

In this context, the above said political interference is totally against the Law, Moral, Ethics and also a great injustice done to a ST Irula Community. So, we kindly request your authority to intervene in this issue and order for an independent agencies enquiry like CBI and take appropriate action on the said politicians to uphold Law and Justice.

The public loses respect for the judicature if there is one corrupt judge who can discredit the high institution.

I do not know Justice P.D. Dinakaran personally and have nothing for or against him. I use his name based on a detailed letter of complaint against him written by several members of the Madras Bar and a representation to the President and the Prime Minister by the great advocate, F.S. Nariman, and other illustrious names.

No civilised society can command the people’s confidence if the judicature’s verdict is privately purchased at a competitive price. The functional fundamental of the judicial instrumentality is indubitable. The court controls, corrects or quashes the executive, however high it is, and even sets aside acts of the legislature if it acts contra-constitutionally. But when judges turn obliquely friendly to graft, are addicted to delinquence, or are noxious in negotiating their judgments, violating the basic structure and values of the Constitution, the system suffers a syndrome of administrative chaos or functional anarchy.

Therefore if the Constitution is not to seppuku quality, integrity, egalite, and commitment to the human rights of rich and poor alike, judges must undergo the most exacting public examination and investigation. They must be subject to invigilation into their character and antecedents, company, habits, economic class and social philosophy, and personal life.

If the Bench is powerful, sensitive, prompt, and probus, the system of government will be straight and just. Beyond doubt, the appointment of judges, especially to the higher courts, is of great concern to the public. The bar is the professional nidus for recruitment to the Bench. The administration of justice will be functionally fair if the cadres are selected with a sharp eye on integrity, social philosophy, legal acumen, jurisprudential grounding, and are sound and good as an instrument to implement our Republic’s values of socialist, secular, democratic, egalitarian administration.

This demands a scientific approach to the selection process. A peon or Class IV servant or security guard is selected on the basis of specific criteria and settled principles. But a strange phenomenon has crept into our system by an extraordinary eccentricity of a large bench of the Supreme Court in an ambition to snatch power. It is as if the higher courts are to be the creation of favourites, relations, and other extraneous factors without reference to the public or scrutiny by known standards of merit, integrity, and absence of class bias.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., put it felicitously: “The judges have other motives for decision, outside their own arbitrary will, beside the commands of their sovereign. And whether those other motives are, or are not, equally compulsory, is immaterial, if they are sufficiently likely to prevail to afford a ground for prediction. The only question for the lawyer is, how will the judges act? These motives may consist of, ‘institutions of public policy,’ ‘inarticulate instincts,’ ‘a preponderance of feeling’ arising out of previous antecedents of the judge, or ‘even the prejudices which judges share with their fellowmen.’”

The collegium is a creature of a judicial precedent. It has no constitutional foundation; indeed it is opposed to what Dr. B.R. Ambedkar laid out in the Constituent Assembly. The whole process of the collegium is arbitrary in structure. There is no way of correcting its operation except by a constitutional amendment or assertion of the Franklin Roosevelt type. It is a pity that Parliament has not chosen to amend the Constitution or prescribe a constitutional Code of Conduct for Judges to behave themselves other than through the impractical process of impeachment.

The consequence is that doubtful candidates creep into the Bench and make pronouncements that become the law for the land — not because they are infallible but because they are final. Communalism has corrupted judicial appointments; caste and community contaminate judicial appointments.

The first and foremost requirement, if we really desire a straightforward justice system with ability and integrity and investigation into character and social philosophy, is to have a Commission for the appointment of judges of high stature. There have been complaints, aggravated from time to time, suggesting corruption such as excessive acquisition of assets by the judge either in his or her name, or in the name of close relations and other benamis.

There is urgency therefore about a Commission for the appointment of judges. The names under consideration must be revealed and public criticism received and examined. Secrecy leads to suspicion. Judges before appointment should be, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. In the U.S., the public has a voice. Even in the U.K, the system of appointment of judges is no longer with the Chancellor. Why should India not have a public system of transparency and accountability in the matter of appointments?

In the case of Justice Dinakaran, I find from the letter written by Mr. Nariman and other respected lawyers much that is disturbing. A latifundist doing justice to landless tellers indeed.

I have no doubt that a Commission for investigating and reporting on the assets and liabilities of candidates and their benamidars is a condition precedent for appointing judges. The collegium can be overruled by the President and the Prime Minister ordering such a Commission. In that event, dubious candidates will not offer themselves.

To sum up. Parliament, exercising its constituent power, must amend the Constitution and create a well-thought-out system of three Commissions: for appointments of judges, for assessing the performance of judges, and for independent enquiry into the assets and liabilities of judges periodically.

Why do I, long retired from the Bench, take up the case of one judge? Because the public loses respect for the judicature if there is one corrupt judge who can discredit the high institution. After all, as Felix Frankfurter put it: “Judges as persons, or courts as institutions, are entitled to no greater immunity from criticism than other persons or institutions. Just because the holders of judicial office are identified with the interests of justice they may forget their common human frailties and fallibilities.”

Not one bad robe should be allowed to tarnish a great institution.

(The author is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India and a regular contributor to this newspaper.)

The Hindu / 17.09.2009.

Press Statement issued by G.Sugumaran, Secretary, Federation for People’s Rights (FPR) on 25.07.2009:

On behalf of Federation for People’s Rights (FPR), Puducherry, we would like to point out that the decision to conduct the swearing in ceremony of the new Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry his excellency Iqbal Singh, in the presence of the Honourable Chief Justice of Madras High Court, instead of the Honourable Chief Judge of Puducherry, not only violates the legal precedence, but would be in contravention to the established tradition followed in Puducherry from the French regime.

Earlier, it was announced that the oath taking ceremony will be conducted on 27th July 2009 Monday, in the presence of Honourable Judge D.Krishnaraja, the Chief Judge of Puducherry.

It is understood that the decision taken earlier has been changed and it is proposed to conduct the ceremony in the presence of Honourable Justice H.L.Gohale, the Chief Justice of Madras High Court.

The precedence to conduct the swearing in ceremony in the presence of Chief Judge of Puducherry, is being followed from French regime. Any violation of this precedence and established legal procedure would be construed as a dishonor to the entire people of Puducherry. We like to point out, with good intention that no disgrace should come to the Honourable Chief Justice of Madras High Court in this regard.

Though there is no specific provision in Indian Constitution, the principle and procedure followed by a longer period becomes a statutory binding, which need to be respected with dignity. In this context, the swearing in ceremony proposed to be conducted by the Honourable Chief Justice of Madras, would be certainly against the Law.

In order to uphold the established Law and Procedures of our Union Territory of Puducherry, it would be appropriate to conduct the swearing in ceremony in the presence of the Chief Judge of Puducherry. So, we request the Puducherry Government to take steps to conduct the swearing in ceremony in the presence of the Chief Judge of Puducherry.

We are also going to send a memorandum in this regard to President of India, Chief Justice of India, Chief Justice of High Court of Madras, Law and Home Secretary of Government of India, Chief Secretary and Law Secretary of Government of Puducherry for necessary action.