HUNG ASSEMBLY – THE ROAD AHEAD Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, Srinagar. e-mail: [email protected] The recent elections to the State Assembly have thrown a unique opportunity before the political parties of the State to think, brood and ponder over, to burn their hatchets and to stop mudslinging and to join hands with each other so as to evolve a larger forum for serving the greater cause of the people of the State especially of the caged Kashmiris, who have remained on the receiving end all along and have been the worst neglected, and worst sufferers. The elections have not given clear mandate to any party to govern. The idea of Grand Alliance put forth by Ghulam Nabi Azad, the top ranking leader of Congress, who, except his baggage, is well respected across the State, is undoubtedly a grand idea. Omar Abdullah also seems to have come of age and has now become mature enough to understand that rhetoric does not work for long, has fairly understood what is what and seems to be ready to come to grips with the reality. He has shown the sagacity and wisdom by instantly extending unconditional support to PDP, the majority party, in forming government in the State. There are no two opinions about the sagacity, maturity and wisdom of Mufti Mohammad Sayaad who has played long innings in State and in national politics and has now grown so tall that all others might be looking like chicks before him. As opposed to present and past chief ministers, he is the one who is least to come under pressures and/or to receive dictations, but he has the nerve and strength to withstand and repulse all pressures and give dictations and rebuffs where ever needed. He has worked hard to give new meaning to the worn-out and redundant Kashmir politics, and has the feeling of the pulses and heart throbs of the Kashmiri millions, and understands their desires and expectations from him. They have reposed trust in him and his party and are confident that he and his party would not betray them. The three parties have almost similar policies and ideologies and would feel at ease while working with each other in the Grand Alliance. The alliance, as and when it takes shape, would end the era of contentions, contradictions and bickerings and there would be oneness of purpose and uniformity of action. The State would have the best brains to man its affairs, which would facilitate in finding solutions to the vexed and complex problems, put on the back burner for long by the erstwhile greedy and weather cock administrators. The first and foremost task of the Grand Alliance Government (GAG) should be to first release the Kashmiris from the great prison. Though on paper AFSPA is applied to the whole of the State but it effect, as history has shown, it was and is used only against Kashmiris and the people living in the peripheries of Kashmir. The Act gives unbridled and unaccounted power to a government gunner to catch, beat, shoot and kill any and every Kashmiri at his will, and to get rewards for the number of such kills. Though it is officially acclaimed that there are hardly a couple of hundred militants active in the State, still the 7 lakh armed personnel are kept stationed at every nook and corner in Kashmir, so as to keep a vigil on the peace loving people, keep them under perpetual fear and threat, and hinder their day to day chores. To recount the tales of suffering of the Kashmiri people from the day one when the AFSPA was introduced in Kashmir on to the present day, it would require volumes. So the first and foremost task of the GAG should be to set at naught the J&K Disturbed Areas Act of nineties, which had provided room for introduction of AFSPA in the State and to stop application of AFSPA in the State any further. People would also like the infamous draconian PSA to be buried for ever. The GAG should accept and admit that the elections to the State Assembly of 1987 were rigged on mass scale against the then MUF which is an open secret now and has been vouchsafed by all – the media; great people in India; the Governors of the State and even by the BJP cadres. It has to accept and admit that it was that mass rigging which gave rise to the armed struggle and set the State in flames. The GAG should accept and admit that it was because of this mass scale rigging that the peace loving people of the State were forced to take recourse to arms. The GAG should accept and admit that the militants, who are variously labelled as aatankwadies and terrorists, need to be described as justice warriors who have had been forced to take up arms in their hands in self defence for redressal of the tyranny and oppression unleashed on the people by the then greedy and mischievous administrators in 1987. After describing the warriors as such, the GAG should strive to settle the cancerous problem of Kashmir dispute once for all by making endeavours to bring the parties to the dispute – India (which is in possession of about two-third of the State land) and Pakistan (which is in possession of about one-third of the State land) - to sit on a table togather in a congenial, peaceful and brotherly atmosphere, requesting them to shun their traditional posturing, so that the people of the State in particular and people of the sub-continent in general may take a sign of relief and get rid of the perpetual up-ground and underground war fare; mayhem and killings; and from the unending arms race, so that the two Nations could divert their huge arsenal budgets for the welfare of their people, to alleviate poverty and to satiate the hunger of unfed and half fed teeming millions, to give shelter to the millions sleeping under the open sky, to provide clothing to naked millions, and to give water to their parched lands so that there is peace, prosperity and greenery all around and a surge of development in their countries comes about. Before embarking on this voyage the GAG may try to obtain an undertaking and declaration from the justice warriors that they would lay down their arms and would not indulge in any sort of skirmishes or armed conflict anywhere in the State, at least for a period of five years, so as to allow free space and room to the GAG to achieve an amicable and just solution to the vexed Kashmir Problem, which is and has not only been draining the coffers of the two countries and hindering their progress, but has been disturbing peace of the people in the subcontinent for 67 years now and has the flash point which has the potential to destroy the world peace any moment . If any untoward thing happens anywhere during this period, the culprits should be awarded severest punishments and the armed personnel manning the borders should be apportioned blame for laxity in their duty. DEMOCRACY & BUREAUCRACY The word ‘democracy’ which in the sub-continent generally and in the State especially, is misconstrued to mean as only casting votes by the people to elect their representatives for assemblies and parliament, should be given its true and intrinsic meaning in the State. In democracy the people are the sovereigns and the true masters. Endeavours should be made that the people are treated as such at all levels and should not be pooh-poohed and warded off while trying to meet their public servants and their representatives. They should get their needs met even from the lower rung of the bureaucracy. There should be single window clearance, and no babu (servant) in an office to which a citizen may visit, should deny help to the citizen on the plea that the job is not assigned to his desk but to another desk. He should