3April 15, 2014

L e t t e r f r o m t h e E d i t o r

I n d e r j i t B a d h w a r

During the event-packed, freneticfour weeks when our fortnightlymagazine has been on the stands,the one question I am repeatedlyasked is why we call it “IndiaLegal”. Not that people don’t like

the title. They find it authoritative. They find it catchyand different. But they remain mystified by ourchoice when they read the contents and discover thatthe magazine is not simply a handbook or digest forthe legal profession.

Precisely. And yet, members of the legal communi-ty who read it find it fits their niche reading needs.Veteran high court lawyer TL Garg called me from hischambers the moment he received his copy to say itfills a void. Well-known corporate lawyer RiteshKumar whatsapped me: “The publication is reallygood. Intellectually stimulating.”

Among other prominent lawyers who commentedis Ranjeev C Dubey, managing partner of N South,Advocates: “I am most pleasantly surprised. Congra-tulations! Clearly, in the legal business, calling aspade a spade is only a contempt of court so your can-dor is commendable.”

The comments have poured in not only from thelegal profession but also from general readers likeHilario J de Souza, who says: “Thank you for present-ing legalese to us in a manner even I can grasp.” Andthis from Krishan Kant, a Kingfisher Airlinesemployee: “I am writing this letter to highlight theplight and agony of Kingfisher airline employees after19 months of battle…( I feel) that India is run bypoliticians who plunder, bureaucrats who carry outillegal orders, ministers who violate the constitution,businessmen without a social conscience, lawyerswho sell out and judges who do not stick their necksout against executive skulduggery.”

That last sentence is a direct quote from my previ-ous editorial. I quote these readers not to wallow inself-praise but rather to suggest that India Legal isprobably the right choice of a name. It is obvious thatthe magazine has mined a rich vein of readers’ inter-est. It has placed a niche perspective of the law withinthe wider ambit of a general readership. It hasbecome a marketplace for the discussion and tellingof all breaking stories and investigations within theperspective of their legal parameters. It’s to the credit editor@indialegalonline.com

of the unspoken wisdom of our constitution that weare a nation of laws and not man-made whimsies.

Take any major political, social or economic issuefacing the nation or the world, research and write onit within the legal framework and you’ve got an IndiaLegal story! The cover story of our first issue withexclusive pictures of bruises on Sunanda Pushkar’sdead body raised legal issues about the investigation.Today that story has made national headlines. Theviscera report vindicates India Legal’s investigationsthat Shashi Tharoor’s wife did not commit suicide ordie of an overdose of drugs. The police now feel thatthe dozens of bruises on her body, which we revealedtwo issues ago, hint at a possible murder. Our secondissue with the legal conniptions over Osho’s will andplagiarism charges against Arvind Kejriwal contin-ues to make waves, as I am sure will this issue.

Our cover story by NV Subramanian is on“Political Liars”, (a pun on lawyers) who have letdown our system of governance. Other stories includeGirish Nikam’s trenchant analysis on how and whyIndia will change, no matter who becomes the nextprime minister; Managing Editor Ramesh Menon’sevocative feature on voting rights for Tibetanrefugees; Executive Editor Alam Srinivas’ take onwhether tougher laws could have prevented corpo-rate scams like Sahara and Satyam; arms merchantSudhir Choudhrie’s murky empire; IPL and theunderworld connection; the legal limbo of aban-doned mothers; the misuse of anti-dowry laws; and ahard-hitting expose of judicial impropriety.

I am sure the bouquets and brickbats will fly fastand furious. Keep ’em coming. You can email yourcomments to editor@indialegalonline.com and wewill pay `1,000 for the letter we feature as “Letter of the Fortnight”.

Cheers,

4 April 15, 2014

Editor-in-Chief Inderjit Badhwar

Managing EditorRamesh Menon

Executive EditorAlam SrinivasSenior EditorVishwas Kumar

Contributing EditorsNaresh Minocha, Girish Nikam

Associate EditorMeha Mathur

Deputy EditorsPrabir Biswas, Vishal Duggal

Art DirectorSudhir J Kumar

Deputy Art DirectorAnthony LawrenceGraphic Designer

Lalit KhitoliyaPhotographer

Anil ShakyaNews CoordinatorKh Manglembi Devi

Web DesignersShubra Kandhari, Jitendra Kumar

Production Pawan Kumar Verma

Director (Marketing) Raju Sarin

GM (Sales & Marketing)Naveen Tandon-09717121002DGM (Sales & Marketing)Feroz Akhtar-09650052100

Marketing AssociateGgarima Rai

OWNED BY E. N. COMMUNICATIONS PVT. LTD.NOIDA HEAD OFFICE:

A -9, Sector-68, Gautam Buddh Nagar, NOIDA (U.P.) - 201309

Phone: +9 1-0120-2471400-432 ; Fax: + 91- 0120-2471411e-mail: mail@indialegalonline.com

website: www.encnetwork.in, www.indialegalonline.comMUMBAI OFFICE: Arshie Complex, B-3 & B4, Yari Road, Versova, Andheri, Mumbai-400058

RANCHI OFFICE: House No. 130/C, Vidyalaya Marg, Ashoknagar, Ranchi-834002.LUCKNOW OFFICE: First floor, 21/32, A, West View, Tilak Marg, Hazratganj, Lucknow-226001.

PATNA OFFICE: Sukh Vihar Apartment, West Boring Canal Road, New Punaichak, Opposite Lalita Hotel, Patna-800023.

ALLAHABAD OFFICE: Leader Press, 9-A, Edmonston Road, Civil Lines, Allahabad-211 001.

For advertising & subscription queriessales@indialegalonline.com

SPECIAL REPORT

Arms and the murky manHe runs luxury spas, and donates to political parties and charities. But VISHWASKUMAR finds that Sudhir Choudhrie and his sons have earned their fortunes through controversial Indian arms deals with Russia and Israel

VOLUME. VII ISSUE. 15

12

18

Subrata-dum & Raju-deeWith companies like Sahara and Satyam always being one step ahead of law, will thenew Companies Act of 2013 help curb mega frauds? ALAM SRINIVAS investigates

CORPORATE

Published by Raju Sarin on behalf of E N Communications Pvt Ltd and printed atCIRRUS GRAPHICS Pvt Ltd., B-61, Sector-67, Noida. (UP)- 201 301 (India)

All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation in any language in whole or in part without permis-sion is prohibited. Requests for permission should be directed to E N Communications Pvt Ltd .

Opinions of writers in the magazine are not necessarily endorsed by E N Communications Pvt Ltd .The Publisher assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material or for material lost or

damaged in transit. All correspondence should be addressed to E N Communications Pvt Ltd .

CFOAnand Raj Singh

VP (HR & General Administration)Lokesh C Sharma

APRIL 15, 2014

LAWYERPOLITICIANSFrom taking a lead in the national movement and nation building, the legal brigade in parliament has degenerated into a bunch of dynastic sycophants. NV SUBRAMANIAN traces its downfall 36

LEAD

5

Water coffinsWhile Admiral DK Joshi resigned because of a seriesof naval accidents, the real problem is financialcrunch, lack of spares and delays in procurement. Report by VISHWAS KUMAR

23

THE NATION

Voters’ manifesto

Tibetan tango

Whichever political party comes to power this May, it will have to pay attention to issues like corruption and judicial accountability. It canignore the aam aadmi agenda at its own peril,writes GIRISH NIKAM

PHOTO ESSAY

SPORTS

Why is the refugee community reluctant to votein India, despite ElectionCommission giving them theright? RAMESH MENONanswers. Photographs bySHIVANI DASMAHAPATRAand JAVED SULTAN

In Dawood’s den

Heil!

Despite its notoriety for matchfixing, BCCI has chosen Sharjah as the venue for IPL 7. A report by GAURAV KALRA

What is a real dictator? ROBERT D KAPLANanalyses whether authoritarian figures are necessarily bad for a country

74

R E G U L A R SLetters… .....................6

Ringside… ..................8

Supreme Court .........10

Consumer Watch ......78

Is That Legal? ...........81

Wordly-wise...............82

A L S OThe Hindutva debate continues… ...30

Women & HinduSuccession Act… ......34

EC & Gas pricing.......40

Sunanda Pushkar’smysterious death .......42

CIDCO judgment .......44

Education fraud in UP ..........................52

False dowry cases......56

Nursery admissionwoes in Delhi .............60

GLOBAL TRENDS

HUMAN INTEREST

Runaway bridegroomAfter Punjab, there is an increasing trend of GujaratiNRI bridegrooms deserting their wives. But help is athand, MAHESH TRIVEDI informs

27

48

64

70

PROBE

Cover Design: ANTHONY LAWRENCEPhotographs: ANIL SHAKYA

A fascinating readI read India Legal from cover to cover. It’s aterrific piece of work — a wonderful accom-plishment. Congratulations. I was fascinatedby your review of the “real” Abscam story.Yes, Hollywood is its own reality.

It goes without saying that your publicationof India Legal speaks to some of the vast dif-ferences and similarities between India andChina — a central theme of To TheMountaintops.

Jim I Gabbe,Co-publisher, Raconteur, New York

A case for upper caseIndia Legal is an interesting addition to myreading list. I quite like the mix of stories inyour magazine, which I initially suspectedwould be cumbered by legalese. Happily,that's not quite the case. However, I have aquibble. Please start using letters in uppercase, wherever it’s conventionally merited, inthe intros and kickers for your feature stories.To see names in print written as n srinivasanor ems namboodripad is mildly irritating.

Vivek Rajagopalan, Chennai

Making valid points I enjoyed reading Revenge of the MuddleClass (March 31, 2014). It is true that the mid-

LETTERS

April 15, 20146

Hearty congratulations on the re-launchof India Legal.

I totally agree with you that after adecade, nothing has changed. I am aKingfisher Airlines employee and after 19months of battle to get our salaries I feelthat India is run by politicians who plunder, bureaucrats who carry out illegal orders, ministers who violate theconstitution, businessmen without asocial conscience, lawyers who sell outand judges who do not stick their necksout against executive skulduggery.

I am writing this letter to highlight theplight and agony of Kingfisher Airlinesemployees. The hard fought battle, during which we ran from pillar to postand almost begged for justice from allpillars of democracy, we came to knowthe dubious working culture of our system, where Subrata Rai has beenjailed but nobody in the system has

courage to take any action against VijayMallya; where there are labour commissions and labour law set by thegovernment but Kingfisher Airlines staffis still fighting for salaries.

The chief labour commissioner sent anotice to Vijay Mallya in February 2014but he didn’t turn up, giving the impression that he is above law.

We have written thousands of lettersto the president, prime minister, SoniaGandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modiand Arvind Kejriwal. Their election cam-paigns focus on unemployment. Whenthey cannot help the employed class,how can they cater to the unemployed?

Sachin Pilot asked the corporateaffairs ministry to look into the matter butwe are still awaiting any action.

Our career has been destroyed byVijay Mallya. Please highlight our plight.

Krishan Kant, via email

Who will stem the rot?

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

7

dle class is the most muddled up. Politicians longago concluded that this class of people only needsto be taxed, not wooed. This class will come out tovote anyways as they are educated, conscientious,care about democracy and so on. My view is that this started during the Mandal era

when reservations for the weaker class sidelined thehard-working middle class students to the extent thattoday, most students who want to study are leavingIndia for better opportunities outside. Apart from braindrain, the country is also losing out economically in abig way.

Another story in the same issue entitled Where areyou M’Lord is certainly an eye-opener. I was underthe impression that cases have started moving inIndian courts after all that hype over fast-track courts. If magistrates do not come on time, how arethey expected to provide timely justice to the common man?

I work with the Canadian legal system and hereattempts are being made to dispose cases as earlyas possible. Judges are always on time—in fact, theysometimes have to wait for the accused, witnesses ordefense counsel. If judges themselves don't believein “justice delayed is justice denied,” what can beexpected of the general public. Ahem!

Neelam Batra-Verma, Vancouver, Canada

In a class of its ownThere is a dearth of good magazines on legal affairs.There are some publications but they mostly end up writing about court cases and legal matters. India Legal fills the vacuum in reporting and analysis of political-social issues by doing it with alegal perspective.

Binny Yadav, New Delhi

Please email your letters to:editor@indialegalonline.com

Or write to us at:India Legal, ENC Network,A-9, Sector 68, Gautam Buddh

Nagar, Noida (UP) - 201309

Why call it India Legal?I went through the whole magazine in detail. Congratulations on such awonderful issue. The range and selection of stories is catchy and prolific.

However, I am not sure why the magazine is named India Legal. I understand your reportage involves some legal snippets. But most of themagazine’s content, and indeed the best part of it, is general interest innature. By slotting this magazine in the ‘legal’ space, are you not running the risk of your reader not even picking it up at the stands, thinking it’s a magazine for a select readership? That would be a pity forthis is a wonderful effort.

Also, I feel that the pdf version of it is not of a high quality. It is a bit difficult to read, the pictures don’t look high definition and the Es look likeCs, among other issues.

Sampad Patnaik, Bangalore

Editor repliesLaw impacts almost every story we read in daily newspapers or see on television. The events that shape politics, lifestyles, social interactions, personal destinies are inextricably intertwined with the law and its vagaries.India Legal is a well-heeled mixture of regulars and special features. Theinside workings and news about the judicial system is part of the regularmenu but the magazine covers all important political, economic, corporate,and social developments—within the context of legal relevance.

The reason why we call our magazine India Legal is that all of the magazine’s stories and articles revolve on a recurring spin: they are reported, written and presented within the legal framework that drivesthem. The magazine empowers and enlightens the citizens on a variety ofissues that touch their lives. While it offers a unique inside look at the workings of the Indian legal system with journalistic panache and high production values, India Legal is by no means produced exclusively forlawyers and judges. Our magazine’s stories are designed to appeal to awider and sophisticated general audience of decision-makers, corporates,politicians, and the common man.

Thus, India Legal is happy in carving out a unique slot for itself. As forthe e-version of the magazine, you will soon be able to read it in a farimproved PDF format on our website.

In briefI was pleasantly surprised to read IndiaLegal. Congratulations! Clearly, in the legalbusiness, calling a spade a spade is only acontempt of court so your candor is commendable.

Ranjeev C Dubey,managing partner, N South,

Advocates, Gurgaon

Thank you for presenting legalese and making it available to us in a manner even Ican grasp.

Hilario J de Souza, via email

Superb, congratulations. It looks like yourpublication is going from strength tostrength.

Kian Ganz Publishing editor, Legally India, Mumbai

It was due to India Legal that the SunandaPushkar issue has resurfaced. I also like theQ&A pages (Is that Legal).

R Menon, Gurgaon

It’s too serious a magazine for a layperson. Nitin Mathur, via email

8 April 15, 2014

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appearson the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956

VERDICT

Aruna

T he issue of the raison d’etre forcommuting death sentences to

life imprisonment was put to rest bythe Supreme Court recently. A peti-tion by the center to review its judg-ment on the issue was outrightlyrejected by the apex court.

The court had commuted the deathsentences of 15 convicts to lifeimprisonment on the ground ofunreasonable delay by the presidentin disposing of mercy petitions. Andlater it had even applied the samelogic to death row convicts in the

Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.The central government felt that

the time taken by the president indeciding mercy petitions of deathrow convicts can’t be put to adjudica-tion before the judiciary.

A bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices RanjanGogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh rejectedthe petition, finding it baseless. Thiswould dash center’s hope thatGandhi convicts, Murugan, Santhanand Perarivalan, can still be sent tothe gallows.

Death is not the solution

10 April 15, 2014

SUPREME COURT

Illustrations: Aruna

It is not uncommon to findpoliticians in India hurling

hate speeches to garner voters,especially during election cam-paigns. Now the Supreme Courthas not only taken cognizance ofthe need for a clampdown onhate speech by parties at all

times, and not just during theelections’ model code of conductphase. It has also asked forremoving any confusion on whatconstitutes “hate speech” so thatit doesn’t infringe on the right tofree speech and expression.Responding to a petition filed

by NGO Pravasi BhalaiSangathan, a bench led by

Justice BS Chauhan askedthe Law Commissionwhether it felt appropriateto define “hate speech”.

The court pointed outthat although therewere enough legal pro-

visions to curb “hatespeech”, the existinglaws were not beingenforced properly.

If the commissiondefines “hate speech”, EC

can take action against politicalparties even if there is no modelcode of conduct in place.

I f you think you can kill somebody after guz-zling liquor and yet get a clean chit from the

courts after claiming that you were drunk, you aremistaken. The Supreme Court has categoricallymentioned that intoxication can’t be the reasonfor reducing the gravity of a criminal offense.Dismissing an appeal by Bhagwan Tukaram

Dange that he had unintentionally lit a matchstickand set fire to the saree of his wife under the influ-ence of liquor after his father sprinkled keroseneon her, a bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan andVikramajit Sen ruled that Dange, even if he wascompletely drunk, was expected to be aware ofconsequences of his action, and the court had no

reason to interfere withthe sentence deliveredby lower court. Earlier, the trial court

in Maharashtra hadsentenced Dange forlife for burning his wifeto death. This judgmentwas later upheld by theBombay High Court.Dange has now served16 years in jail.

No room for hatespeeches

Inebriation nocause for mercy

11April 15, 2014

Is it apt to ignore the victim whilegiving a compensation package

and hand it out to her mother on theground that the victim is illiterate andthus not capable enough to handle themoney? Can this be doneeven if the victim is a 20-year-old adult?A bench of Chief Justice

P Sathasivam andJustices SA Bobde andNV Ramana raised theissue while initiating suomoto proceedings in acase where the WestBengal government hadmade a compensationpackage to the mother ofa tribal girl who wasgangraped by 13 peopleas per the directions of avillage headman, fordaring to choose a lifepartner. The compensa-tion package included

`50,000 to the rape survivor’s mother,widow pension to her, rebuilding ofthe house damaged by the mob, con-struction of a toilet, and a tubewell.The apex court pointed out several

loopholes, such as whywas the compensationgiven to the motherwhen she was not enti-tled to it, was the motherliterate enough to man-age the money, and if itwas a case of largessedoled out by the WestBengal government.While reserving its

judgement, the benchsaid it was also exploringthe legal possibility ofthe accused paying thecompensation packageand wanted to knowwhether the tax payersshould be burdened forsomeone else’s crime.

Ranbaxy Laboratories, a world-reputed drug company, recently

caught the attention of the SupremeCourt. In a public interest litigation(PIL), advocate ML Sharma accusedthe pharmaceutical company of sup-

plying adulterated drugs. Citing aninstance where the company wasfined $500 mn by the US Food andDrug Administration for supplyingspurious drugs in that country, thePIL pleaded that Ranbaxy’s license be

cancelled. It blamed the centerfor turning a blind eye and

drug regulator Central DrugStandards Control Organisation

for allowing the company to sell drugsin India despite Ranbaxy being foundguilty in the US.

A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, however, refrainedfrom issuing an interim order thatwould have stopped the companyfrom manufacturing drugs.

Nobody would, probably, ques-tion the death penalty awarded

by the trial court and later upheld bythe Delhi High Court to Nirbhayaconvicts. But by some strange quirkof fate, two of the death row convictsgot a reprieve from the highest courtof the land.The Supreme Court recently stayed

the high court judgment to confirmdeath penalty to Mukesh and PawanKumar Gupta in a special sitting afterMukesh claimed he was armtwistedby the police into accepting a lawyerVK Anand during the trial, ratherthan the one he had already engaged.The petition filed by their counselML Sharma said that the trial was,therefore, unfair.

