Tag: Markandey Katju

What is going on in the Pakistan Supreme Court ?

I was a lawyer for 20 years in India and a Judge for another 20 years ( including being the Chief Justice of 3 High Courts and a Judge in the Indian Supreme Court ), but I can’t make head or tail of what is going on in the Pakistan Supreme Court.
The hearing of the petition against postponement of elections of the Punjab and KP Assemblies is going on for the last 4 days, and twice the bench hearing the case has been dissolved. The CJP Bandial has said there are no differences among the judges, a statement belied by the orders of his own colleagues, two of whom recused from the hearing..
I simply can’t understand what is there for the Pakistan Supreme Court to decide ? The Pakistan Constitution says elections must be held within 90 days of dissolution of the Assembly. The Punjab and KP Assemblies had been dissolved on 18th January. Hence elections had to be held by 18th April, and so even the postponement of the elections to 30th April by the Election Commission of Pakistan was unconstitutional. How could they be further postponed to 8th October ? Is the ECP above the Pakistan Constitution ?
I regret to say that the Pakistan Constitution is treated as a joke by the powers that be in Pakistan. For instance, whenever martial law was illegally imposed in Pakistan the Pakistan Supreme Court validated it by inventing an egregious, flagitious and disreputable ‘doctrine of necessity’, which is unknown to jurisprudence throughout the world.
The performance of the present bench of the Court is equally debasing and scandalous. The Court should have dismissed the petition, as I would have done had I been on it, in 5 minutes by saying that elections must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the Punjab and KP Assemblies. There was no scope for arguments about it. But instead a melodrama and comedy has been going on in the Court for the last 4 days, with lawyers, particularly those supporting the postponement of the elections, being permitted long winded arguments over a matter which really needed no arguments.
I would often tell lawyers in my Court ” Be brief, be quick, and be off ”. The same should have been said by the Judges hearing the case.
It seems evident that some elements in Pakistan are determined that no early elections be held in Punjab and KP, but what is particularly distressing is that the highest court in the land is, wittingly or unwittingly, collaborating in this egregious and deplorable design.
Disclaimer : “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the thenewscaravan.com
Any content provided by our authors are of their opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. The News Caravan values and welcomes diverse representations and opinions.”
Author : Justice Markandey Katju is former Chairman , Press Council of India and former Judge , Supreme Court of India.

April 2, 2023
The notice to Neha Rathore under 160 Cr.P.C. is clearly illegal – Justice Markandey Katju

The notice to Neha Rathore under 160 Cr.P.C. is clearly illegal, as explained below.
Section 160 states :
” Any police officer making an investigation under this Chapter may, by order in writing, require the attendance before himself of any person being within the limits of his own or any adjoining station who, from the information given or otherwise, appears to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case; and such person shall attend as so required:
Provided that no male person under the age of fifteen years or above the age of sixty-five years or a woman or a mentally or physically disabled person shall be required to attend at any place other than the place in which such male person or woman resides ”.
Neha Rathore was in Delhi when the notice was sought to be served on her by the police of police station, Akbarpur, district Kanpur Dehat.
But a plain reading of section 160 shows that the police of police station Akbarpur, Kanpur dehat could only have served a notice under section 160 on a person within the territorial limits of police station Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat, or an adjoining police station. How can they serve it on a person in Delhi ?
Moreover, the proviso to section 160 has also been violated since Neha is a woman.
Author Justice Markandey Katju is former Chairman , Press Council of India and former Judge , Supreme Court of India.
Disclaimer : “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the TheNewsCaravan.