make the citizen feel comfortable and help him in reaching to the right desk. All letters and applications from the citizens addressed to the governor, CM, ministers, MLAs and officers in the administration and to Chief Justice, judges and officers of courts should be, as a must, properly acknowledged with official seal, and should be replied within reasonable time. Failure to do so should be viewed as misconduct on the part of the concerned authority, and taking appropriate disciplinary action against him should follow. Meeting ministers and higher officers by the people should be minimised and discouraged. One may meet the higher officers/ministers only after having exhausted remedy at the lower rung. If at any time a citizen feels compelled to meet the higher authorities/ ministers for redressal of any of his grievance, it should be viewed as serious complaint against the concerned officer. The Higher authority while directing the concerned to do the needful of the citizen at once, with some penalty, should also direct him to explain his lapse, and if found guilty should be meted out appropriate punishment. Entry by the people to the Old and new Secretariats should be tried to be minimised. Kiosks should be erected in the side walls of the secretariats where citizens could submit their letters and applications, so that they do not have the need to enter and roam in the secretariat and meet the concerned officers/officials. Their letters and applications should be replied within time. If any letter or application is found to be frivolous or wasteful, such a persons can be imposed a nominal fine. JUDICIARY AND JUSTICE: As of now there is no accountability of the judges, especially of the High Court judges. The High Court with its peripheries is functioning as a State within the State. They do not consider themselves accountable to the people of the State. They devise their own rules for functioning and fix their own sitting and non- sitting days and calendars along with vacations which run for about 3 months in a year, excluding other holidays of Saturdays, Sundays and other holidays A Judge may sit late, may leave early or may not sit at all in his court for a particular day; there is no one to question him. The constitution, laws and fundamental rights, so laboriously and meticulously enacted by the legislature, remain as keeps of the Judges who may grant or disallow them to any depending upon their likes, modes and dispensations. If they would say that the Sun is rising from the West. Though it would not be acceptable but they would not be held accountable. The Judges even though having telling effects on the lives of the people, are not selected and appointed by the State. The High Court judges select and appoint themselves, without going through the grinding machine of applying, appearing for screening tests, aptitude tests and interviews. Some of the High Court Judges are elevated from district judges, while as others are picked from the lawyers. All the qualification that a lawyer needs to become a High Court judge is proximity to the senior influential High Court Judge, no matter whether he has got the talent, ability and aptitude for the job or not. Once appointed as such there is no looking back for him. Overnight he becomes the ‘master of all I survey’ – an absolute monarch- He does not like to be called a public servant and addressed as ‘Sir’. But considers himself as some constitutional functionary immune from accountability of any of his actions, be they un-jurisdictional, unconstitutional and illegal, and likes to be addressed as ‘Your Honour’ and ‘My Lord’. When they enter their court rooms, which is usually late, the people – the sovereign - waiting for their cases have to get up and remain standing till the judges sit on their chairs. The citizen – sovereign and master – is made to remain standing down beneath the dais , and address the judge in a meek, weak, submissive and humble way keeping his breath and tone low, lest the ‘Lord’ may get annoyed, which presents the vista of a monarch or duke presiding on the court . Another interesting thing is that when the Chief Justice migrates to other wing for 6 months he demands a guard of honour to be accorded to him. This is also accorded to him at the time of his first assuming his duty as such. Even if a petitioner files his petition giving all the facts and law, yet the judges do not go through it and decide it but wait for the petitioner to appear before him standing and reading it before them in the courts. This practice is fostered to create the culture of lawyers in the courts. If a petitioner wants to file a review petition, he is required to get ‘certificate of soundness of the petition’ from some senior lawyer of the court thereby belittling and ridiculing the citizen petitioner. The courts are lawyer-oriented rather than justice- oriented. A simple matter which a common man with a little commonsense could decide in minutes, takes months and years in the court and yet does not get justice let alone equitable justice. The courts do not give receipt to the letters, applications, suits and petitions. For getting the receipt one has to apply to the court for a certified copy of his own petition and pay huge amount for the same. There are some rules in the high court which are arbitrarily allowed currency and followed e.g. the Letter Patent. The rules were framed and devised by the then Maharaja Hari Singh way back in 1943. Till recently there was only one copy of the rules in typed cyclostyled form reigning in the court. The letter patent had never been published in any State Gazette and hence could not assume the character of law. The Letter Patent says ‘this (High Court) belongs to us our heirs and successors and the judges would take oath of faithfulness and allegiance to us our heirs and successors’. This is our High Court and these are the type of rules obtaining therein. How the Rules have continued to be followed in the court even after 1947 when the people of the State had thrown off their yoke of slavery, till today, is an enigma. It is a slap on the Peoples’ sovereignty, Constitution of the State and is a great fun and mockery of democracy. Hence it is imperative that the Judges be made accountable to the sovereignty of the people and their functioning be made orderly, democratic and in tune with the emancipated and democratic system of governance of the State. There should be a Judicial Commission set up in the State which would be an independent commission accountable only to the Legislative Assembly, which shall have powers to devise rules and regulations, recruitment criteria of judges, their selection and appointment. They should also have the power to inquire into the allegations against judges and to discharge and dismiss them. The High Court Judges should be at part with super services of the State and should be groomed before allowing them to sit and decide the disputes. About the functioning of the Judiciary a detailed report is ready which would be given out at an opportune time. OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. Since the official language of the State is Urdu, no public servant should be appointed in the State who does not know reading, writing and speaking Urdu. All oaths administered to any minister/authority should be in Urdu. There are some other important suggestions which could be given out at some other time lest this write up may get longer.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 03:48:09 +0000
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