Both Sharma and Anand have beenengaged in a legal tussle over appear-ing for Mukesh ever since theNirbhaya trial started in January2013. Sharma had filed a petition inthe Supreme Court to transfer thecase from Delhi to Mathura on theground that the trial was being influ-enced by negative public glare andmedia coverage. However, Anandraised an objection that Sharma hadnot been empowered by Mukesh torepresent him in the case. The apex court had rejected

Sharma’s appeal based on a report bya senior subordinate judge, whichstated that Mukesh wanted Anand toserve as his lawyer in the trial courtas well as the transfer petition, andnot Sharma.However, after the high court ver-

dict, Mukesh had availed the servicesof Sharma to fight his case as counselin the Supreme Court.

Medicine muddle Nirbhayacase hangsin balance

Compensation woes

while changes in the companies act may usher in

transparency, they are noviable substitutes for tightervigilance by regulators. new

laws cannot prevent Sahara-Satyam type

corporate scams–two sides ofthe same tarnished

business coinBy Alam Srinivas

T was a surreal meeting in the early 2000s.Years before he was arrested, Ramalinga Rajuof Satyam Computer said he wanted to becomea global thought leader like Bill Gates and JackWelch. As he built castles in the air about hisfuture, he showed me his latest purchase. It wasa telescope in his balcony, which he used to

scan the night sky. He talked about integrity, transpa-rency, honesty, and respect. He turned out to be a blackdwarf; a star that had burnt out its lights.

A few years later, I chased Subrata Roy, chairman andmanaging worker, Sahara Group, in Lucknow. Known forhobnobbing with global and Indian celebrities andactresses, he hadn’t been seen for months. Rumors werethat he had a serious disease. Most of the dozens of peopleI met hated Saharasri, as he was called by his employees.He ran a byzantine empire cloaked in an opaque veil.

GREAT FALL: Arrests of Sahara Chairman Subrata Roy in February 2014 and of Satyam Computer Chairman Ramalinga Raju in early 2009

CORPORATE / companies act/sahara and satyam

12

ISUBRATA-DUM

Anil Shakya

protect the small investors in both listed andunlisted firms, and to make sure that theindependent directors, auditors, ratingagencies, and institutional investors didtheir jobs. Simultaneously, the governmenthad to give more teeth to its barking dog,SEBI, and additional powers to go after cor-porate conmen like Roy and Raju.

The end result: The amended CompaniesAct of 2013. The act had several clauses,whose aim was to prevent corporate frauds.“Amongst ourselves, we call it the Roy &Raju Act; almost all its changes are anattempt to prevent such manipulations,”says Prithvi Haldea, the founder of PrimeDatabase. He adds that theoretically: “The new act is stronger, asks for more

Recently, he found himself in Tihar Jail,thanks to SEBI and the Supreme Court.

Both Roy and Raju seemed like two sidesof the same tarnished corporate coin.Satyam was a publicly-listed company, whi-ch won awards for corporate governance.But it turned out to be a sham, as it cookedup its balance sheet and finances—a $2.7-billion fraud.

Sahara was an unlisted group, and out ofSEBI’s ambit. Yet it was the market regula-tor, which exposed its `24,000 cr nefariousactivities that included bogus investors andunaccounted money.

No doubt the country required changesin the Companies Act to prevent, or at leastcurb, such scandals. It was paramount to

13April 15, 2014

& RAJU-DEE

Getty Images

which was not legally monitored by SEBI.OFCDs are different from fully-, partially-and non-convertible debentures.

Both were unlisted companies, i.e. theywere not traded on stock exchanges and,therefore, did not come under SEBI’spurview. They were ruled by the oldCompanies Act. In their prospectuses, filedwith ministry of corporate affairs, theyclaimed that they did not wish to get listedat any stage. Their lawyers maintained thatan offer of shares or debentures to morethan 50 persons does not automaticallymake it a public issue or private offer, bothof which are governed by SEBI.

disclosures by companies and promoters,and can prove to be good for both the retailand institutional investors.”

PUBLIC-PRIVATE DEPOSITSTwo of Sahara Group firms, Sahara IndiaReal Estate Corporation and SaharaHousing Investment Corporation, togethermopped up over `24,000 cr from three mil-lion investors. Every precaution was takento skirt SEBI rules and laws.

The instrument was optionally fully con-vertible debenture (OFCD) which, as per thethen regulator’s definition, was neither equity nor debt. It was a hybrid instrument,

CORPORATE / companies act/ sahara and satyam

14 April 15, 2014

Corporate frauds� Independent directors sidedwith owners; behaved like rubber stamps� Pyramidal maze of firmswhere top firm controlled thosein several tiers � External auditors ignored redflags; were paid extra and hiredfor almost a decade � Boards openly cleared related party deals that helpedthe promoters

� Directors to be appointedfrom an official database; onewomen director mandatory

� Curbs on the number of tiersof subsidiaries that can be controlled by a holding firm

� Compulsory rotation of external auditors for both listedand unlisted companies

� Related party deals to becleared by both the board and shareholders

2013 amendments

Anil Shakya

Most importantly, the group said theOFCDs were sold only to people who wereapproached privately (and not in a publicmanner through advertisements), and asso-ciated or connected with the Sahara Group.So, by no stretch of imagination was it apublic issue. Hundreds of thousands ofSahara’s agents went to potential investors,who were part of the group in some form, toraise the money.

The Supreme Court ruled in August 2012that Sahara’s OFCDs could be regulated bySEBI. Since the two firms did not adhere tothe regulator’s rules, they had to return theentire amount to their investors. In case ofKolkata-based Saradha Group, its agentsraised over `1,000 cr from lakhs of individ-uals. It operated a typical ponzi scheme, andSEBI asked it to return the money too.

The 2013 Companies Act imposed strin-gent norms on companies keen to raise pub-lic deposits. Only banking firms, non-bank-ing financial companies, certain public enti-ties and those prescribed by the governmentare now allowed to accept deposits.

Public firms can do it only if they got acredit rating and put their assets as collater-al against the deposits. In case of defaults,the regulator could immediately attach andsell these assets to pay depositors.

However, one has to see how these lawsare implemented. Ironically, SEBI’s

case against Sahara, which was required tostop Roy’s corporate shenanigans, actedagainst the interests of the small sharehold-ers. One of the allegations against Saharawas that there were no genuine investorsinvolved in the OFCDs. The majority ofthem were benami and non-existent; it waspossibly black money that was launderedthrough the debentures.

If this was indeed true, wasn’t SEBI bark-ing up the wrong tree? Isn’t it the regulator’sresponsibility to dig into corporate irregu-larities where genuine shareholders areinvolved? Why did SEBI spend over `60 crin the last fiscal for digitization and scan ofSahara documents related to investors,refund-related activities, legal costs and in-house expenses? The regulator has tolook at the interests of the minority share-

holders in listed companies first, and goafter unlisted firms later.

According to a 2010 paper, India’sSatyam Accounting Scandal by DavidWinkler of University of Iowa College, “Theownership structure of Indian businessescontributed to the Satyam scandal.” Thepyramid structures in most family-run andother businesses permits “groups to controlmore of the operations than their equityclaims represent”. Winkler noted that in the1990s, almost a third of Indian businesseshad pyramidal hierarchies in place.

PYRAMIDAL MAZE OF FIRMSThis is how it works. The promoters own 51percent of the top company, which holds 51percent in second-tier firms which, in turn,control 51 percent in the third-tier compa-nies. Thus, the owners have complete con-trol over all the tiers, even though their realfinancial commitment in the second tier is26 percent (51 percent of 51 percent), andstakes in the third tier are only 13 percent.

Winkler concluded that such structuresallowed business families to benefit them-selves and harm small shareholders, tunnelcorporate gains and funds from one entity toothers, and make it difficult for outsiders toknow how all the business have performed.

Under the new clauses, the layers of sub-sidiaries (Tier-1, Tier-II and Tier-III) of aholding company in any group are restricted.A firm will be deemed to be a subsidiary of aholding company if the latter, along withother subsidiaries, controls over 50 percentof the former’s share capital. Even if the hold-ing company has the power to appoint and remove the majority of directors in anentity, the latter will be dubbed as a sub-sidiary of the former.

But what happens if two holding compa-nies, along with their layers of

“Amongst ourselves, we call itthe Roy & Raju Act; almost all its

changes are an attempt to prevent such manipulations.”

— Prithvi Haldea, the founder of Prime Database

15April 15, 2014

subsidiaries, are owned by different familymembers? And the holding firms and sub-sidiaries have cross-ownership linkagesbetween them. Will the regulators decidethat Tata Group and Cyrus Mistry Group areinter-related because Cyrus Mistry is chair-man of the former?

DEPENDENT DIRECTORSJP Sharma, professor at Delhi School ofEconomics, did an extensive study onSatyam. He concluded: “Satyam Board wascomposed of ‘chairman-friendly’ directors,who failed to question management’s strate-gy.” This was despite the fact that six out ofnine directors were “independent”, and

included names such as Krishna Palepu, aHarvard Business School professor,Mangalam Srinivasan, a US academician,and Vinod Dham, known as father of thePentium chip.

One of the major charges against Rajuwas his decision in December 2008 tomerge Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties,owned majorly by him and family, withSatyam. The combined acquisition tag: $1.6billion. Sharma found that seven of the ninedirectors—the two promoter directorsexcused themselves from the board meetingbecause of conflict of interest—took a unan-imous decision on the M&As. It was onlywhen most of the shareholders rejected thedeals, and Satyam’s stock tanked that theboard overturned it. But it was too late, andit triggered Raju’s fall.

In his piece, What Went Wrong WithSatyam, Sharma said: “This naturally causessuspicion on the role performed by the inde-pendent directors present in that meeting.

CORPORATE/ companies act/ sahara and satyam

16 April 15, 2014

Under the new Act, independent direc-tors have to be selected from a data

bank, which will be maintained by a “notified” institute or association. No indi-vidual can be a director in more than 20firms; earlier, people were on board ofdozens of firms.

Independent directors cannot receivestock options, but can be compensated

New disclosure laws

In Satyam’s case, the independent directors allied themselves with the

interests of the promoters. And auditorsfailed to react despite red financial flags.

by sitting fees and reimbursement of otherexpenses such as travel and stay toattend board meetings. The 2013 act stat-ed that directors, except managing direc-tors, cannot receive any loan or guarantee from a firm on whose boardthey serve.

To reduce related-party transactions,like the one between Satyam and the twoMaytas firms, the 2013 amendmentsmade it mandatory for a company’s boardand shareholders to approve such deals.They need to be disclosed in the annualreports under Director’s Report. The inter-est rates on loans given to related partiescannot be lower than the rates on govern-ment securities.

The flip side is that there are severalways promoters can siphon off moneywithout going through the related-partyroute. Normally, loans are given to relatedparties at ridiculously low or zero interest,and the money is never returned. But whatif the owners inflate invoices of their ven-dors, and ask the latter to pay the differ-ence in cash or to another company,which raises a bogus bill?

GLOSSING OVERCORRUPTION?(L-R) Krishna Palepu ofHarvard Business Schooland Vinod Dham, entrepreneur and venturecapitalist, who were onboard of Satyam whenRaju perpetrated the fraud

17April 15, 2014

IL

What concerns everyone is that those inde-pendent directors allowed themselves to beparty to the mysterious designs of the pro-moter directors. It is hard to believe thatsuch eminent and experienced personalitiescould not discover the well-planned massivefraud and manipulations.” Therefore, thenew amendments try to make the inde-pendent directors more accountable, andtheir decisions more transparent (see box).

UNACCOUNTABLE AUDITORSIn May 2012, Reebok India accused its sen-ior managers, including MD and CFO, ofsetting up secret warehouses to steal prod-ucts, fudging the accounts and faking sales.The global parent estimated the loss to be`870 cr, although the Serious FraudInvestigation Office found evidence of falsi-fied documents worth `500 cr. The Satyamcase was bigger; Raju’s culinary skillshelped him to cook all kinds of figures in hisannual and quarterly balance sheets.

For instance, in its September 2008quarter, Satyam showed “cash and bank bal-ances” as over `5,300 cr; the actual figurewas less than `500 cr. The interest (almost`400 cr) it claimed to earn from these bankbalances did not accrue to the company.“Unsecured loans to others” were shown asless than `250 cr; the actual figure wasalmost `1,500 cr. After his arrest, Rajuadmitted that his firm overstated incomeand profits each quarter for several years.

According to Winkler, “The resultsannounced on October 17, 2009, overstatedquarterly revenues by 75 percent and profitsby 97 percent.” Satyam’s head of internalaudit raised fake invoices to inflate income.Over 6,000 benami salary accounts werecreated to give an impression that the com-pany was growing. Clearly, the externalauditors, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC),failed in its responsibilities despite severalred financial flags. First, PWC should havequestioned why the company kept hugecash in non-interest deposits. Any sane CFOwould have earned some income on it.Second, the external auditors should havechecked at least some of the purported bankaccounts, in which the company claimed

deposits. Third, PWC could not uncover thescam for nine years (2000-09), whileMerrill Lynch, which was hired by Satyam inDecember 2008, discovered it in 10 days.

Under the new act, external auditors haveto be rotated at regular intervals, and theycannot provide other services like invest-ment advisory and financial informationsystems to the firm, its holding company,and subsidiaries. This is aimed to ensure theindependence of the external auditors,which cannot be wooed by other incentives.

Yet again, the rotation of auditors is notthe cure. If an audit firm like PWC can sleepon its job, and if the promoters are hell-bentto hide facts, corporate frauds will continue.The owners can find different ways to incen-tivize auditors to close their eyes; Satyampaid PWC twice the amounts companies payto other external auditors.

A Delhi-based corporate lawyer explains:“In October 2008, World Bank banned thefirm for eight years due to allegations of‘spying’; the same month, an analyst ques-tioned the huge cash balances, which did notearn any interest. If SEBI was alert, it couldhave caught Raju.”

Since our laws are reactive, as is the casewith 2013 Companies Act, corporate ownersare always several steps ahead of the lawmakers and regulators.

HALL OF FAME, ANDINFAMY

Reebok India ManagingDirector Subhinder Singh

(fourth from left), whowas charged with a

`870 cr fraud, duringhappier times; here he

poses with Indian cricketers after theteam’s World Cup

victory in 2011

Getty Images

ARMS AND THEMURKY MAN

he owns luxury hotels and manages charities. but sudhir choudhrie’sreal work is to act as a fixer of super deals

SPECIAL REPORT/ defense agents / the choudhries

18

Illustration: Anthony Lawrence

N 2009, just after the globalfinancial crisis of 2008, aLondon-based investmentcompany, C&C Alpha Group(CCAG), made an audaciousannouncement. It launched achain of luxury boutiquehotels, Nira Hotels & Resorts,to cater to the rich and famousacross the world. The first two

properties it announced were Nira Diwa inManila, the Philippines, and Nira Lahari inKerala, India. While Nira Diwa offered “anexclusive urban retreat blending old-worldcharm with contemporary sophistication”,Nira Lahari was located along the pictur-esque Vembanad Lake. As expected, itevoked gasps and the right kind of buzz.

It was the kind of reaction the companydesired. It was a relatively new group thatstarted in 2002, its owners were relativelyunknown and people were unaware aboutthe sources of the company’s cash flow.

But then, CCAG was not an ordinarycompany. Its net worth today is `248.5 cr(£24,504,214). And it was headed by the 35-year-old Indian-born, Boston-educated,British national, Bhanu Choudhrie, his elderbrother Dhairya and cousin Dhruv. Nothingexceptional about this, except that Bhanu andDhairya are sons of Sudhir Choudhrie, one ofIndia’s biggest arms dealers. The authoritiesin the UK became suspicious of the group’sactivities and its directors, who did not seemto have any credible sources of income tomatch their lavish lifestyles and charities.

COVER BLOWNSudhir’s defense-related businesses came tolight when the UK Serious FraudInvestigation Office probed corruptioncharges against iconic UK engine-makersRolls Royce. It found evidence in Februarythis year that Sudhir and his younger son,Bhanu, facilitated Rolls Royce deals inChina and Indonesia. The findings hadrepercussions in India.

The residences and offices of theChoudhries in the UK were raided andSudhir and Bhanu were arrested there.Under pressure, India’s defense minister,

AK Anthony put all Rolls Royce contractsunder hold until the investigations on themwere over. He asked the Central Bureau ofinvestigation (CBI) to probe the purchase ofengines for 123 Hawk fighter jets in 2004.The deal was worth `10,000 cr, andinvolved `500 cr kickbacks to “Indianagents”. The CBI has registered a prelimi-nary inquiry to probe the case. TheChoudhries are out on bail in the UK and aspokesperson for the duo denied any“wrongdoing”, adding they “are cooperatingfully with the investigation.”

Anthony was under pressure when ques-tions were raised on the purchases of VVIPhelicopters and Tatra trucks. The RollsRoyce charges, barely two months beforethe national elections, was the last thingthat UPA-II needed, embroiled as it was inother corruption charges.

The defense ministry, along with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL),is Rolls Royce’s largest customer; almost3,000 Rolls Royce engines are fitted in vari-ous air force planes. India is the biggest

19April 15, 2014

Shanti Prasad Choudhrie

The Choudhries’family tree

Sudhir Choudhrie

Karinawife

DhairyaBhanu

The Choudhries masquerade their defenseinterests by generous charity work. They

honored Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan at arecent leadership event.

ISimrinwife

wifeAnita

Simran

Amrit Choudhrie

wifeshylla

Dhruv

wifeRita

Late Rajiv Choudhrie

middlemen. “Sudhir’s connection with HALis old and well-established,” says a retiredwing commander. “So is Rolls Royce’s connection with HAL. It is an open secretthat Sudhir is involved in several IAF pur-chases.” While the HAL-Rolls Royce rela-tionship goes back to the mid-50s, Sudhir’sconnection with HAL can be traced back tothe 70s and 80s.

THE BEGINNINGSIt started when Baljit Kapoor, who wasSudhir’s uncle, became HAL chairman inthe 80s. “Baljit was close to Indira Gandhi’sPMO, which allegedly helped him to grabthe post,” says a source. He adds: “Baljitmentored Sudhir by providing him foreignbusiness contacts and helped cultivate relationships with powerful Punjabi politi-cal leaders, bureaucrats and the business-men in the capital.”

Sudhir started his forays as an arms deal-er in the 70s along with two Delhi-basedmiddlemen, retired Vice Admiral SM Nandaand his son, Suresh Nanda. They floated acompany, Eureka, with an office in Delhi’sDefence Colony. The first major deal theywere involved in was the purchase of theFrench Matra missiles for the IAF.

Later, Sudhir started his company,Magnum International Trading CompanyLimited (MITCO), which publicly was intotea exports. However MITCO’s work wasexposed after the CBI probe in 2006 into

arms purchaser in South Asia and the sec-ond in the world, after the US. It’s no won-der, then, that foreign suppliers are willingto pay a commission of up to 10 percent tomiddlemen to facilitate the deals.