February 27, 2023
The demand of Kashmiris for azaadi By Justice Markandey Katju

I condemn, and have always condemned, atrocities by Indian security forces, on innocent Kashmiris.But when Kashmiris demand azaadi ( freedom ) do they realise what the implications of azaadi are ?
Presently there is a huge handicraft industry in Kashmir, and the market for this are the hundreds of towns of India, in each of which there are shops of Kashmiris who bring their products ( carpets, shawls, pashmina, handicrafts, etc ) from Kashmir for sale in these shops.
In big towns like Delhi there are dozens of such shops. Once I went to Kovalam beach near Tiruvananthipuram in Kerala, and found a couple of shops of Kashmiris there too. In Kulti, a small town in West Bengal ( near Asansol ) there is a Kashmiri shop. Similarly, wherever one goes in India—north, west, south or east—one will find shops of Kashmiris selling their wares which they have brought from Kashmir in towns there.
Now if India becomes azaad, what will happen ? Kashmiris then cannot enter into India without a visa, and a visa will be next to impossible to obtain. The market for the products of Kashmiri handicraft industry will then disappear, and the industry will close down, throwing hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris out of employment, apart from bankrupting the owners. Will this not bring further misery to Kashmiris, who are already suffering from unemployment, etc ?
The horticulture industry ( which grows apples, babboogosha, akhrot, baadaam, etc ) will also similarly suffer.
When I mentioned this to some Kashmiri youth they said we will find a market elsewhere. But where ? It is not easy to find a new market. Pakistanis will not like competition, and as for the Chinese, experience shows that having economic ties with them can lead to bondage of a colonial type.
Kashmiris ( apart from JNU students and others ) do not think of the implications of what they say, but keep parroting ‘azaadi, azaadi’
You can’t eat freedom. You need food. And to get food you need a job. If freedom results in unemployment ( because the industry will close down if the market disappears ) what use is such freedom ?
Author Justice Markandey Katju is former Chairman , Press Council of India and former Judge , Supreme Court of India. Author can be reached at justicekatju@gmail.com

Justice Markandey Katju
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house.

November 13, 2022
Sir Muhammad Iqbal Day By Justice Katju

Today, 9th November, is the birthday of the Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal, and it is being celebrated in Pakistan as Iqbal Day ( since Iqbal subscribed to and propagated the 2 nation theory on which Pakistan was created )
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqbal_Day
While I regard Iqbal as a good poet, I intensely dislike him for his strong support of dividing India and creating Pakistan.
Sir Muhammad Iqbal
Some people say that Iqbal wrote ‘ Saare jehan se achcha Hindustan hamara ‘ . Such people also quote the the sixth stanza of Saare Jahan Se Achcha (1904), as proof of Iqbal’s secular outlook:
Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair rakhnāHindī haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindūstāṉ hamārāor,Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselvesWe are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.
Such people say that this proves that Iqbal never wanted Partition of India. These people forget that this poem was written in 1904, when Iqbal was only 27 years old, and his later communal views had not developed.

However, his views evidently changed subsequently ( evidently after his stay in England from 1905-1906 ).
http://www.allamaiqbal.com/publications/journals/review/apr76/1.htm
Thus, in Tarana-e-Milli written in 1910 he writes :
Chīn o-ʿArab hamārā, Hindūstāṉ hamārā
Muslim haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai sārā jahāṉ hamārā
or, Central Asia and Arabia are ours, Hindustan is ours We are Muslims, the whole world is our homeland.
Iqbal’s world view had now changed; it had become pan-Islamic. Instead of singing of Hindustan, “our homeland,” the new song proclaimed that ‘ We are Muslims , and the whole world belongs to us ‘. (See also his long poems ‘Shikwa’ and ‘Jawab-e-Shikwa ).
Gradually, Iqbal became highly communal, and a strong supporter of creating Pakistan, a separate homeland for Muslims in India.
This, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad in 1930, he strongly supported a separate nation-state in the Muslim majority areas of the sub-continent, an idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allahabad_Address
Partition in 1947 was a historical British swindle, which caused huge sufferings to the people of the Indian sub continent ( half a million killed, and many millions displaced ). This is why I strongly dislike Iqbal, who had become a British agent, whatever others may say about him.
Author Justice Markandey Katju is former Chairman , Press Council of India and former Judge , Supreme Court of India. Author can be reached at justicekatju@gmail.com
Justice Markandey Katju
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house.

November 10, 2022