Sudhir is not unknown to the ministry ofdefense. He was already on the watch-list of

HDW Scam, (mid-1980s):This was the first time theNandas family figured indefense corruption. It wasalleged that the retired ViceNavy Chief SM Nanda andhis son Suresh acted as“middlemen” in the pur-chase of `400 cr sub-marines from Germancompany, HDW(Howaldswerske). Status: Case closed.

Bofors scam (1987):Former prime minister,Rajiv Gandhi was allegedto have received `64 cr forthe 155-mm howitzers purchase from Swedishfirm Bofors. OttavioQuattrocchi, who wasclose to the family of RajivGandhi, acted as a mid-dleman for the $1.3 billiondeal for 400 guns.

Status: Delhi High Courtacquitted the accused.

Coffin scam (1999):During the 1999 Kargil war,CBI filed a case against aUS contractor and seniorarmy officers for the pur-chase of coffins. DefenseMinister George Fernandeswas accused. Status: Case pending.

Tehelka scam (1999):An online news portalrevealed how army officersand political leaders wereinvolved in taking bribes

during arms deals. Thesting showed that bribeswere paid in at least 15deals, including the Barakmissile case. Status: Case pending.

Scorpene deal (2005):It was alleged that theScorpene submarinesmanufacturer Thales paid`500 cr to “middlemen” to

secure the contract. TheCBI, however, found noevidence of corruption inthe deal in 2008. Scorpenesubmarines are now beingbuilt in India under a tech-nology transfer agreementthat was part of that contract. Status: Case closed.

Barak missile scam(2006):The first case in whichSudhir Choudhrie wasnamed. CBI had registeredan FIR in 2006, but did not name Sudhir as an

List of defense corruption scandalssince Bofors

20

T-72 Tank 1,500 900BMP 2 APC (infantry combat vehicle) 1,600 640UAV-HERON (unmanned air vehicle) — 220T 90 Tank 310 825M 46-130 upgunning (towed field gun) 180 48 T 90 Tank 347 1,051Long Range Surface-to-Air-Missile — 2,500MI-17 V5 (helicopter) 108 565MIG 29 K (fighter plane) 29 2,250Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air-Missile — 1,600Ammunition-SMERSH (for rocket launcher) — 364Ammunition T 72 (ammunition for tank) — 178SU 30 (Sukhoi fighter plane) 140 2,240SU 30 MKI (Sukhoi fighter bomber plane) 80 1,600Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft 214 20,000Low Level Quick Reaction Missile System — 2,445INVAR T 90 Missile (for T-90 tank) 10,000 400INVAR T 90 Missile 15,000 480T 72 Power Pack Upgrade (upgradation of tanks) 1,000 700BMP 2 Power Pack Upgrade (infantry combat vehicle) 1,362 470SU 30 Upgrade 140 847UAV-HERON upgrade — 72KA 28 MLU (helicopter) 11 120T 90 Tank 600 2,400

200020002002200420042007200920102010201120122012201220122012201220132013201320132013201320132014

Year Army QuantityValue

($ million)

India’s suspected defense deals

SPECIAL REPORT/ defense agents / the choudhries

the `1,125 cr Barak missiles deal. The mis-siles were purchased from Israel AircraftIndustries (IAI), and CBI’s FIR revealedthat kickbacks were routed throughMITCO. On October 10, 2006, the CBI raid-ed the residences of Suresh Nanda, ArvindKhanna, his son Vipin Khanna and SudhirChoudhrie. A few hours before the raid,Sudhir escaped abroad. When CBI sleuthsreached his residence in Sundar Nagar inDelhi, they found that he had taken a flightto London the previous night. Was he tippedoff or just plain lucky? No one knew. But itshowed his possible clout and connectionsin the highest echelons of the land. InDecember 2013, the CBI filed closure reportand said its probe could not find any evi-dences of wrong-doings.

But this is not the first case that the CBIhad closed against Sudhir, citing similar“lack of evidences”. In 2007, the CBI filed anFIR against Sudhir in the purchase of faultySoltam guns (worth over `208 cr) from anIsraeli company. He, along with the thenSamata Party treasurer, RK Jain and otherdefense officials, were booked under corrup-tion charges. In 2010, the agency filed a closure in the case, which was accepted bythe court in 2011.

Fortunately, the success of the Barak andSoltam deals, according to Israeli newspa-per Haaretz, heightened Sudhir’s reputa-tion. IAI later sold unmanned aerial vehiclesto India. Then followed the sale of attack

drones called Green Pine, radars used by theArrow anti-ballistic missile system and fourAWACS-type aircraft equipped with thePhalcon radar system. Today, Israel is nextto Russia among India’s arms suppliers.“With annual purchases from Israeli compa-nies touching $3-4 billion, one can calculatethe amount of money made in commis-sions,” reveals a defense ministry source.

INROADS INTO UKIt was the Russians who initially spottedSudhir’s “network”. He worked with Russiangovernment-owned companies, which weremajor suppliers of arms during the ColdWar. Later, when USSR disintegrated, thegovernment started privatizing defensebusinesses. Sudhir was smart enough to buystakes in some of these companies. One wasSukhoi, which manufactured fighter jets,and where he was allegedly a part owner.

The CBI raid in 2006 became a turningpoint in Sudhir’s life. He knew his return toIndia was tough. He feared that a CBIchargesheet and trial could force the UK toextradite him. Besides, he was unsure

accused.Status: The CBI filed clo-sure report.

Soltam Gun scam(2007):In the FIR, CBI hadaccused the Israeli firm

Soltam of paying bribes to,among others, Sudhir. Status: Case closed.

Sudipta Ghosh case(2009):The former OrdnanceFactory Board directorgeneral, Sudipta Ghoshwas arrested by the CBIfor taking bribes from twoIndian and four foreign

companies blacklisted byministry of defense. Status: Case pending.

Tatra Trucks deal(2012):The then army chief, VKSingh (now BJP partymember and Lok Sabhacandidate from Ghaziabadconstituency) blew the lidoff the scam in purchaseof over 7,000 Tatra trucks.In the past 25 years over ` 5,000 cr have beenspent on the purchases.The CBI registered FIRagainst London-based

defense dealer Ravi Rishiand several other officials. Status: CBI probe continues.

VVIP Helicopters deal(2013):In January 2014, Indiacancelled the `3,600-crorecontract for 12 helicopterswith the UK-based AgustaWestland. In February2013, reports had sur-faced alleging that two topofficials of Agusta

Westland's Italian parent,Finmeccanica, had paidbribes.Status: Probe on.

HAL-Rolls Royce enginedeal (2014):The UK SFIO in Februarythis year raided and arrest-ed Sudhir and his sonBhanu on allegations ofacting as a “middlemen”for sales of Rolls Royceengines to Indonesia andChina. The ministry hand-ed over the matter to CBI. Status: CBI yet to beginprobe.

Foraying into arms deals in the 70s withretired Vice Admiral SM Nanda,

Choudhrie first cracked a big deal withFrench Matra missiles for the IAF.

21April 15, 2014

how to continue with his “consultancy busi-ness” (middlemen), while being abroad.

Old associates of Sudhir reveal that heused his Indian experience to make inroadsinto the UK political circles. British newspa-pers reported that he was the top donor forthe Liberal Democrats Party: amounts rang-ing from £50,000 (approx `50 lakh) to£20,000 (`20 lakh). Two companies con-trolled by Sudhir’s son, Bhanu, and nephewDhruv—Alpha Healthcare and C&CBusiness Solutions—donated an additional£4,75,000 in the UK.

From October 2006 to January 2011,Sudhir remained in London. He used it tohis advantage. He put his money into legiti-mate businesses across the globe. The 2009economic recession was a blessing in dis-guise for fresh investments. In 2008 and2009, his sons’ CCAG group floated severalnew companies dealing in real estate, hotels,shopping malls, among others. Sudhirreturned to India in 2011 after the CBI gavehim a clean chit in the Soltam gun probedue to lack of evidence. The reclusive busi-

nessman stepped into the public gaze. Hiscompanies orchestrated a PR campaign toimprove his image. Recently, in their com-pany-sponsored GG2 Leadership event inthe UK, Dhairya gave an award to MalalaYousafzai, the celebrated Pakistani teenagerwho was attacked by the Taliban.

NEW AVATARFor decades, Sudhir and his family havetried to cloak their defense activities withlegitimate businesses. In 1995, Sudhir wason board of a joint venture, which involvedTata Group’s Taj Group of Hotels. Duringthe late 1990s and early 2000s, he was anon-executive director in ebookers Plc, anonline tourism and travel website, whichhas now changed ownership. He was also adirector in Adidas’ venture in India.

His son, Bhanu, who is a collector ofAsian art and promotes it, also runs a char-ity called Path to Success, which works withdisabled and disadvantaged children. Hemanages the group’s flagship, ShantiHospitality Group, which includes boutiquehotels, spas and beach, plantation and golfresorts across the world. Shanti Maurice, aluxury resort in Mauritius, was the winnerof the World Luxury Spa Award in 2012.

According to a newspaper article, Bhanu“advises and sources deals in emerging mar-kets, such as India, Russia and South-EastAsia” and assists “individuals to incubateand grow their businesses and maximizebusiness potential”. He has interests in hos-pitals and healthcare; the group owns 13care homes with over 600 beds in Midlandsand southeast regions in the UK.

The Sudhir family’s renowned invest-ments in India are in Ananda Spa, located atthe foothills of the Himalayas. IHHRHospitality Pvt Ltd has five star propertiesin Bangalore, Hyderabad, Amritsar andPune. Each five star, according to industryexperts, incurs an investment of at least`200-300 cr for construction, or a cumula-tive cost of over `1,000 cr.

But with the Rolls Royce controversy,Sudhir’s image has taken a beating. Still, it will be a huge task for Indian and the UKinvestigators to piece together the pieces inthis jigsaw puzzle.

SPECIAL REPORT/ defense agent / the choudhries

IL

Mid-1980s: Following the Bofors scandal, Rajiv Gandhi declared a banon middlemen.

1989: The ministry of defense issued guidelines to regulate agentsthrough registration and monitoring.

1999: The then defense minister George Fernandes reinforced the banon agents, and ordered an inquiry into military purchases, includingspares acquired since 1985.

2001: Fernandes asked Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to examineways to reduce middlemen. The CVC recommended legalization ofagents, by registration to inculcate transparency and efficiency. It result-ed in ambiguous and contradictory guidelines of recording the agents’contractual, banking and financial details. Over the past 13 years, not asingle agent has registered with the ministry of defense.

2006: Defense Procurement Policy (2006) banned “agents/middlemen”.Made it mandatory for suppliers to sign pre-contract integrity pacts underwhich they “unequivocally” confirm that no individual or firm wasemployed to facilitate the deal.

2006-14: The ministry of defense continues with the policy of ban on the role of middlemen and signing of “integrity pact”. It blacklisted firms alleged to be involved in corruption cases, and banned seven foreign companies.

Meddling policies

22 April 15, 2014

here does the buck stop?One could ask this ques-

tion after navy chief,Admiral Devendra Kumar

Joshi resigned almost 18months before his retirement

was due, taking moral responsi-bility for the recent accidents

which took place in various sub-marines and warships, resulting in the loss of many lives.Most defense experts feel that it is the civilian bureau-cracy, i.e. the Ministry of Defense (MoD) headed by AKAntony which should be held accountable. After all, itcontrols the defense budget.

In the recent past, the navy has possibly suffered themost in terms of annual budgets and expenditure onmodernization. Going by the expenditure on the three

23April 15, 2014

PROBE/navy accidents

POSTMORTEM TIMEFormer chief of naval

staff, Admiral DKJoshi briefing Defense

Minister AK Antonyabout the explosion

on INS Sindhurakshaksubmarine in August 2013

WATERCOFFINS

aged vessels, lack of accountability, low budgets and delays in repairs have

turned the naval fleet into death vesselsBy Vishwas Kumar

PIB

24 April 15, 2014

present schedule.” The 2012 deadline has gone and the

French-manufactured Scorpene submarineswill be ready only in 2016. What does thenavy plan to do in the interim?

This procrastination on the part of MoDhas serious consequences. Retired ColonelAjit Bhinder’s twitter (@ajitbhinder) com-ment on the present situation is apt. Hewrote: “Admiral Joshi did the right thing byresigning. Today no chief Army/Navy/AFcan get anything done fr (for) their com-mands because of Neta/babu/MoD.”

The area where the navy needs resuscita-tion is refits and repairs. Any delay canaffect safety, warn experts. The 2008 CAGreport said: “The refit activity managementin the Navy was not efficient as 83 percent ofshort refits and 100 percent of normal andmedium refits were delayed and could notbe completed within the prescribed timeperiod.” It added that the average opera-tional availability of the submarines was aslow as 48 percent. This issue assumes signif-icance in the light of 20 sailors reportedly

“The defense secretary has beenassigned authority for the defense ofIndia. However, he has zero accountability... when things go wrong.”

—Arun Prakash, former navy chief

forces in 2013-14, the share of the navy wasthe lowest (18 percent) compared to army(49 percent) and air force (28 percent). Incomparison to the previous fiscal year(2012-13), the navy’s share declined by 1.4percent.

It fared worse in 2012-13, when the budg-ets of all the three wings of the armed forceswere slashed drastically. However, the cut inthe navy’s revised budgets was the highest,compared to the other two forces. Thisbudget was reduced by almost 27 percent,while the respective figures for army and airforce were 16 percent and 0.25 percent.

The various CAG reports (1999, 2008 and2013) show the inertia and lack of concernthe ministry displayed towards those guard-ing India’s maritime borders. It’s a tragicsaga of neglect and inefficiency—aged ves-sels, shortage of staff, increased work-load,lack of spare parts and delays in repairs andrefits. It’s bad enough that these have affect-ed the operational efficiency of warships,but now, they have led to loss of lives. Thesituation is so grim that navy insiders calltheir ships “death vessels”, similar to airforce MiGs referred to as “flying coffins” dueto their frequent crashes.

AGEING FLEETWarnings about the navy’s dire straits werevisible. In 2008, CAG warned: “With seriousslippages in the induction plan, the navy isleft with an ageing fleet with more than 50percent of submarines having completed 75percent of their operational life and somealready outlived their maximum service life.”The report added: “If the construction planfor new submarines is not expedited, 63 per-cent of the existing fleet would completetheir prescribed life by 2012 when the firstnew submarines will be inducted as per the

PROBE/navy accidents

25April 15, 2014

dying during a fire in the two Russian-madesubmarines, INS Sindhurakshak and INSSindhuratna, which underwent refits andrepairs.

FINANCIAL CRUNCH The root cause of the problems is the lack offinances. Given the fleet size the repair loadis huge. The repair and maintenance worktakes months to complete. On top of that,there is lack of availability of spare parts andmanpower in dockyards.

Former navy chief Arun Prakash told amagazine: “The chiefs carry full responsibil-ity for their service—operational andadministrative—but they have no locus-standi in the MoD. The defense secretary, onthe other hand, has been assigned authorityfor the ‘defense of India and for the threearmed forces HQs.’ However, he has zeroaccountability for anything, especially whenthings go wrong.”

The sorry state of affairs in the MoD wasrevealed when CAG did another audit inDecember 2013 called “performance audit”

on repairs and refits. It covered the periodbetween 2005-06 and 2009-10 and revisit-ed its 1999 conclusions. Incidentally, thisperiod covers the tenure of Antony whoassumed office in October 2006.

This audit exposed the grave risk not onlyto submarines, but also to surface warships(corvettes, destroyers, frigates, etc), whichsuffered from similar “self-inflicted” prob-lems. The auditors recorded their disap-pointment with the MoD for not acting ontheir previous findings: “We observed thateven after a decade, the Navy has cited thatno perceptible improvement has taken placein timely completion of refits. Resultantly,8,629 ship days were not available for mar-itime operational purposes, due to availingexcess days for completion of refits”.

DELAYED REFITSThe audit statistics are disturbing. Morethan 50 percent of warships (surface) inservice are beyond 20 years of age. In morethan 82 percent of warships, refits andrepairs have been delayed up to and beyondthe 300 mandated days. “The main factorcontributing to delay in completion of

TESTING TIMESSurface-to-surface

missile firing exerciseunderway

In 2013-14, the budgetary share of navywas the lowest (18 percent) compared to

army (49 percent) and air force (28 percent). Babus decide these budgets.

Age no bar?Number of years navy ships havebeen in service

9%15%

26%26%

24%

30 years26-30 years21-25 years1-10 years 11-20 years

cour

tesy

: ind

iann

avy.

nic.

in

26 April 15, 2014

refits/MLU (mid life updates) was the pooravailability of spares and equipment…. Non-availability/failure of critical equipment,delays in supply and fitment of various sys-tems, etc, also resulted in time over-runs,”the report said.

Alarmingly, it also said that most refits arestarted and completed with considerabledelays. Of the 152 refits checked by auditteams, only 18 percent commenced as perthe norms of the navy, while 74 percent werecompleted with a total delay of 8,629 days.The audit made startling disclosures thatexpose the hollowness of India’s defense pre-paredness. It claimed that “naval warshipshad been extensively utilized beyond thestandard period of time before a refit wastaken up”. This, it said, indicates lack ofadherence to operational-cum-refit cycle(OCRC, which determines refit schedules).

Answers given by the navy to the auditorson delay in refits point towards a criticalshortage of warships, forcing them to keepeven “overused” ones to maintain “opera-tional requirements”. The audit said: “TheNavy accepted that the actual refit start datedid not match with the planned, if calculat-ed strictly as per OCRC.”

There were many reasons for this mis-match, the report said. These were: � The ships had undergone many opera-tional and refit cycles. Any deferment of refitor delay in completion would affect futurerefit schedule of the ship.� Deferment of refit was also due to opera-tional commitment to maintain minimumforce levels. This causes a “cascading affect”on subsequent refits. “A ship that is overduefor refit cannot be a part of an optimal solu-tion to India’s security needs.”

Non-availability of spares for refits of navyships is one of the main reason for delays.The audit report commented: “Availabilityof required spares continues to be a criticalarea which need to be addressed for a funda-mental reform of refit management. Lack ofrequired spares, resort to cannibalization(taking useful materials from disabled ships)and refurbishment of existing spares whentheir replacements are unavailable, are amatter of concern.”

The navy is truly in choppy waters.

Trail of disastersAUGUST 14, 2013: INS Sindhurakshak, a kilo-class submarine, implodes andsinks when missiles and other ammunition go off because of “unknown” fac-tors, killing all 18 on board.

DECEMBER 4, 2013 (Navy Day): India’s leading minesweeper, the INS Konkan, undergoing repair in Visakhapatnam, catches fire.

DECEMBER second week, 2013: A misfire from a gun abroad ICGS Sangramhits the Western Naval Command headquarters.

DECEMBER third week, 2013: INS Tarkash, the navy’s newest guided missilefrigate from which the Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles was test fired inMay, hits jetty while berthing at the Mumbai naval base and damages its hull.

DECEMBER 23, 2013: Frontline frigate INS Talwar collides with a fishingtrawler off the Maharashtra coast; luckily there is no significant damage.

JANUARY 4, 2014: INS Betwa, an indigenously built frigate, reports a crack inits sonar dome—the bottom of the ship. The cause of the accident is not clear.The navy launches an inquiry into the incident.

JANUARY 17, 2014: INS Sindhughosh, a kilo-class submarine operating out ofMumbai, has a near-miss when the tide suddenly recedes and the ship runsaground. However, the ship is secured with the help of tugs and ropes and nodamage is reported. The ship sails out subsequently.

JANUARY 21, 2014: INS Vipul, a missile boat from the Killer Missile Squadron,which has recently returned from a normal refit inside the Mumbai NavalDockyard, is detected with a hole in its pillar compartment while it was on anoperational deployment off Mumbai.

JANUARY 30, 2014: Amphibious ship INS Airavat suffers damages when itspropellers hit the ground while returning to the harbour in Visakhapatnam. Thecause of the incident apparently is the dredging work going on in the channel.

FEBRUARY 25, 2014: Smoke and fire in the battery kit of INS Sindhuratna, a Russian-origin diesel-electric, kilo-class submarine commissioned in 1988, results in the death of two officers. Twenty-nine peopleare evacuated and hospitalized for inhaling poisonous gases.

MARCH 2, 2014: An officer is killed and a worker injured after inhaling carbondioxide gas which leaked from a container in the INS Kolkata (Yard 701),advanced warship at Mumbai's Mazagon Dock Limited.

PROBE / army excesses

OF FIRE AND WATERRescue work at naval dockyard where explosionsoccurred in INS Sindhurakshaksubmarine in August, 2013

Getty Images

IL

27April 15, 2014

HUMAN INTEREST/NRI brides

HEN Usha Parikh left her lucrative jobin a top IT company in Ahmedabad to

marry a US-based NRI engineer, she haddreams in her eyes. But they soon crashed

when she realized that her husband was anunlettered mechanic and an alcoholic at that.

Just three months after Rekha Shah, daugh-ter of a Surat-based diamantaire, tied the knot

with a Singapore doctor, the 29-year-old preg-nant woman was desperate to return to India.

RUNAWAYBRIDEGROOM

the plight of women abandonedby nri husbands is distressing.

However, a new centre in gujaratis giving them hope and helping

them get back on their feetBy Mahesh Trivedi

Aruna

W

28 April 15, 2014

Her life had become hell, as she was con-stantly beaten by her husband and in-lawsfor more dowry.

When Anju Patel got married to aLondon-based marketing executive follow-ing an internet romance, her joy knew nobounds. Six months back, she returned toher one-room home in Vadodara, aban-doned by her husband.

There are many such distressing stories.In Punjab. And in Gujarat. Stories of girlswho live on the wings of hope as they marryNRI husbands, their heads full of fancydreams and their hearts filled with naïveoptimism. Accounts of how their worldcomes crashing down as they are duped byunscrupulous and immoral husbands.

Out of 2.5 crore NRIs, Gujaratis accountfor 65 lakh. But while Punjab has gainednotoriety for cases of fraud by NRI grooms,similar cases are now coming to light in caseof NRI grooms from Gujarat too. Accordingto a 2007 study, an estimated 25,000 suchwomen are deserted in Punjab and over20,000 have not seen their husbands after

the honeymoon. In the case of Gujarat, theministry of overseas Indian affairs and theGujarat government have only now startedcompiling data.

HOME AMID DESPAIRBut all is not lost. An Ahmedabad-basedNon-Resident Gujarati (NRG) Center,launched in November 2013, now providessuch women legal help.

This is in partnership with Gujarat gov-ernment and Gujarat Chamber ofCommerce and Industry (GCCI). Ever sinceit began, harried wives and young mothershave been making frantic calls from abroad,while their worried parents in Gujarat havebeen rushing there for help.

The chairman of the center is Kulin Patel,former Indian high commissioner toUganda and ambassador to Rwanda andBurundi. He says that a majority of cases arerelated to cheating or the husband desertingthe wife, either for dowry or because of anextra-marital affair.

Six NRI women have already met Pateland sought succor. Says Patel: “Many menget married due to parental pressure andabscond right after the wedding. In othercases, the man may be having an affair withsomeone else. Some couples come back hereafter a year and the husband finds someexcuse to fly back alone.”

Seeing the plight of these young brides,Patel formed an expert panel with IPS offi-cer Anil Kumar Pratham, Gujarat high courtadvocate Gopinath Amin and travel profes-sional Manish Bhatt. All three help the girlsin various ways.

Pratham, who is inspector-general ofpolice as well as head of the women’s cell inthe state, orders investigations into variouscases and even takes the help of Interpol.Bhatt, who has travelled the world, not onlyquickly sorts out visa-related problems, butalso asks his advocate friends to give freeconsultation to these women.

Amin, who is also the chairman of thelegal advisory committee of GCCI, says thatthe victims rarely conduct a thorough back-ground check of the groom. “The woman’sfamily feels that the boy’s side will be offend-

Numbing numbers� Number of complaints received by five Indian missions about fraudulent NRI

marriages since 2010-11: 179� Cases from New Zealand, Slovak Republic, China (Hong Kong), the UK and

the US in 2012-13: 66� Number of complaints received by the ministry of overseas Indian affairs

(MOIA) in 2012-13: 386� Cases from the UK in 2013-14: 15� Number of women who received assistance under the central government

scheme during 2008-09 to 2012-13: 101� Amount of money disbursed by MOIA to NGOs and 77 deserted women

abroad between 2008 and 2011: `32,86,709

Source: Data released in the Lok Sabha by minister for overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi

In about 30 percent of cases,deserted wives live all by themselves and struggle to find a way to come back.

—Parag Desai, a parent

HUMAN INTEREST/ NRI brides

29April 15, 2014

has taken steps over the years to check fraud-ulent NRI marriages. The external affairsministry has set up a cell in each missionabroad to help such victims. The ministry ofoverseas Indian affairs has launched an edu-cational-cum-awareness campaign for theIndian brides and published a guidance pam-phlet called Marriages to Overseas Indians.This is available in English, Hindi, Telugu,Malayalam and Punjabi. It has published abooklet with information on safeguards avail-able to women deserted by their NRI spouses,legal remedies available, authorities who canbe approached and NGOs.

The ministry provides an assistance of$3,000 in developed countries and $2,000 indeveloping countries for filing cases in courtsabroad or for legal counseling through vari-ous NGOs. Finally, distressed women have ashoulder to lean on.

(Kulin Patel, NRG Centre chairman, canbe contacted at 9825026780 or

079-4006 9603)

ed if they ask for his details, but they mustknow the complete address, contact num-bers of at least two friends who live withinthe area and one contact number of a col-league of his,” warns Amin. Most of the time,the girls are young and ignorant of the lawsof a foreign country.

To increase awareness, the NRG Centrehas been distributing literature with usefultips about NRI marriages and has organizedtwo seminars in Anand and Mehsana inmid-February.

EXPANDING SUPPORTRamesh Rawani gave `25 lakh as dowry forhis daughter. After she was abandoned, hewants the center to help him recover it. Hesays the process of seeking justice is compli-cated, as Indian laws do not apply to NRIs.Another parent, Parag Desai, says: “In about30 percent of cases, deserted wives live all bythemselves and struggle to find a way to comeback. Most are unaware of legal procedures.In some cases, US courts even declare adivorce through video conferencing.”

But this ignorance will be a thing of thepast, as NRG centres have been set up inSurat, Rajkot, Vadodara, Anand andMehsana and more are coming up in Navsariand Bhuj.

Incidentally, the central government too

In Punjab, over 25,000 women are deserted by their NRI husbands every

year, and over 20,000 don’t see their spousesafter honeymoon.

Uday Shankar

IL

CONTROVERSY/ religion and politics

20 April 1, 2014

IS ‘HINDUTVA’

A WAY OF LIFE?

way back in 1995, a supreme court judgment had held hinduism to be

different from hindu religion. but now, theapex court has decided to

re-open this controversial rulingBy Vishwas Kumar

31April 15, 2014

T IS an emotive issue and one thatcan polarize people sharply. Theinterpretations of Hindutva/Hindu-ism vary. But is Hindutva/Hinduisma way of life of the people in India, oris it a state of mind? Is it differentfrom the word “Hindu”? Can one

seek votes in the name ofHindutva? Will doing so violate

electoral laws that prohibit a candi-date from making an appeal to votersin the name of religion?

A landmark-yet-controversial judgmentby Supreme Court in 1995 held Hin-dutva/Hinduism to be different from Hindureligion, and had said that any appeal to vot-ers through the former didn’t mean “corruptpractices” as per the electoral laws. It hadcome as a big booster for the BJP and itsally, Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena.

Both the right wing parties had alwaysargued that Hindutva was their core philos-ophy, which meant “Indianization” orbharatiyata and that they were not

II

tutional bench for reviewing the 1995 judg-ment. The bench contended that the judg-ment lacked clarity in defining the contextin which politicians seek votes in the nameof religion. However, it is only now after 18years that a constitutional bench has beenfinally formed.

While some experts showered praise onJustice Verma for his bold order that

gave legal sanctity to the Hindutva philoso-phy, others blamed him for fanning theHindutva forces due to his differentiationbetween religion and philosophy. But Vermahad, in the same judgment, warned that anymisuse of the word “Hindutva” for a narrow

political consideration should be strictlydealt with by the laws of the land.

Supreme Court lawyer Dr SuratSingh says: “Saying that Hindutva isnot equal to Hindu religion is like

saying that Christianity is not equal tothe Christian religion. Also, saying that

Hindutva is a way of life puts Hindureligion on a different footing

from other religions. In ademocracy, if Hindu religionis a way of life, whyshouldn’t we treat Chris-tianity and Islam as a way oflife, too?”

Singh explains thatHindutva can be used in twodifferent ways. It can be usedin a progressive and inclusivemanner where Hinduism is away of life and tolerant ofother religions.

“But it can also be used in adogmatic and exclusive

sense. This is by showingthat the Hindu way of life

is superior to others,bringing it in clear con-flict with the secularmandate of the consti-tution,” he points out.Defending the 1995

judgment, lawyer UmeshSharma says: “Hinduism is a wayof life. Even the world’s biggestreligions were influenced by it

against the minorities, as alleged by theirpolitical rivals.

However, the apex court has now decidedto re-visit this debate. Chief Justice P Sathasivam recently constituted a seven-member bench to review its previousjudgment. The decision was made onthe recommendation of a five-judgebench headed by Justice RM Lodhaand comprising Justices AK Patnaik,SJ Mukhopadhaya, Dipak Misra andFMI Kalifulla.

The controversy over seeking votesin the name of Hindutva has its rootsin the election of Shiv Sena candidateManohar Joshi to the Maha-rashtra assembly in 1990.After Joshi won theelection, his Cong-ress rival NitinBhaurao Patel fileda case in the BombayHigh Court, accusingthe Sena leader of garnering votesin the name of religion.

The high court declared his elec-tion null and void.

Thereafter, Joshi knocked thedoors of the Supreme Court againstthe high court’s judgment. A three-member bench of the apex court,headed by Chief Justice JS Verma,upheld Joshi’s election as valid inDecember 1995, on the groundthat seeking votes in the name ofHindutva is not an offence.

Four months later in 1996,another three-member SupremeCourt bench while dealing with aseparate petition of BJP candidateAbhiram Singh on the same issue request-ed the then chief justice to form a consti-

CONTROVERSY/ religion and politics

32 April 15, 2014

“In a democracy, if Hindu religion isa way of life, why shouldn’tChristianity or Islam also be treatedas a way of life?”

— DR SURAT SINGH,Supreme Court lawyer

What was your principal objection to the 1995 judgment?This whole debate that ended up in the Supreme Court (SC) occurredbecause there was a petition against the election of BJP-Shiv Sena MLAsin Maharashtra. They had sought votes in the name of religion, whereasthe election laws make it illegal for candidates to do so.

I can understand that the SC was very careful about nullifying elec-tions as it didn’t want to interfere with the legislature. But the rationalebehind striking down the high court judgment was bizarre.

Justice Verma quoted Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s article in TheTimes of India, where the author said that Hindutva is a kind of unitarynationalism. But if you read the rest of the article, Khan also went on tosay that this kind of unitary nationalism is terrible, really oppressive andvery bad for the minorities.

Justice Verma took a good quote out of context and turned it literallyinverse to the author’s intention. It was a bad judgment based on bad reasoning.

What are the implications of the judgment?The moment SC ratifies Hindutva as a form of Indian nationalism, themajority groups can question why they are being called communal. Theycan claim to be nationalists based on the decree of the court. So youhave legitimized majoritarian communalism.

But every country has a civilizational build-up and the majoritycommunity does have an influence on its culture.It is natural that the practices and beliefs of the majority shape the politi-cal culture and discourse and institutions of a society. However, the diffi-culty arises when you begin to argue that the Republic of India should begoverned by a majoritarian consensus instead of the constitution.Hindutva here is being used to pressurize the republic, in a sense, toeither ignore parts of the constitution or read the constitution in an unnat-ural way to favor a kind of majoritarian construction. Just because youare in a majority, you can’t expect everybody to defer to your views. Thatis not acceptable.

It’s one thing if there is a process of decentered social practice thattends in a certain direction; it’s quite another to rig the game, to insistthat in a situation like Ram Mandir the views of the majority must prevail.Because after all what is at stake here is not just a piece of real estate inAyodhya, but a constitutional ground on which the republic is built. Are

“SC shouldn’t be blown by ideological fashions”

when they came to India. These religions gotassimilated into our country’s way of life.”Explaining a way of life as including lan-guage, culture, food and dress, he adds: “ABihari Muslim or a Bengali Muslim may bevastly different from each other, but theywould have more similarities with theirrespective Hindu communities.”

Even Sufism, part of Islam, is similar tothe Hindu culture of singing devotional

songs. “Is this not Hinduism or a Hindutvaway of life?” asks Sharma.

Even AG Noorani, lawyer and author,wrote in Frontline recently that there is adifference between Hinduism, an ancientand tolerant faith, and Hindutva, which represents modern hate. He also soughtrejection and review of the apex court rulingin his article.

How time can change perceptions!

33April 15, 2014

Historian and political commentator MUKUL KESAVAN, who had criticized the 1995 judgment of Justice JS Verma in his book Secular Common Sense, comments on the Hindutvadebate in an interview to Meha Mathur. Excerpts:

there rules of law that determine whether the status of a place can bemaintained or changed? You can’t just override laws by invoking the majority.

How do Muslims feel about this kind of judicial intervention?It will be dangerous for me to speak on behalf of the Muslims. But theproblem is, SC, which has a very distinguished record, has over the past20-25 years delivered a set of questionable judgments on matters affect-ing Hindu-Muslim relations. The point to ponder is how do these judg-ments affect constitutional guarantees. Today it’s the Muslim community,tomorrow it will be someone else. When the apex court chooses to passsuch judgments this has very dangerous implications for the political cul-ture of the country.

Do you see these judgments as a part of bigger movement?If you mean there is a broader conspiracy theory like an attempt to rein-terpret the Indian constitution in a majoritarian way, I would say no. But ifyou ask has there been a broadening of the majoritarian discourse, hasthere been an attempt to shift the political commonsense of the republicrightwards, and has that succeeded, I would say yes. And the judgesbeing human, sometimes tend to defer to this consensus. And ideally,SC should not be a weather wing. It should stand fast on constitutionalground, and not be blown about by ideological fashions.

Anil Shakya

IL

ACTS & BILLS / gender inequality

34 April 15, 2014

N 1968, when smart, educated AshaSachdeva got married, she haddreams in her eyes and hope in herheart like any young bride. Shelooked forward to a life of maritalbliss and spending her autumnyears with her husband in her mar-ital house. But it wasn’t to be. Forty-

six years later, at the age of 67, Asha is fight-ing a lonely battle for her right to protectionand shelter in her husband’s house.

Ironically, the upheaval in Asha’s lifestarted in 2005, when the Hindu SuccessionAct 1956 (HSA) was amended. The changeincluded daughters as coparceners ( jointheir) in the Mitaksara (one of the schools ofHindu law) family property with the samebirthrights as sons. While it was meant tosecure the future of daughters, it dealt ablow to wives who had been abandoned,deserted or widowed.

That’s precisely what happened to Asha.In 2009, she was abandoned by her hus-

band, who moved into an old-age home ashe did not want to fight with his sisters.

With no financial support from him, Ashastruggled to make ends meet. Her onlydaughter, married and settled abroad,helped her occasionally.

MARRIED WOMEN’S WOESTragically for Asha, the house where she hadspent almost all her life, was now beingclaimed by her sisters-in-law. This particu-lar case shows how despite good intentions,legal reforms to overcome gender inequalityand discrimination don’t benefit all women;some innocent victims like Asha are left bythe wayside.

While the 2005 amendment helpeddaughters demand partition—though theyalso share liabilities now—it was deletion ofSection 23 of the 1956 act that diminishedthe right of married women in their maritalproperty. This section was a special provi-sion with respect to “dwelling houses” and

HOUSE OF DISCORD

an amendment in the hindu succession act was meant to give equal rights

to women. but while it helped the daughters to get a share of their father’s property,

it left the mothers by the waysideBy Shivani Dasmahapatra

I

35April 15, 2014

held that married daughters could not askfor partition until the sons decided to do itfirst. The reasoning then was that forcing ason to partition the house would leave himand his family shelterless. The section hadalso provided for rights of widowed women tobe settled before the sons and daughterscould ask for partition.

Until 2005, the biggest protection wiveshad in the marital home was the status ofbeing married, which carriedwith it the right to be main-tained, not only by the hus-band, but by the joint family asits assets were also her assets.

But Asha finds herself with-out shelter now. “This has beenmy whole life. Why am I beingpushed out of my home now?”asks Asha plaintively. At thetime of marriage, she had togive up her job as demandedby her husband and made to

take care of her ailing mother-in-law.Neither could she look after her deceasedfather’s business interests as, again, her hus-band didn’t allow it.

PROGRESSIVE STEP?Though the new succession law seems pro-gressive and is a step in the right direction, itleaves women like Asha Sachdeva in thelurch. “That women have been made

coparceners with the samerights as male members isvery empowering. But, it hasreduced the share of wives in aproperty where she has livedas an owner,” points out advo-cate Geeta Luthra.

It doesn’t serve the empow-erment of women to give jus-tice to one category, whiledenying it to the other. Thegap between the vision andharsh reality is too evident.

VICTIM OF A PROGRESSIVELEGISLATION

Asha Sachdeva, who was deprived of her marital

property following the 2005 amendment to the Hindu

Succession Act

IL

Photos: Shivani Dasmahapatra

once at the helm of a democratic nation-building, our legal mps are unabashedly protecting dynastic politics in their new avatars

By NV Subramanian

ROM the 2G scam zero-loss theory to the abuse of AnnaHazare and constitutional functionaries and intriguesagainst opposition leaders, the lawyer-politicians of theruling party are displaying the egregious side of their legaltraining. Is this an aberration or par for the course, or arethey victims of the fallen standards of public life, warped inparticular by dynastic politics? A little of all, and lawyer-politicians in the opposition deport no differently in power,arrogance being their calling card, although in the defenseof dodgy deals, their record may not be as chequered astheir fellow professionals on the government side. The fallfor the community of lawyer-politicians has been substan-tial since the national movement and precipitous in the

LEAD/ lawyer-politicians

36

FAruna

bankers and businessmen squeezed theirnumbers in recent decades, India showed adeclining liking for this trade from the sec-ond Lok Sabha onwards, increasingly mix-ing its population with agriculturists.

As the democratic process expanded andencountered entrenched caste, class, com-munity and regional interests, the complex-ion of the Lok Sabha transformed further,and the net losers were lawyer-politicians,unless they embraced other identities,which they actually did in most cases.

The rise of dynastic politics with IndiraGandhi also reduced the role of politiciansas lawyers in her iron reign, except in thephases where she clashed with the judiciary.The core of the trend she started still contin-ues. Today, the Lok Sabha and the RajyaSabha have about the same number oflawyers—75 each—but a majority of themhas never practised.

NEW AVATARBut the troubles of the present are not somuch derived from this state of affairs, asthe fact that politics has been so distorted bythe original sin of dynasticism, Mrs

EPICENTEROF ROT

past few years, and the depths of depravity,it would appear, have not been plumbed.

WANNABE POLITICIANSThe national movement had its careeristlawyer-politicians to be sure, and theirmotivations were not entirely idealistic.Motilal Nehru was inclined to supportJawaharlal’s political ambitions with hislawyerly earnings in what would innocu-ously seem the first hint of dynastic long-ings. Others were less candid but equallyambitious. They were working towardsimportant political positions in independ-ent India and as many as one-half of thelawyers of the freedom movement attainedtheir career goals.

INDIA AND THE USA rough democratic parallel may be foundin the United States but there are importantdifferences as well. Its founders were not alllawyers, although they may have been inpreponderance. The first president was amilitary hero. Considered America’s great-est president, Abraham Lincoln was alawyer, but he arrived much later on thescene, and his greatness may have partlyderived from his early deprivations, his self-education and his professional accent ondispute-resolution than litigation, a trait asun-lawyerly as any.

But whereas the United States sustainedan interest in lawyers as politicians until

37April 15, 2014

Lawyer-politicians now lie for politicalclients, outshout opponents on the street,battle naysayers in news television studios,and triple as perception managers.

lawyers a bad name for at least a generation.The only lawyer who got properly electedafter Nixon (Gerald Ford was a stopgap) wasBill Clinton in the 1990s, and Jimmy Carternever let an opportunity pass to remindaudiences he wasn’t a lawyer or a liar,although he was deceitful on the Sovietaction in Afghanistan.

However, the lawyers also ultimatelysaved the day for America in Watergate,working with the Congress and the judiciaryto bring Nixon to justice. Unfortunately, thesilver lining has not appeared so far on theclouded Indian sky.

PLAYING UP DYNASTYThe Indian story up to the present isunabashed political lawyerly mendacity tosave the regime. The mendacity convincesno one as mendacity never does. Nor is itlikely to save the regime. But when has guiltprevented the guilty-rich and the powerfulfrom engaging the best lawyers in town? Butthen, pause and think, is this politics, demo-

Gandhi’s legacy, that lawyers are gettingnewly drafted into political roles much likethe consigliore of the old mafia families. Inthe post-modern avatar, lawyer-politiciansare meant to ring-fence and protect graft-hit, endangered dynasties. In addition tolying for their political clients, they have tooutshout opponents on the street, battlenaysayers in news television studios, andsuitably round off their onerous assignmentby tripling as perception managers. This isIndia’s longest-running Watergate moment,and closure is not at hand.

For those of a certain generation whoremember the Watergate scandal, it had itsgood and bad sides. The lawyers on the sideof Richard Nixon, Nixon included, gave

Nixon’s lawyers gave the profession a badname during Watergate. But others

helped bring Nixon to justice. This silverlining hasn’t appeared in India.

38 April 15, 2014

In dynasty’s defense

Despite CAG statingthat the center had

suffered a loss of ` 1.76 lakh cr in the 2G

scam, Law MinisterKapil Sibal said on

January 6, 2011: “Thelogic underlying this

estimate is completely flawed.”

Kapil SibalTelecom Minister

While claiming therewas no loss to the

government in the coalmines allocation,

Chidambaram said onAugust 24, 2012 that

the loss only comes intoeffect in relation to

mined coal, not for coalburied in mother earth.

P ChidambaramFinance Minister

Blaming NarendraModi for the poor

handling of Gujaratriots in 2002, Khurshid

at a rally in UP onFebruary 26, 2014

described the Gujaratchief minister as “impo-tent” and asked why hecouldn’t protect people.

Salman KhurshidExternal Affairs Minister

Resigning as Congressspokesperson after a

CD showed him havingsex with a woman

lawyer, Abhishek ManuSinghvi said

on April 23, 2012 that the CD was possiblymorphed and raised

no public interest issue.

Abhishek Manu SinghviCongress spokesperson

LEAD/ lawyer-politicians

cratic politics, or is it about saving and pre-serving a corrupt oligarchy? Even if thelawyer-politicians knew the truth of theiractivity, they would dissimulate.

This trend is by no means restricted toIndia. And it is not merely confined toregime venality and mega corruption. But inthe United States where lawyering and poli-tics intersect the most of any Westerndemocracy (about which Tocqueville wroteso insightfully), there is considerable agonizing over the declining values oflawyer-politicians.

Lincoln’s benchmarks haunt the country.This writer has not come across similarangst here. Long ago, Arun Shourie feltanguished about party lawyers poisoningthe political discourse. That is a cry in thewilderness.

NOBLE VISIONFor all their limitations and self-interests,the founders put together a first class consti-tution for India. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar,

ably guided by Vallabhbhai Patel and others,toiled to produce a sound and sensible document. As lawyers who were unsure howthe society of independent India wouldevolve, they left, for example, the equationbetween fundamental rights and the direc-tive principles of state policy deliberatelyambivalent, hoping for the future to get thedynamics right.

The courts are active in that direction.But lawyer-politicians haven’t kept pace.Perhaps they are not to blame either.Politics, dynastic politics in the main, is atthe epicenter of the entire rot, and both the disease and the immune response from therest of the political establishment have beenruinous, to say the least.

—NV Subramanian is editor, www.newsinsight.net and

writes on politics and strategic affairs. He has authored

two novels, University of Loveand Courtesan of Storms

39April 15, 2014

In the BJP AAP too?

After Narendra Modiclaimed Nehru did notattend Sardar Patel’s

last rites, Prasad uppedthe ante by adding onOctober 30, 2013 that

the former prime minister did not go for RajendraPrasad’s funeral.

Ravi Shankar Prasad BJP spokesperson

Taking on Congress’spokesperson ManishTiwari, who had com-

pared Modi to Hitler inGoa, Jaitley said on

November 21, 2103 thatit was a pity that Tiwari

could find out Hitlerbut not a serial rapist

(Tarun Tejpal).

Arun JaitleySenior BJP leader

Reacting to a newschannel showing AAP

members asking moneyfor Delhi elections,

Lekhi said onNovember 23, 2013

that Kejriwal’s wife wasmaking crores while

working in the revenuedepartment.

Meenakshi LekhiBJP spokesperson

Lashing back at ArunJaitley and senior

lawyer Harish Salve forcriticising AAP on theforeign nationals’ issuein Delhi, Bharti said onJanuary 21, 2014 thathe wanted to spit on

their faces and publicwill beat them.

Somnath BhartiDelhi’s former Law Minister

IL

FOCUS / gas pricing

cec sampath’s letter todefer a hike in gas prices

smacked of politicalmachinations; it doesn’t

matter whether theincrease is justified or not

By Alam Srinivas

ElectoralEconomics

olitically, there were tworeactions to the announce-ment. The UPA-II regimeheaved a sigh of relief whenthe Election Commission ofIndia (EC) postponed thedoubling of gas prices untilthe new government tookover in May 2014. Arvind

Kejriwal, the leader of Aam Admi Party (AAP),who had criticized the move to raise pricesalleging a nexus between Mukesh Ambani’sReliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and oil minis-ters, and had written to the EC to defer thedecision, claimed victory.

Within the business community, there wereboth loud claps and long faces. The gas userslike power and fertilizer sectors hailed the EC.The producers such as RIL, state-ownedONGC and Cairns India felt the delay will further depress their viability. Stock marketanalysts said it was retrograde, and could forceglobal investors to stay away from India. But

everyone hoped that the new gov-ernment would take a

rational and

PBAILING OUT UPA-II?Chief ElectionCommissioner VS Sampath; thecommission has surprised critics with its deferment of gas prices

PIB

41April 15, 2014

correct view in two months. However, the worst was the role that EC

played in L’affaire Gas. The commission’s deci-sion seemed illogical, ill-thought-out, and con-trary to norms. In fact, it pandered to the elec-toral machinations of the ruling regime, andseemed to be guided by a sense of fear. “If youlook at the words that the EC used in its replyto the oil ministry on the issue, you can sensethat the former was afraid to either upset therulers or the beneficiaries,” says an economist.

Consider the language of the four-line, sin-gle-sentence terse letter by the EC. It read thatthe “Commission has decided that the proposalmay be deferred.” The juxtaposition of “decid-ed” with “may” is fascinating. EC did not cate-gorically tell the government to back off. It stillgave some leeway to the politicians andbureaucrats. Was there an underlying messagein these words? Did the EC want to convey tothe political bosses and others that it was thepetroleum ministry, and not the commission,which took the decision to defer the price hike?

The central part of the single line in EC’sletter said that it reached the decision“after taking into account all relevant

facts, including the fact that the matter is sub-judice in the Hon’ble Supreme Court”. Clearly,the main factor that played on the EC’s mindwas that the apex court had admitted a peti-tion filed by CPM politician, GurudasDasgupta. But this line of contention raisedmore questions, and looked more like anexcuse rather than a rationalization.

First, the SC has agreed to only take up thepetition. It has not given any interim orders orverbal observations to stay the price increasetill its final order, or a hint that the decisionwas wrong. If the government’s decisions areput on hold because the highest court hasagreed to hear the cases, nothing will ever getdone. Everything will come to a standstill.

Second, in the past, the government hastaken critical decisions on the issue of gasprices, even though cases were being heard byseveral courts.

For example, in June 2005, the two Ambanibrothers, elder Mukesh and Anil, announced atruce to their public fight, and divided theassets of the Reliance Group. Under the patch-

up, Mukesh agreed to sell gas produced by RILto Anil at a price of $2.34 per unit.

In early 2006, both the siblings asked thegovernment to clear this price. On July 26,2006, even as the Bombay High Court (BHC)was hearing the case, the government rejectedthe price. In August 2007, an empoweredgroup of ministers fixed it at $4.2; in May2008, it finalized the manner in which RIL’sgas would be allocated to the user industries.The BHC gave its order in June 2009.

Third, the EC’s fluid, non-committal, andopen-ended letter will help UPA-II, which canargue its case either ways. If experts criticize itfor not increasing gas prices, as the businesscommunity has, it can contend it was forced todo so. If critics like Kejriwal attack it for cor-ruption, it can retort that prices have not beendoubled. As P Chidambaram once said aboutthe coal scam that there was no scandal as longas the ore wasn’t mined and remained undermother earth, Congressmen can snap backthat there is no benefit to RIL as the prices willremain the same.

Clearly, the EC killed several birds with itsletter. It convinced the critics that it deferredthe controversial decision. It enabled UPA-IIto counter attacks against it. The commissionalso soothed the business community that thehike had been delayed for two months, and not cancelled. And it left unanswered the question whether the decision was a corruptone or not.

WIN SOME, LOSESOME

(L-R) RIL CMDMukesh Ambani

and Minister ofPetroleum Veerappa

Moily; while the price deferment might helpUPA-II politically, the business community

is upset with the move

IL

the viscera report vindicates india legal’sinvestigations that shashi tharoor’s wife

did not commit suicide or die of overdose of drugs. even the police now feel that

the dozens of bruises on her body, whichwe revealed a month ago, hint at a

possible murder By Vishwas Kumar

FOCUS/ sunanda pushkar/mysterious death

42

our weeks ago, India Legalrevealed that SunandaPushkar, the flamboyant-extrovert wife of juniorminister Shashi Tharoorcould have died of thedozens of bruises on herbody. We said that based

on the evidence that police had gathered, shecould not have committed suicide by con-suming poison or accidentally died of anoverdose of alprax. Her viscera report, whichthe police received a few days ago, vindicatedour conclusion. No poison or traces of alpraxwere found in her body.

Police sources contend that they areforced to consider that the causes of thedeath may be the bruises on her body, espe-cially around her neck. However, Delhi’sPolice Commissioner BS Bassi said: “Theprobe is still on and there is no question ofgiving a clean chit to anybody. We are exam-ining all available evidence and have soughtthe help of doctors.” BJP’s politician KJAlphons told mediapersons in Thiruvantha-puram (Kerala), Tharoor’s constituency:

NO POISON,NO DRUGS

F

IL

empowers it to go ahead without the regis-tration of an FIR (First InformationReport). In the near future, if new evidenceindicates “foul” play, the police can registeran FIR against named or unnamed accused.

How will these new developments impactTharoor’s election campaign? Already, inKerala, especially his constituency, his wife’sdeath has become a huge issue. The EC isunlikely to accept the minister’s plea to puta stop to the smear campaign in the light ofthe viscera report. Most political punditsseem convinced that given the state of theCongress party, and now this controversy,Tharoor will lose his seat.

It is for the police, forensic doctors, andthe post-mortem team to revisit all theavailable evidence. They have to ask andanswer questions they have avoided in thepast. Most importantly, they have to explainthe cause of the bruises on Sunanda’s body.We at India Legal will pursue our owninvestigations, since, as we said weeks ago,we believe the Sunanda Pushkar case is inpublic interest.

43April 15, 2014

“There are far too many contradictions inthe police report. Therefore, the BJP isdemanding a CBI inquiry.”

Clearly, the police need to take anotherlook at Sunanda’s post-mortem report. Thereport should have automatically analyzedthe following issues earlier. What caused theinjuries around her neck, arms and wrists?Was there a fight between the couple thenight before her death on January 17, 2014?Did anyone or more than one person holdher by the arms and wrists? Who enteredand exited suite 345 at Leela Palace Hotelon the two crucial days–January 16 and 17?

Says a prominent Delhi-based lawyer: “Ifthe viscera report has ruled out poisoning oroverdose, the police should register a crimi-nal case to further continue the probe. Thereis no excuse not to do so only because herfamily members have not alleged foul play.”Tharoor has maintained that Sunanda’s parents and son feel that no one except herwas involved in her death. He has com-plained to the Election Commission about apolitical conspiracy to malign him beforethe elections.

At the same time, the police should lookat both the actual and circumstantial evi-dences in this case. “It is its job to probe thecircumstantial evidences. In a blind murdercase like Sunanda’s, it is an importantaspect. During forensic examination, we tryto keep our findings consistent with the cir-cumstantial evidences,” says a forensicexpert, as he shifts the onus on the police.

What are the options before thepolice now? It has sent the vis-cera report to the forensic doc-

tors at the Central Forensic ScienceLaboratory (CFSL) to get their views onwhat it means in terms of the cause ofSunanda’s death. Just to be doubly sure, itcan send the viscera report to another lab,apart from CFSL, for a second opinion. “Thepolice have several modus-operandi to con-tinue with a murder probe. Seeking differ-ent opinions from the doctors is just one ofthem,” explains a lawyer.

Until the viscera report came in, thepolice conducted its investigations underSection 176 of Criminal Procedure, which

“The probe is stillon and there is noquestion of giving aclean chit to anybody. We areexamining all available evidence.”

—Delhi Police Commissioner, BS Bassi

INVESTIGATION/ judicial impropriety

44 April 15, 2014

TheCuriousCase of Cidco

Illus

tratio

ns: A

runa

a supreme court bench disposed of a case, which was in front of another bench and in which corruption charges

were upheld by a high court, within minutesBy the India Legal Team

45April 15, 2014

MAGINE a two-judge bench of theSupreme Court, which allowed a peti-tioner to withdraw its case, which waslisted in front of another three-judgebench, headed by former chief justice

Altamas Kabir! Imagine again that the chiefjustice bench had disallowed the withdrawalbecause the Bombay High Court (BHC) hadgiven an adverse ruling and pointed issuesof manipulation, undervaluation of a primeproperty and corruption!

This is exactly what happened in the casethat involved the Maharashtra-owned Cityand Industrial Development Corporation(CIDCO), Mistry Constructions and Makh-ija Developers. Dushyant Dave, who repre-sents CIDCO in several cases, wrote a letterto all the judges of the court and demandeda “suo moto exercise” to remedy the “grossabuse of the process of the court”. Later,retired Supreme Court judges and over 100lawyers complained to the chief justice.

All hell broke loose in the legal communi-ty when Justice CK Prasad’s bench acceptedthe plea of Mistry Constructions andMakhija Developers that they had reachedan out-of-court compromise and, therefore,did not wish to pursue the case. It impliedthat the chief justice’s bench, which had list-ed the case for hearing a few days later,could not give its order.

The events that led to the controversialorder read like a legal thriller. In December2002, CIDCO invited bids to develop an 18-hole international golf course and acountry club on 33.55 hectares of primeland in Mumbai. Mistry Constructions won,and signed a lease agreement with the statefirm in August 2009. This was shockingbecause the losing bidder, MakhijaDevelopers, had gone to court and the casewas still being heard by the BHC.

In its ruling in December 2009, the highcourt lambasted CIDCO. First, it noted thatthe reserve price of just over `33 cr for thelease was “undervalued”, especially sinceover six years had elapsed between the ten-der and the lease agreement. Over this peri-od, “the land costs in and around Mumbaihave multiplied”, and the market value couldbe over `100 cr.

Second, the BHC saw no reason behind

High Court said CIDCO had undervaluedthe land and tried to favor MistryConstructions. CIDCO hadn’t maintainedtransparency to follow the tender norms.

CIDCO’s decision to finalize the lease, whena final decision had not been taken. “Whilethis petition was pending, CIDCO, as a pub-lic body, ought to have refrained from sign-ing the lease deed on 22/8/2009 or at leastought to have approached with a CivilApplication in this petition seeking leave tosign the lease deed…,” noted the high court.

The hurry to sign the lease, and a reluc-tance to issue a fresh tender to get a higherprice on the part of CIDCO raised doubts inthe mind of BHC. It stated that “there issome room to believe that somewhere in themanagement of CIDCO efforts were madeto favor respondent no. 4 (MistryConstructions). We have no doubt thatCIDCO failed to come to the expectations asa public body to maintain transparency andto follow the tender terms….”

Based on the above observations, the highcourt quashed the lease. The matter went tothe Supreme Court in 2010, when MistryConstructions filed a civil appeal againstMakhija Developers. However, between2010 and early 2013, the two firms reachedan out-of-court settlement and asked theapex court to dispose of the appeal.

The three-member Supreme Courtbench, which was headed by Altamas Kabirand included Justices Vikramjeet Sen andSA Bobde, refused.

In February 2013, the bench said that ithad taken its decision because of “cer-tain findings of the high court” and,

hence, the applications of the two firms were“dismissed”. “Let the appeals themselves belisted for hearing at an early date…,” it con-cluded in its judgment. A year later, inFebruary 2014, the civil appeals were beforeanother three-judge bench of Justices BSChauhan, J Chelameshwar and MY Eqbal.

This was around the time when events inthe case twisted and turned like in a JohnGresham novel. On January 20, 2014,Justice CK Prasad’s bench heard a crimi-

I

46 April 15, 2014

Singh’s argument that the criminal case hadno linkages with the civil one. But, still itpassed an order in the Mistry Constructionsvs Makhija Developers appeal. There was norepresentation from CIDCO, but the benchwas not bothered.

The order allowed the ”writ petitioner towithdraw the writ petition”. In fact, it added:“In view of the aforesaid, the impugnedorder passed by the (Bombay) High Court isrendered non est and, therefore, set aside onthat ground alone. As the Project is old andthe appellant (Mistry Constructions) hasspent huge amount, we direct the CIDCO toprovide necessary assistance to the appel-lant to complete the Project without unnec-essary delay.”

Dave and other lawyers raised severalquestions against the judgment. How didthe Justice Prasad bench become aware ofthe CIDCO civil appeal, when the case hadnever crossed its path? Why was the benchso keen to dispose of the matter in such anunnatural manner and in violation of judi-cial propriety and decorum? Could it pass asuo moto order like this?

The ball is in the Supreme Court’s court.CIDCO wants to file a review petition. It isfor the judiciary to decide whether the issueis one of judicial impropriety or not.

nal case {Neera Saggi and Anr vs ParshuramNaik and Anr, No. SLP (crl) 7232/2013}. Inits order, it asked the criminal matter to belisted along with a civil appeal No. 9454-9455 of 2013. This was unprecedented. Thelawyers in Saggi vs Naik case had not askedfor it, and the two cases were not connected.

More importantly, case No. 9454-9455 was the Mistry Construc-tions vs Makhija Developers one.

But the bench had made a mistake in theyear; while the actual appeal was filed in2010, the bench thought it was a 2013 case.However, it quickly corrected it on February20, 2014. In its ruling, it stated that while ithad asked two cases to be clubbed, “due toinadvertent mistake, the year of the CivilAppeal No. 9454-9455 was shown as 2013instead of 2010”.

It then asked the two cases to be listed forhearing on February 25, 2014. On that day,the bench accepted senior advocate CU

In an unprecedented manner, JusticePrasad’s bench clubbed an unrelated

criminal appeal with the CIDCO matter,and gave orders in both. IL

INVESTIGATION/ judicial impropriety

/

insidious role in controlling mainstreampolitical parties was something which hadbeen forgotten in the political discourse fora long time. The last time a politician madeit a nationwide issue was the late VP Singhin the late 1980s. Before that, the JP move-ment had achieved a similar objective, albeitin north India, in the 1970s. That has notonly changed now, but AAP’s consistentattempts to expose the corporate-politician-media nexus has brought in a new vitality tothe entire electoral discourse.

In the background of the AAP’s entry intothe national electoral arena, the two mainparties have been focussing their energieson the issue of growth and developmentwhile skirting the issues of corruption andthe parties’ nexus with corporates. But thatdoes not mean that the people’s concerns onthese twin issues can be diverted. The factthat the social media is buzzing with corrup-tion issues is an indication that the agendawill remain a concern even after the elec-tions are over.

What does the future portend, irrespec-tive of which party or coalition makes it tothe Raisina Hill in May 2014? Will AAPbecome history? Will the issues that it hasraised become irrelevant? Will it be businessas usual?

PERTINENT ISSUESNot easy questions to answer, indeed.However, going by the mood in the countryand the increasing involvement of the peo-ple, who earlier did not take interest in pol-itics, it doesn’t seem as if it is going to bebusiness as usual.

Let’s take the issue of corruption. This is amalice which has struck deep roots and isnot something which can be eradicated eas-ily. However, no government which will besworn in will be able to skirt it. It will

49April 15, 2014

IVE years ago, whenUPA-I was finishing itsterm and seeking a sec-ond term in the 2009elections, the debate wasabout a “weak PrimeMinister” ManmohanSingh versus a “strongrival” LK Advani fromBharatiya Janata Party

(BJP). Various theories were floated abouthow the Congress may be at a disadvantage;the party could at best manage to increaseits seats marginally from the 2004 tally of145. It was said that the BJP would improveits 2004 tally of 138.

However, both proved way off the mark.Congress’ tally in 2009 jumped to 206,while the BJP’s plummeted to 116.

This time, with just a couple of weeks leftfor the first phase of polling in April 2014,the Congress’ morale is at an all-time low;electoral predictions show that at best it canwin 100 seats. BJP, which sat on the politicalperiphery for almost a decade, is riding on ahigh, all pumped up. Its leaders incrediblytalk of 272-plus seats for the party.

What has changed between 2009 and2014 are two factors. First, the dismaldecline of UPA-II, mired as it is in dozens ofscandals and scams. Policy paralysis andeconomic slowdown in the past few yearshave also worsened matters. The second is,however, more important. It is the arrival ofthe Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

A PARADIGM SHIFTThis new kid on the block is trying to changethe political discourse in a way not wit-nessed in this country for decades. As its 49-day Delhi assembly experiment proved,AAP wants to regain both the ruling andopposition slots. It does not want to give anypolitical space to its opponents. It has takendirect pot shots at the entrenched politicalclass and its two main proponents—Congress and BJP. Not just criticizing theirpolitics and the collusion between them, butalso identifying and taking on the businessforces behind them.

The attack on corporate groups and their

F

A new regime will need to quickly set up the Lokpal to stem the corruption rot.

Distribution of natural resources willcome under closer scrutiny.

in which Reliance Industries Limited hasbeen under scrutiny, will become a bench-mark on how the future government looksand acts on such issues. Distribution of nat-ural resources, be it coal, spectrum and oth-ers, will come under scrutiny, and the gov-ernment’s leeway in favoring its chosenones, will get increasingly limited.

The judiciary, which has been undertremendous pressure, both in terms of thehuge backlog, as well as its periodicattempts to overreach itself, will also have tokeep looking over its shoulder more often.The judicial accountability will now no morebe a matter of choice, as the proposed legis-lation is already in parliament, and if passedby the new regime, will ensure that thejudges have to maintain certain standards.

One area which is likely to gain moreand more traction and will put thepolitical parties under watch is the

way they distribute tickets. The AAP hasundertaken a path, which has attractedattention. Its decision to bring candidatesfrom the grassroots and after due consulta-tion with the constituents, despite this prin-ciple being said to have been overlooked insome cases, is likely to force other parties tofollow suit.

In fact, Rahul Gandhi’s decision to haveprimaries (akin to the US system) to choosecandidates in a few select constituencies is astep in that direction, obviously influencedby AAP’s experiment in Delhi.

This will change the electoral scene sub-stantially, once all parties adopt it or areforced to adopt it, increasingly. It may not beeasy for the entrenched parties to do so, inthe near future, but the pressure from itsworkers and cadres will force them to adoptit gradually. Will this mean a beginning ofthe end of quota politics or caste-basedchoices? It is too early to say confidently thatit would be for sure, but it certainly givessuch hopes.

Another important factor, which will bewitnessed increasingly, is the role of “out-siders” in electoral politics. Though therehave always been people from various walksof life, who don’t fit into the “politician” cat-egory fighting elections, this time it is differ-

have to, without wasting much time, goahead with the setting up of the Lokpal;UPA-II delayed the passage of the LokpalBill for various internal and external rea-sons. The other legislations like theGrievance Redressal Bill will have to bebrought in as the pressure will be unrelent-ing from the civil society groups, which havebeen espousing them.

The working of the business groups andthe impunity with which they have beenable to manipulate the political and eco-nomic system, will come under increasingscrutiny. For instance, the gas pricing issue,

THE NATION/ voters’ manifesto

Most parties will choose candidates from the grassroots. The election of “outsiders” will usher in inclusive politicsand change parliament’s face.

ACCEPTING CHANGEInfluenced by the AAPmodel, the Congressfamily has realised the need to be transparent while selecting candidates

Courtesy punecongress.com

ent. The emergence of AAP has given peoplefrom civil society—activists, academics, cor-porate honchos and grassroot workers—achance to get tickets to fight elections, undera popular banner.

While the relative success of these candi-dates will certainly inspire hope amongmore such people to enter the electoralarena in future, it will also force politicalparties to look to expand their catchmentarea. It will definitely usher in more inclu-sive politics, which has been the cry for a long time.

Another area which needs fixing is thelegislature. Over the last few decades, theperformance of parliament has only deterio-rated further, as noise has replaced legiti-mate voices. It is one area to which all parties will have to, and hopefully be forcedto, lend their time and energy. Even if a fewof the new faces in politics get into the LokSabha, it should make a difference.

The tensions seen in political partiesgoing through the throes of finalizing ticketsshould be seen as the churn happening inthe electoral arena. This churning should bevisible in the coming years in terms of gov-ernance and the way parties are run.

51April 15, 2014

� Corruption: It must be an utmost priorityfor the new government, which must getcracking on setting up Lokpal and gettingother crucial bills passed in parliament tocurb the menace.

� Business-politician nexus: The RIL-relat-ed gas pricing issue is a pointer, and thegovernment can’t be seen offering a lee-way for corporates to milk the political andeconomic system for their selfish ends.

� Patronage: The government of the dayshould be seen as being impartial in dis-tributing natural resources.

� Judiciary: Lack of judicial accountabilityhas vitiated the legal system and the gov-ernment will need to legislate quickly.

� Selection of candidates: The politicalparties should instil transparency overchoosing candidates for future elections,and tickets should be allotted on merit.

� Fresh Faces: People from all walks oflife should continue to fight elections.

� Parliament: All MPs must ensure thatLok Sabha sessions are effective.

Voters’ expectations

POLITICO-BUSINESSNEXUS?

BJP’s prime ministerialcandidate Narendra

Modi has been accusedof favouring top

business houses byAam Aadmi Party

IL

Getty Images

Pappupass

CASE STUDY/uttar pradesh/education scam

ducation is a great leveller, but not for the family of Neeraj Kumar,a Dalit boy from Shikohabad, in Uttar Pradesh. The 17-year-oldended his life in early March due to the pressure of paying `7,000 tothe principal of the center in order to appear for class X boardexaminations. The poverty-stricken family does manual jobs tomake ends meet, and Kumar contributed to the income. The familyhad already paid `4,000 to the principal, and the mother had mort-

gaged her ring to pay the remaining amount. Depressed by the situation, Neerajset himself on fire. The principal, who had forced about 700 candidates to paythe amount, was arrested. The case is a pointer to the state of education in UttarPradesh, the most populous state of India.

The state has many firsts in its cap, but not all are awe-inspiring. Take educa-tion, for instance. Globally, the UP Board of High School and IntermediateEducation holds the annual examination for the largest number of students. In2014, over 7 million candidates appeared for high school and intermediateexams. But the figure hides the dismal state of education in India’s largest state.

While criminalization of politics is an accepted fact in India, especially UP, it

E

ho gaya

allahabad high court finds examination fraud has assumed alarming dimensions in the state

By Rakesh Bhatnagar

53April 15, 2014

is terrifying when it permeates the educa-tion sphere. This is manifested during theexams when, in an attempt to boost marks,unfair means are used and the powers-that-be turn a Nelson’s Eye to it. Interestingly,after the Bollywood movie, Munna BhaiMBBS, which deals with cheating and illegalways to pass exams, hit the theatre in 2003,novel ways became popular in the state.Dishonest students took to using smart-phones, microchips and bluetooth devices.

CHEATING TAGIn UP, this state of affairs is, in fact, perpet-uated with impunity by those in power—lawmakers, ministers, bureaucrats and con-stitutional authorities. Shockingly, schoolsand colleges which were blacklisted andfaced criminal investigations for facilitatingcopying have been designated as examina-tion centers. In the process, many recog-nized institutions, which wanted clean exa-mination, were denied the right to choose aclean examination center. The situationdeteriorated to such an extent that schoolsfiled a petition against the tainted centers inthe Allahabad High Court.

In its judgment, the court slammed theeducation department. It noted the spurt inthe number of students who passed theexams, whenever the Samajwadi Party came

to power in the state. The order read: “The Court is constrained

to observe that the menace of mass copyingand malpractices in the examinations con-ducted by the Board is frightening.” Thehigh court also pointed out that the provi-sions of the Uttar Pradesh PublicExaminations (Prevention of Unfair Means)Act, 1998, were ignored in recent years. “Itis evident that in the year 1998, when theAct came into being, the percentage of thesuccessful candidates in the high school andintermediate sharply declined.”

Between 1998 and 2003, the figure fluc-tuated between a low of 28.07 percent(1998) and a high of 40.91 percent (2003)in high school, and between 55.29 percent(1998) and 70.51 percent (2003) in theintermediate examination.

But after Mulayam Singh Yadav becamethe chief minister in 2003, the pass percent-age sharply rose to 70 percent in high schooland 89 percent in intermediate the nextyear. Each time there was a change of gov-ernment in the state, the pass percen-tage varied. In 2012 and 2013, it was an “all-time high of 83.75 percent and 86.63 per-cent in high school, and 89.4 percent and92.68 percent in intermediate,” the judg-ment said. Incidentally, Mulayam’s son,Akhilesh, became the CM in 2012.

ONE FOR THERECORD: Chief

Minister AkhileshYadav distributingfree laptops to girl

students as partof his pet scheme

After Mulayam Singh Yadav became the chief minister in 2003, the

pass percentage sharply rose to 70 percent in high school and 89 percent

in intermediate the next year.

54 April 15, 2014

Obviously, the court wondered how thepercentages of successful candidates vary sowidely, “when syllabus, teachers and infra-structure of the institutions are the same....”It added: “It is obvious that high percentageof successful candidates in the high schooland intermediate cannot be attributed to theimprovement of standard of education, butthere may be some extraneous reasons.”

What has further led to the erosion ofeducation is the dropout rate. While over 23million children between 6-10 years go toschool in UP, the figure drops to just over 15million in the 11-13 age group. Eight millionchildren drop out of schools every year.Further, 1.1 lakh children above 13 yearsleave their schools. Thus the dropout rate issharp in middle and high school (matric).

PAUCITY OF TEACHERSThe state government failed to recruit10,000 assistant teachers for the over 1.68lakh schools. Justice Pradeep Kumar SinghBaghel, who gave the above mentioned judgment, noted: “From this fact alone, it isevident that the malpractices in examina-tions in the state have assumed an alarmingproportion.” In addition, nearly 4,000 sanc-tioned posts in schools have been vacant foryears. Not surprising, considering that since2006 UP hasn’t “created even a single postin recognized and aided degree colleges”.

All this is having a damning effect on stu-dents. They have to get 75 percent atten-dance for appearing in the university exami-nation. But the high court asked: “Whenthere is acute shortage of teachers in degreecolleges, how can any institution ensure that100 percent classes are held so that the stu-dents may achieve the required attendance?”

Instead of seeking remedies to amelioratethis situation, Chief Minister AkhileshYadav has preferred to opt for populist

measures, like the distribution of laptops to1.5 million students in 2013.

GIRL CHILDThe less said about the girls the better.Although the state government issued adirection on October 19, 2013 that in ruralareas there should be a ‘self-center’ for girlstudents (where they study) and if that wasnot possible, it should be located at thenearest place, the reality is far different.

Even a statutory restriction on the educa-tion department regarding examinationcenters for rural girl students is not beingfollowed. It says that these centers shouldnot be outside their village, but the fact isthat the girls often have to walk 10-20 km toreach the centers. Needless to say, this neg-lect increased the number of girls droppingout of schools after Class X.

There are stipulations that girl studentsfrom one institution should not be allotteddifferent examination centers so that all ofthem can be adjusted at one center.

Pertinently, Judge Baghel noted: “I findthat in respect of large number of institu-tions, the girl students have been allotteddifferent centers. In the minutes producedbefore the Court, no reason has beenassigned why the government order has notbeen complied with.”

India may have implemented the Right toEducation Act at the national level, butunless the state of education improves instates, they are likely to find themselves in asituation akin to Uttar Pradesh. IL

CASE STUDY/ uttar pradesh/education scam

56 April 15, 2014

HUMAN INTEREST/ dowry laws

this is often the plaintive cry of men arrested under section 498a related to

dowry harassment. the conviction rate isjust five percent, clearly indicating how

much this law has been misusedBy Anik Basu

SAVE OUR

SOULS…

Pra

deep

Sai

ni

57April 15, 2014

HY must aman be arres-

ted just be-cause his wife

says he hasbeen cruel? Why

would not thepolice question

the woman? Can’tshe be lying?” This emotive queryfrom Srinivas Dadi Rao, 44, is notwithout basis. The Kolkata-basedconvenor of Save Indian FamilyFoundation, an NGO counselingmen in marital disputes, articulatesthe trauma a man undergoes whenfalsely implicated by his spouse: “It’sso easy to believe it’s the womanwho’s been wronged, and that theman has been harassing her.”

Registration of crimes againstwomen under Section 498A of theIndian Penal Code has seen a quan-tum jump from 50,000 to 1.6 lakhduring the 2002-2012 period. Afterthe horrendous gang rape in Delhiin December 2012, this figure hasshot up even more.

But what is the conviction rate?An abysmal five percent, accordingto the 2012 data from the NationalCrime Records Bureau.

RAMPANT MISUSEIf you wonder why the situation isso skewed, the answer may lie withthe litigant women themselves.Section 498A was formulated in1983 to protect women fromharassment over dowry. It clearlystates: “Whoever being the hus-band or the relative of the hus-band of a woman, subjects suchwoman to cruelty shall be pun-ished with imprisonment for aterm which may extend to three

years and shall also be liable to fine.The offence is cognizable, non-com-poundable and non-bailable.”

REVERSE JUSTICEThe sweeping ambit of these wordshas often been misused by manywomen and has left the victimswringing their hands in despair. Acomplaint by a woman under thedowry act can keep her husbandand in-laws in prison for an inordi-nate time.

Surprisingly, there is anotheraspect to this. As Kolkata HighCourt advocate Arpita Chowdhuryputs it: “Misuse is prevalent amongupper strata women; they are liter-ate and know the law.” It may wellbe an unfortunate case of puttingeducation to wrong use.

Taking note of the increasinglyfraudulent cases under Section498A, even the Supreme Courttermed them “legal terrorism”. Civilsociety, legal professionals andNGOs have vehemently spokenagainst misuse of this section meantto protect women.

Mita Chatterjee, a lawyer practis-ing in Alipore Court, says: “It is truethat women are misusing 498A andusing it as a weapon instead of ashield. Men have no law that pro-tects their interest.”

What many do not realize is thatin the process, many genuine dowryvictims have to suffer as they too

A complaint by a woman under the dowry actcan keep her husband or in-laws in prison foran inordinate time. Even the Supreme Courttermed the fraudulent cases as legal terrorism.

W

58 April 15, 2014

Do you agree that manywomen misuse Section498A?Section 498A was intro-duced in 1983 to protectmarried women frombeing subjected to crueltyby husband or his rela-tives. But with growingawareness, we are witness-ing a new trend—moreand more women areusing the section as aweapon, instead of as ashield against harassment.

What has been yourexperience in handlingvarious cases under theSection 498A? During my 10-year practice, I have comeacross several cases where the section wasmisused. For instance, there was a case fileda few months ago by a working woman. Hercharge against the husband was that he didnot wipe the dining table after meals and shebeing a working woman, had to do the chore.

This was not a dowry case. It was a malad-justment issue, and should not have led tothe woman filing a case.

It is sad that only a small percentage ofpeople who are victims of cruelty againstwomen are taking help of this law. I’d sayonly about 20 of the 100 genuine victimscome to seek legal help.

Why do the victims shy away?This is due to various reasons such as lack ofawareness and low literacy levels. Anotherimportant reason is their financial status.Most victims of domestic violence hail from

rural areas and in manycases they do not take requi-site legal help.

But in urban areas, theopposite is true. I have comeacross men who are soscared of this section thatthey are ready to do any-thing their wives dictate.

Can a charge be levelledunder 498A even if nodowry is demanded?Yes. Any Indian woman—orfor that matter her rela-tives—can file a case under498A against her husband,his parents, uncles, aunts,sisters, brothers and otherrelatives. A 498A case leads

to arrest without any verification or investi-gation, making it a cognizable offense.

How long does a typical 498A case last?It can drag on for two to three years. Surveysdone by various NGOs show around 92-94percent of cases are found to be false andfiled by wives only for certain motives.

What can a man do if found not guilty?He can file a case of defamation. If someonedefames you, you can sue her to pay damagesfor harming your reputation.

What is the end result of 498A? What arethe chances of reconciliation?Since it is a non-compoundable offense,there is little scope of any reconciliation. Thecouples usually seek divorce. Normally, thehusband’s family ends up paying a hugeamount to settle the case.

Failure to adjust to the husband’s habits is not a valid ground for filing acomplaint under Section 498A, says Kolkata lawyer MMita Chatterjee

‘Maladjustment malady’

HUMAN INTEREST/ dowry laws

59April 15, 2014

neer, who got separated six months aftertheir marriage, says, “There were severalplayers who brought an end to my marriage.No one helped in trying to save it.”

It all began when he commented on anomelette made by his wife. As relationsexacerbated, it culminated in divorce fiveyears later. In between, he spent 14 days injail due to 498A.

Rabindranath Sen, 35, is a traumatizedman today. He spent two weeks in jail,thanks to 498A. Though he got bail, it wasso stressful that he even attempted suicide,thanks to the same woman he had courtedfor three years and then married. But themarriage lasted three months.

The issue: Sen’s in-laws wanted him tolive with them. But he asks, “What about myown parents? I couldn’t abandon them andso refused to move in with my in-laws.”

The situation took an ugly turn one daywhen the couple decided to resolve the issueat the woman’s parents’ house. When hereached there, he was immediately arrested.

Today, Sen is philosophical. “I realize thiscan be a new beginning in my life. But I stilllove my wife and want her to be happy.”

Sen is not wrong. For strange are the ways of the heart.

are viewed with suspicion. Chatterjee addsthat only a fifth of genuine victims of crimeagainst women actually step forward tolodge complaints.

While most of us are used to women nar-rating their sorry tales, men get little sympa-thy. Amit Gupta from Raipur is a harassedman. He was slapped with a dowry harass-ment case by his wife within days of gettingmarried in 2012. She named his mother andsister as co-accused. But the court dismissedthe charges against the two women. Guptasays: “I was not surprised as they weretrumped-up charges.” But he was not solucky himself as he had to spend two days ina lock-up in Ahmedabad where hisestranged wife lives. His own trial is yet to begin.

Chowdhury remembers the case of a manwho came to her for help. “He lived in fear of498A and showed me a letter from his wifeto demonstrate how she had tortured himmentally and threatened him with 498A,”she says, adding, “she had also lodged a com-plaint with the Women’s Commission tokeep up the pressure on him.”

What could help highlight the misuse of498A, say experts, is a push by celebrities.This has helped in cases such as surrogacy(thanks to Aamir Khan) and mastectomy(Angelina Jolie espousing the cause). Themen need help from the media too.

TRAGIC TALESUnfortunately in many cases, men areunwilling to take the matters head-on.Chowdhury says that she advised the man tofirst file a police complaint. But he refused,saying he would rather suffer his wife’s tor-ment than make life miserable for theirchild. “I could not do anything for him afterthat,” she says.

Tragically, some cases can lead to suicidetoo. Chowdhury says that once an elderlyman came to her saying his daughter-in-lawhad driven his son to suicide. After he filedan FIR, the police found substance in hisallegation and arrested the accused.

Activists and victims say that in manycases, it is family members who stoke thefires. Ramyajyoti Sarkar, 36, a software engi-

� Top three states leadingin the number of cases filedunder 498A: West Bengal,Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan� Number of crimesagainst women in WestBengal: 31,000� Number of dowry casesin this state in 2012: 19,865� Number of cases regis-tered under 498A in AndhraPradesh: 13,389� Number of cases under498A in Rajasthan: 13,312(These figures are for 2012)

COPING WITH ABUSE (L-R) Lawyer Arpita Chowdhury; Rabindranath Sen who was jailed after his wife slapped a 498A case against him; and Srinivas Dadi Rao who counsels harassed men

Litigationgalore

IL

60 April 15, 2014

FOCUS/ nursery admissions/lawsuits

God, get meinto school

this ardent prayer of a three-year-old in delhi reflects the desperation of countless families

By Parveen Goribidnur

Parveen Goribidnur

61April 15, 2014

cence of her wish. Some people opened theireyes and smiled at her, others lookedstunned. I felt guilty. Had I inadvertentlytransferred my angst over nursery admis-sions to the little mite? Had she gauged thetrauma I was undergoing?

Nursery admissions today have become abyword for stress, nepotism and indecision.And, it has become the playground for thelarger battles one will face later in life. Butsurely, three years is too young an age tostart learning the laws of the jungle. Butthen, this is India where demand is alwaysmore than supply. What makes nurseryadmissions worse this year has been thesheer confusion pervading the issue, withpolicy-makers making one directive afteranother, leaving parents angry.

When did this havoc start? In December2013, when admissions started for 2014-2015. On December 9, the Directorate ofEducation (DoE) received instructions fromLieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung’s officethat the guidelines for 2013 should be fol-lowed for 2014 too. But on December 18,the LG did an about-turn and issued newcriteria. It was as follows: those within a 6km radius would be given 70 points; alum-ni, 5 points; and siblings, 20 points. Fivepercent seats were to be reserved for girls.

This created uproar, as those from north,east and west Delhi said there weren’tenough schools within a 6 km radius, andthat south Delhi schools were better thanthe ones in their area. On December 27, theDoE amended the neighborhood criteria toexpand it to a radius of 8 km.

When schools started receiving applica-tions, parents ran helter-shelter, applying toas many schools as physically possible, as itwas all a matter of luck. I wasn’t any differ-ent. I teamed up with a neighbor who was inthe same predicament as me. After drop-ping our kids to play-school, we would fol-low a roster as there was little time to lose.

DIFFERENT CRITERIAThe next hurdle was paying the registrationfee. Some schools welcomed online pay-ments, others wanted parents to come toschool before 9 am, pay, get the applicationform and then, come again at a different

T is quiet and serene and afar cry from the stress andstrain of daily life. Thetranquil meditation cen-ter at Aurobindo Ashramin Delhi is a green oasis,which lulls the harriedbrain and soothes thetired soul. As people sitaround meditating, mythree-year-old, hyperac-tive daughter too calms

down and closes her eyes in pensive reverie.I breathe a sign of relief and absorb thepeace of the place.

Suddenly, I hear my daughter pleading,“Aurobindo, please get me admission in aschool.” I am aghast, embarrassed even, butalso moved by the earnestness and inno-

IAGE OF INNOCENCE

As these tiny tots pray for school admissionare they even aware of the travails their

parents are going through?

Nursery admissions today have become abyword for stress, nepotism and indecision.

And, it has become the playground for thelarger battles one will face later in life.

LIFE AND DEATH MATTERSA couple racks its brains overthe requirements mentioned inthe school form

62 April 15, 2014

time to submit it. Worse, the photo of thechild, which had to uploaded on some schoolwebsites, was a different specification eachtime. If your head is swirling in confusion, sowas mine. But that was nothing compared tothe long queues at schools everywhere.

We would plan which school to visitwhen, check out its location and prioritizevarious files with relevant documents. Weapplied to no less than 35 schools, exploredparts of Delhi we hadn’t seen before andsavored delicacies we hadn’t tasted ever dur-ing our daily rounds between 9-12 pm.

After the date for submission of applica-tions got over, the next drama began. Asschools began to put up the lists of those reg-istered, the lacunae in the LG’s policy wasevident. First, transfer points created havoc.People transferred to Delhi from other statesor countries from January 1 to December 31in 2013 were given five extra points. In acountry like ours where getting certificates iseasy, schools began to get bogged down with

transfer cases, several fake ones too. Thisleft general category cases out in the cold aspoints had got awarded to alumni, siblingand now, transfer cases.

PILs GALOREThis growing frustration found a ready out-let in portals like admissionsnursery.comand social media like Facebook. Parentsbegan to form groups and formally protest-ed. Finally, a PIL was filed, after which, onFebruary 27, the high court ordered thescrapping of transfer points. It askedschools to start draws again.

And then began the endless wait. As myneighbor and I kept checking the websitesof the numerous schools we had applied to,our despondency increased. Our daughters’names were nowhere on any list.

To top it, another group of parents filed aPIL challenging the “partial redraw”, whichconsidered seats left by transfer points. TheHC again ordered a fresh draw with allapplicants included, other than those apply-ing under sibling and alumni points. Andthere was more coming. A group of parents,who were genuine transfer cases, filed a PILagainst the scrapping of transfer points asthey felt their right had been violated.

There was also another group of parentswho sought inclusive education for theirdisadvantaged children. These parents fileda PIL that they didn’t want their children tobe combined with EWS.

A fifth PIL was filed on March 7, this timeagainst those getting alumni points.Questions were asked as to why the admis-sion process should be a dynastic one. Whyshould children only from certain familiescontinue to go to good schools? Wasn’t theRight to Education everyone’s basic right?

The Supreme Court finally brought theentire process to a halt, demanding that theconcerned parties produce documents. Itordered that no new draw should take placetill March 24. However, at the time of goingto press, the stay on the draw of lots had notbeen lifted.

Meanwhile, my daughter and I walkaround our neighborhood in the evenings,enjoying the calm and serenity. And yes,harboring hope too. IL

FOCUS/ nursery admissions/lawsuits

Pramod Pushkarna

PHOTO ESSAY/ refugees/right to vote

64

TANGdespite the election commission’s decision onelectoral rights for tibetans,many of them may not beable to cast their ballot in 2014. elders fear that indian citizenship may be the lastnail in their dream of anindependent tibet

TIBETAN

April 15, 2014

Photos by ShivaniDasmahapatraand Javed Sultan

By Ramesh Menon

65April 15, 2014

T is a feeling of belonging. Of beingvalued. Of having an identity.When news broke out that theElection Commission (EC) of Indiahad ordered states to include chil-dren of Tibetan refugees born inIndia between 1950 and 1987 inthe electoral rolls, there were

mixed feelings. For the one lakh migrants inIndia, mainly living in refugee camps, it wasan emotional moment. For the first timesince they had fled the Chinese repression,they were being recognized not as refugees,but as citizens of a country. The EC’s movecame after a Karnataka High Court order inAugust 2013 paved the way for grantingIndian citizenship to Tibetans.

The process of polling rights began whenTenzin Choephang Ling Rinpochwe, aTibetan born in India, was denied an Indianpassport due to his ori-gin. He went to court

and secured an order granting it to him.Sherab Tsedor, 29, a seasoned Tibetan

activist born in Delhi, dreams of an inde-pendent Tibet every day. He has never beenthere, nor will he be able to secure a visa ashe is on the Chinese watch list. He set him-self on fire in November 2011 in front of theChinese embassy, demanding freedom forTibet. Alert policemen managed to put outthe fire. Sherab was hospitalized for manyweeks and had to undergo 12 plastic surger-ies on his damaged left foot. But he’s a bat-tle-hardened war horse, who has taken partin over 30 protests in front of the Chineseembassy and has spent seven terms in TiharJail for doing so.

Today, he wonders, “Will my vote in Indiadilute the way I look at our fight for free-dom? We have to remain pure Tibetans inour struggle and not dilute it. If we becomeIndians, how can we demand Tibet?”

A WAY OF LIFEIndia has many settlements for Tibetans—in

Majnu Ka Tilla, Dharamshala andMcLeod Ganj. They have lived inIndia for decades, zealouslyguarding their culture and way of

life. That’s the only way to keepreminding themselves of their ulti-

mate goal of a free Tibet. They spokein many voices to India Legal of their

vision for their homeland, their strug-gles and the inducements offered to

forget Tibet.

LONGING FOR HOMETenzin Lhakyi wants toremain a Tibetan, notIndian

I

PHOTO ESSAY/ refugees/right to vote

66 April 15, 2014

Migmar Tsering, secretary, envi-ronment and culture, RegionalTibetan Youth Congress, was born inDelhi 42 years ago. He still nursesmemories of his only visit to Tibet atthe age of nine. “I will never forget mytrip to Kham via Lhasa. It was soclean and beautiful everywhere. Therivers were sparkling. Tibet is anotherworld,” he sighs.

He recounts how a Taiwaneseleader once came to Majnu ka Tilla inDelhi, where there is a large Tibetansettlement, and tried to persuadethem to look at China as their coun-try. “He brought 500 blankets and300 cartons of biscuits to be distrib-uted. The people got so angry at thisinducement that they wanted to burnthe blankets and cartons. But we saidthat we should sell them, and use themoney to further our fight for justice.We want a free country, not freebies.”

Many have been persecuted andpunished for dreaming of a free Tibet.It’s not easy for them to let go of thisinspiration that has been the guidinglight in their lives. Ven Bagdro, aTibetan living in Dharamshala for thepast 21 years, still remembers March

5, 1988, when China saw one of thebiggest uprisings for a free Tibet. Ventook part in it and shouted a slogan,asking China to get the Dalai Lamaback to Tibet. As a consequence ofthis, he was put into a prison in Chinafor four years.

CHINESE TORTUREIt’s not easy for him to forget the tor-ture he underwent. Soon after hisarrest, he was made to stand barefooton ice for 35 minutes. When hestepped out, the skin of his foot stuckto the ice and left him bleeding. Hewas beaten with electric batons andmade to confess that he had killed apoliceman during the protest. He sayshe did it to escape the torture. He wasthen sent to prison.

After his release, he trudged forthree months across the Himalayas toenter India. Today, he lives inDharamshala and spends his timewriting. He has authored 12 books, hislatest being A Hell on Earth.Obviously, he is referring to whatChina did to the Tibetans. He says,“By allowing us the right to vote, Indiahas shown that it treats us on par with

Years ago, Ven Bagdro’s feet

started bleeding whenhe was made to stand

on ice and then stepout as his skin got

separated. He was forced to

confess he killed a Chinese policeman.Trudging across theHimalayas to come

to India, Ven now lives in Dharamshala

and hopes the fight forTibet’s independence

will not die out.

CANDLES IN THE WIND(clockwise from above) An aged lady who would have experienced the uprootingnow at peace with life in India; a devotee rotating the prayer wheels at a monastery; children oblivious to the brutalities their elders have suffered

67April 15, 2014

Indians. But it has to continue supportingus in our fight for an independent Tibet.The world should recognize the Tibetissue as it is a global question now.” Hedoes not intend to vote.

In street corners at Majnu ka Tilla, theEC order has unleashed a torrent of emo-tions. People are talking not just about theoption of voting in India, but in Tibet, nomatter how remote that might seem.

Migmar says emphatically, “Tibet has

to be free. We are so different from theChinese. Compare our culture, religion,beliefs, clothes and food. How can we notsucceed? Look at movements all over theworld. I may not see freedom, but my chil-dren and grandchildren will see it.” Hisoptimism is touching.

Busy restaurateur Tenzin Lhakyi is onthe horns of a dilemma about whether tovote and be accepted as an Indian orabstain and continue being the refugee

“Just becausewe vote in India

doesn’t meanour fight for a

free Tibet is over.”

—KARTEN TSERING,president, RWA,

Majnu Ka Tilla

PHOTO ESSAY/ refugees/right to vote

68 April 15, 2014

that she is her resettlement colony.She was born in Ladakh, but dreamsof living in Tibet. Probably that’s whyshe didn’t apply for a voter identitycard, nor intends to.

LOSING CONCESSIONSAnother reason that many

are baulking at voting inIndia is that they will be seen as

Indians. That means foregoingnumerous concessions and facili-

ties given to refugees such as schol-arships and visas to settle abroad.Many of Tenzin’s friends have settledin Canada, the US, Switzerland,Australia and Belgium. Others havetaken advantage of Fulbright scholar-ships to study abroad. Her two broth-ers and four sisters have settledabroad. Maybe, she will too.

Her eyes soften as she talks of herfather, Tsultrim Gyatso, 75, who was amonk in Tibet, and today, sellssweaters in Dehradun. He survived13 bullets wounds when he was fired

at by the Chinese army whilefleeing to India. “It is a

miracle he sur-vived, con-

sidering

that those fleeing with him manuallytook out the bullets and nursed him.He had a pendant with Dalai Lama’spicture in it. He thinks it saved him.Every Tibetan in India will have astory to narrate as each one has surmounted different kinds of prob-lems,” she says.

Even youngsters like LobsangYangtso have their hearts beating forTibet. She came to India at the age ofnine as her mother wanted her tostudy in a Tibetan school, not aChinese one. Pursuing her doctoratein Chinese studies from JawaharlalNehru University, she says: “Even if Ivote, I will still feel like a refugee inIndia as my family is in Tibet.Someday, I hope I will be able to goback,” she says.

GRATEFUL TO INDIAOthers are grateful that India consid-ers them one of their own. KartenTsering, 46, is the president of theresidents’ welfare association inMajnu ka Tilla. His father, Wangyal,fled Tibet in 1959. They stayed for awhile in Arunachal Pradesh, and thencame to Delhi, where they lived in aslum. It was only in 1963 that they

“The struggle for anindependent Tibet is

sacred for us. We mustfocus on our struggle

and not get diverted bythe lure of privileges. Ifwe do that today, future

generations will forgetwhat the fight aboutTibet was all about.”

— TENSZIN TSUNDUE, award-winning writer and activist

“Will my vote inIndia dilute the wayI look at our fightfor freedom? If webecome Indians,how can wedemand Tibet?”

— SHERAB TSEDOR,activist

69April 15, 2014

shifted to Majnu ka Tilla. Karten wasborn after they settled down there.His parents lived a hard life and asthey did not want Karten to grow upseeing that, they sent him off to theCentral School for Tibetans inHimachal Pradesh.

Karten sees the Indian govern-ment’s move on voting rights as awonderful gesture that the Tibetansshould be grateful for. “It means thatIndia recognizes and values us. Wehave got an identity. Just because wevote does not mean that our fight forTibet is over. There are thousands ofTibetans all over the world, but noneof them have given up on Tibet. If wewere offered Chinese citizenship, wewould have thought a thousandtimes, but why should we hesi-tate to take Indian citizen-ship?” he questions.

But even if they are willing tovote, the process islong. Award-win-

ning writer and activist TenszinTsundue says that while it is mag-nanimous of India to let Tibetansvote, it does not mean that they canvote in the coming elections.

They first have to submit their reg-istration certificates which classifythem as foreigners in India. Theywould then have to apply for Indiancitizenship. This will take at leastone-and-a-half years, after which,they can get voter cards.

He echoes what many Tibetansfeel, “Most of us do not want tobecome Indians as the struggle for anindependent Tibet is sacred for us.We must focus on our struggle andnot get diverted by the lure of privi-leges. If we do that today, future gen-erations will forget what the fight

about Tibet was all about.”Will Tibet happen some day?

Answers Sherab, “ India took 200years to gain freedom. We have onlyfought for 60 years. IL

SPORTS/ ipl/sharjah

70 April 15, 2014

STATEMENTS OF PAKISTANI CRICKETERS TOTHE JUSTICE QAYYUM INQUIRY COMMITTEE ON MATCH-FIXING (2000)

IN DAWOOD’S DENdespite charges of match-fixing in 2013, the bcci has shifted ipl’s

coming season to sharjah, the base for betting mafia By Gaurav Kalra

MASTER FIXER: Mafia don Dawood Ibrahim during acricket match in Sharjah

SARFRAZ NAWAZ said that betting on cricket start-ed in 1979-80 when Pakistan was on the tour ofIndia under the captaincy of Asif Iqbal. He said thatthis spread to Sharjah and it was from there thatmatch-fixing started on a larger scale.

BASIT ALI, member of Pakistani squad from 1993 to1995, deposed that he received a call a day beforethe final of the Australasia Cup in Sharjah in 1994,made by Raqeeb who offered him `10 lakh if hewould get himself out for less than 10 runs.

JAVED MIANDAD appeared before the Committeeand stated that during the Pakistan-England matchat Sharjah, he had received a phone call fromsomeone apparently reliable and whom he did notwant to name, who said that the match was fixed.

AAMIR SOHAIL maintained that match-fixing takesplace in Sharjah and that Saleem Pervez hadinformed him that he had paid money to SalimMalik, Mushtaq Ahmad, Inzamam-ul-Haq andWaqar Younis.

WASIM AKRAM also told the Justice Qayyuminquiry committee that he had talked to someonecalled Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar on the phone, whotold him that the Pakistan match with England atSharjah had been fixed.

S71April 15, 2014

Sharjah in the UnitedArab Emirates had beenmentioned during vari-ous inquiries as a venuewhere match-makingoccurred. In January

2001, the Emirates Cricket Boardcommissioned a private Inquiry,under the chairmanship of theGeorge W Staple CB QC, to examineallegations that directly impingedupon Sharjah as a venue. The inquirycommission, which also included for-mer West Indian captain Clive Lloydand Brigadier Mohammed K AlMualla, submitted its confidentialinterim report to the Board in 2001.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PAULCONDON REPORT (2001)

Getty Images

HARJAH, United Arab Emirates. A generation of cricket fans is transport-ed to an uneasy universe at its mention. Such fanatic followers, who havewatched cricket matches at the venue during the 1980s and 1990s, areforced by a string of wretched memories. Javed Miandad’s last ball six offmedium pacer Chetan Sharma to win the finals for Pakistan in 1986 ran-kles to this day. Aaqib Javed’s hat trick in 1991, which was made dubiousbecause of the three LBWs, was another bitter pill to swallow. During the2000s, the venue fell off the cricket map, when the Indian governmentimposed a ban on its team playing in Sharjah in 2001 because of allegationsof match fixing, including the Hansie Cronje affair, when the late SouthAfrican skipper admitted he had manipulated games along with bookiesand punters, and CBI’s interim report in 2000, which led to a ban on seniorIndian players like Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja.

later, it was a grim reminder of why Sharjahwas best avoided. It is well known that theringmasters of betting syndicates that runthe global illegal operations are still based inthe Middle East.

In the recent Justice Mukul MudgalCommittee report into IPL match fixing,one of the three panel members, NilayDutta, observed that the Delhi Police had“intercepted” calls between Indian bookies,who mentioned names of two “internation-al-level Indian players”, and their partnersbased in Dubai and Pakistan. Dutta wasemphatic that Ibrahim still controlledmatch-fixing and illegal betting syndicatesacross the globe.

UAE’S MURKY PASTSharjah’s reputation as a credible venue wasdamaged when stark and shocking detailsabout vile activities there made their wayinto public domain in the 2000s. In a testi-mony published in Pakistan’s QayyumInquiry report in 2000, former Pakistanfast-bowling great, Sarfraz Nawaz,described it as the place from where “match-fixing started on larger scale”. According toan article in London’s Telegraph inNovember 2011, Pakistan’s opening bats-man, Aamir Sohail, who played internation-al cricket from 1990 to 2001, told the com-mittee that “match fixing mainly takes placein Sharjah”, and a local bookie claimed hepaid $100,000 to two Pakistani players tothrow a final against Australia.

A year later, the BBC’s cricket correspon-dent, Jonathan Agnew, insisted that “Iwould swear under oath that two of thedozen or so matches I have witnessed onthat desert ground over the years were fixed:both of them by Pakistan”. There is more evi-dence of just how vulnerable players were,and perhaps could be, in Sharjah. AdamHollioake, who led England in a tournamentthere in 1997, recounted his experience tothe BBC’s Panorama program in 2001.

His account is chilling and worth repro-ducing in full: “Basically I arrived in myhotel room to be greeted after about four orfive minutes by a phone call from an anony-mous caller asking me for information aboutwhat my batting line up was going to be and

Cricket almost vanished from the UAEuntil 2011 when it became the “home” venuefor Pakistan following the 2009 terroristattack in Lahore, when the bus which wascarrying Sri Lankan cricketers to the matchvenue was attacked. India still shied awayfrom Sharjah. Now, 13 years after the ban,the Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) has decided to rekindle its “love-hate” affair with the desert outpost.

Sharjah, along with Abu Dhabi andDubai, will share 16 matches in the firstphase of this season’s Indian PremierLeague (IPL), which had to find a tempo-rary home outside India because of thenational elections in April-May 2014 thatcoincide with the league’s window. Why didthe BCCI, whose president, N Srinivasan,has been asked by the Supreme Court torelinquish his post due to charges of matchfixing against his son-in-law, choose venuesthat have the most dubious antecedents?

IBRAHIM & COThe images of underworld kingpin andIndia’s most-wanted terrorist DawoodIbrahim watching cricket from the stands inSharjah in the 1980s cannot be forgotten.Recently, former India captain DilipVengsarkar told an audience how Ibrahimentered the dressing room of the Indianteam in Sharjah in 1986 and offered theplayers a car each if it beat Pakistan in thefinals. Despite Vengsarkar’s clumsy denials

DUBIOUS CONNECTIONS:Cricketer S Sreesanth wasbanned by BCCIlast year for hisalleged links withbookies accusedof spotfixing during IPL 6

SPORTS/ ipl/sharjah

72 April 15, 2014

ment of UAE has given us all the assurancesabout staging a corruption-free tourna-ment.” The ICC, which has its headquartersin Dubai, offered help. “Recognizing theimportance of the integrity of the competi-tion, the ICC will provide its full support forthe matches in the UAE, including throughthe provision of anti-corruption services,” itsstatement promised.

The over-riding concern is whether aneco-system that appears to be overrun bydeceit, lucre and avarice can be containeddespite assurances from the BCCI andUAE? The BCCI claims that after the allega-tions in the last season, key recommen-dations by its anti-corruption chief RaviSawani were taken on board and “morerobust protocols” are in place to fight corruption. Anti-corruption officers will staywith the IPL teams, there will be stricterrules about valuable gifts given to the play-ers and umpires, and visitors’ access to play-ers will be restricted.

The battle though is one of hearts andminds. A large section of fans will samplethe IPL this time with cynicism. They willquestion on-field events and snigger atweird occurrences. Clearly, the seventh edi-tion of IPL faces a crisis of credibility.Players, officials and team owners standcharged for a series of grave misdemeanors.Despite all the bells and whistles that makeIPL attractive, winning the trust back of itsfans will be BCCI’s biggest challenge.

who I was going to bowl first, what I wasgoing to do if I won the toss, etc. etc. Fiveminutes later I received another phone call.I was phoned by someone different sayingthat I’d spoken to his colleague a few min-utes earlier and saying that if I wanted tobecome very wealthy I should basicallyspeak to him and arrange to meet with him.I hadn’t even played my first game as cap-tain of England at the time, and I’d basicallyplayed five one-day internationals.”

BUKHATIR’S BRAVADO The rise, fall and rise of Sharjah can beattributed to one person: Abdul RahmanBukhatir, a leading local businessman, whobrought cricket to the city in the first placein the 1980s. Recognized as the father ofcricket in the Middle East, he never gave uphis ambition to make Sharjah a regularvenue for global cricket. Despite the 2001ban, it held the 2004 ICC IntercontinentalCup, which was held between nations thathad not got a test status from theInternational Cricket Council (ICC).

In 2010, when Afghanistan emerged as astrong second-tier cricket team, Bukhatirconvinced the nation to choose Sharjah asits “home” ground for international match-es, given the fact that Afghanistan waswracked by issues related to the presence ofUS forces and rising clout of the Taliban. Ayear later, the Pakistan Cricket Boardembraced the city for its own matches.

Bukhatir hoped that Sharjah’s “secondinnings would be a long one”. He said in2011 that “the whole idea is to interlinkcricket between the Emirates and create asolid base for cricket”. He now has his dreamwish. There can be no greater impetus thanthe arrival of cricket’s most high-octaneproduct. The IPL doesn’t just attract theworld’s top-playing talent, but makes theworld dance to its tune while it’s on. It is aperfect league to marry cricket, entertain-ment and eyeballs.

COMPLACENT BCCIThe key question: is the BCCI decision tomove IPL to a destination that evokes suspi-cion based on sound judgment? IPL chair-man Ranjib Biswal reassures: “The govern- IL

� Investigations by the Delhi Police have revealed that the illegal cricket betting crime syndicate is being headed by Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, whois a known declared terrorist, based abroad.� An intercepted voice call between Mr. Chandra Prakash Jain @Chandresh Jain @ Jupiter and accused Mr. Ashwani Aggarwal @ TinkuMandi on 15.05.2013 at 0042 hours shows interalia the involvement of Mr. Chandresh Jain in trans hawala operations, high level fixing of players(names being taken of two international level Indian cricketers) and connections with Pakistan and Dubai-based members of the syndicate.� Mr. Chandresh Patel, according to Delhi Police is one of the key henchmen/fixer of Dawood Ibrahim. He was in direct contact with thebookies in Pakistan, and it was through him that the crime syndicate operated by Dawood initiated spot fixing by Rajasthan Players.

REMARKS BY NILAY DUTTA, A MEMBER OF JUSTICEMUDGAL IPL PROBE COMMITTEE REPORT 2014

73April 15, 2014

74 April 15, 2014

GLOBAL TRENDS/ defining dictators

HEIL!is every dictator similar? can lee kuan yew of singapore be

compared with iraq’s saddam hussein and germany’s adolf hitler?By Robert D Kaplan

DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATORPrime MinisterWinston Churchill ofthe UK, PresidentFranklin D Rooseveltof the US and JosephStalin of the USSRshare moments ofwarmth at the YaltaConference at the endof World War II

75April 15, 2014

hat is a dictator,or an authoritari-

an? I’ll bet you thinkyou know. But per-

haps you don’t. Sure,Adolf Hitler, Joseph

Stalin and Mao Zedongwere dictators. So were

Saddam Hussein and both Hafez andBashar al Assad. But in many cases, the sit-uation is not that simple and stark. In manycases, the reality — and the morality — ofthe situation is far more complex.

Deng Xiaoping was a dictator, right?After all, he was the Communist Party bossof China from 1978 to 1992. He was notelected. He ruled through fear. He approvedthe massacre of protesters at TiananmenSquare in Beijing in 1989. But he also ledChina in the direction of a market economythat raised the standard of living and thedegree of personal freedom for more peoplein a shorter period of time than perhaps everbefore in recorded economic history. Forthat achievement, one could, arguably, rateDeng as one of the greatest men of the 20thcentury, on par with Winston Churchill andFranklin D Roosevelt.

So is it fair to put Deng in the same cate-gory as Saddam Hussein, or even HosniMubarak, the leader of Egypt, whose sterilerule did little to prepare his people for amore open society? After all, none of thethree men were ever elected. And they allruled through fear. So why not put them allin the same category?

Or what about Lee Kuan Yew and Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali? During the early phases ofLee’s rule in Singapore, he certainly behavedin an authoritarian style, as did Ben Alithroughout his entire rule in Tunisia. Sodon’t they both deserve to be called authori-tarians? Yet Lee raised the standard of livingand quality of life in Singapore from theequivalent of some of the poorest Africancountries in the 1960s to that of the wealth-iest countries in the West by the early 1990s.He also instituted meritocracy, good gover-nance, and world-class urban planning.Lee’s two-volume memoir reads like thepages in Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble

GATHERING OFMINDS

Libyan leaderMoammar Gaddafi(second from right)leans on Egyptian

President HosniMubarak (right) andYemeni President AliAbdullah Saleh (thirdfrom right) at the 2nd

Afro-Arab JointSummit on October

10, 2010.

W

Grecians and Romans. Ben Ali, by contrast,was merely a security service thug who com-bined brutality and extreme levels of corruption, and whose rule was largelyabsent of reform. Like Mubarak, he offeredstability but little else.

You get the point. Dividing the world inblack and white terms between dictatorsand democrats completely misses the politi-cal and moral complexity of the situation onthe ground in many dozens of countries.The twin categories of democrats and dicta-tors are simply too broad for an adequateunderstanding of many places and theirrulers — and thus for an adequate under-standing of geopolitics. There is surely avirtue in blunt, simple thinking and pro-nouncements. Simplifying complex patternsallows people to see underlying criticaltruths they might otherwise have missed.But because reality is by its very nature com-plex, too much simplification leads to anunsophisticated view of the world. One ofthe strong suits of the best intellectuals andgeo-politicians is their tendency to rewardcomplex thinking and their attendant abilityto draw fine distinctions.

Fine distinctions should be what geopoli-tics and political science are about. It

Getty Images

76 April 15, 2014

means that we recognize a world in which, justas there are bad democrats, there are good dic-tators. World leaders in many cases should notbe classified in black and white terms, but inmany indeterminate shades, covering the spec-trum from black to white.

Nawaz Sharif and his rival, the late BenazirBhutto, when they alternately ruled Pakistan inthe 1990s, were terrible administrators. Theywere both elected by voters, but each governedin a thoroughly corrupt, undisciplined andunwise manner that made their country lessstable and laid the foundation for military rule.They were democrats, but illiberal ones.

The late King Hussein of Jordan and the latePark Chung Hee of South Korea were both dic-tators, but their dynamic, enlightened rulestook unstable pieces of geography and providedthem with development and relative stability.They were dictators, but liberal ones.

Amid this political and moral complexitythat spans disparate regions of the Earth, somepatterns do emerge. On the whole, Asian dicta-tors have performed better than MiddleEastern ones. Deng of China, Lee of Singapore,

Park of South Korea, Mahathir binMohammad of Malaysia, Chiang Kai-Shekof Taiwan were all authoritarians to onedegree or another. But their autocracies ledto economic and technological develop-ment, to better governance, and to animproved quality of life. Most important,their rules, however imperfect, have overallbetter positioned their societies for demo-cratic reforms later on.

All of these men, including theMuslim Mahathir, were influenced,however indirectly and vaguely, by a

body of values known as Confucianism:respect for hierarchy, elders, and, in general,ethical living in the here-and-now of thisworld. Contrast that with Arab dictators,such as Ben Ali of Tunisia, Mubarak ofEgypt, Saddam of Iraq, and the al Assads ofSyria. Ben Ali and Mubarak, it is true, werefar less repressive than Saddam and theelder Assad. Moreover, Ben Ali andMubarak did encourage some developmentof a middle class in their countries. But theywere not ethical reformers by any means. Ofcourse, Saddam and al Assad were altogeth-er brutal. They ran states so suffocating intheir levels of repression that they replicatedprison yards. Rather than Confucianism,Saddam and al Assad were motivated byBaathism, a half-baked Arab socialism so

Lee Kuan Yew was authoritarian but he converted Singapore from a poor country inthe 1960s to one of the wealthiest countries

in the world by the early 1990s.

GLOBAL TRENDS/ defining dictators

IL

viciously opposed to Western colonialismthat it created a far worse tyranny of its own.

Beyond the Middle East and Asia there isthe case of Russia. In the 1990s, Russia wasruled by Boris Yeltsin, a man lauded in theWest for being a democrat. But his undisci-plined rule led to sheer economic and socialchaos. Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, ismuch closer to an authoritarian—and isincreasingly so—and is consequentlydespised in the West. But, helped by energyprices, he has restored Russia to some meas-ure of stability, and thus dramaticallyimproved the quality of life of averageRussians. And he has done this withoutresorting to the level of authoritarianism—with the mass disappearances and constella-tion of Siberian labor camps—of the czarsand commissars of old.

Finally, there is the most morally vexingcase of all: that of the late Chilean dictatorAugusto Pinochet. In the 1970s and 1980s,Pinochet created more than a million newjobs, reduced the poverty rate from a thirdof the population to as low as a tenth, andthe infant mortality rate from 78 per 1,000to 18. Pinochet’s Chile was one of the fewnon-Asian countries in the world to experi-ence double-digit Asian levels of economicgrowth at the time. Pinochet prepared hiscountry well for eventual democracy, even ashis economic policy became a model for the

developing and post-Communist worlds.But Pinochet is also rightly the object ofintense hatred among liberals and humani-tarians the world over for perpetrating yearsof systematic torture against tens of thou-sands of victims. So where does he fall onthe spectrum from black to white?

Not only is the world of internationalaffairs one of many indeterminate shades,but it is also one in which, sometimes, it isimpossible to know just where to locatesomeone on that spectrum. The question ofwhether ends justify means should not onlybe answered by metaphysical doctrine, butalso by empirical observation—sometimesends do justify means, sometimes theydon’t. Sometimes the means are unconnect-ed to the ends, and are therefore to be con-demned, as is the case with Chile. Such isthe intricacy of the political and moral uni-verse. Complexity and fine distinctions arethings to be embraced; otherwise geopoli-tics, political science, and related disciplinesdistort rather than illuminate.

— Republished with permission of Sratfor

Dividing the world in black and whiteterms between dictators and democratscompletely misses the political and moralcomplexity of the situation.

SPOT THE DESPOT(L-R) President Haji MuhammadSuharto of Indonesia (ruled 1967-1998); President HussainMuhammad Ershad of Bangladesh(1983-1990); President FerdinandMarcos of Philippines (1965-1986);Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew ofSingapore (1959-1990; thereafterminister mentor); PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran(2005-2013)

77April 15, 2014

TWO Mumbai developers could land in a location people generally hate the most – jail. On March 4, 2014, the Thane District Consumer Redressal

Forum stipulated three months’ imprisonment for them if therespondents—Kuldeep Oswal and Gyanchand Sancheti—failed to comply with an order it passed seven years ago in aproperty dispute case.Two Mumbai residents, Smita Chandresh Sawla and Vibha

Nilesh Shah had complained that the flats they had booked inOswal Empire Building, developed by the respondents, hadnot been registered with the authorities. They also said theywere not given the completion certificates when the flats were handed over.In 2007, the forum directed each developer to pay `10,000 to

the complainants within the next two months, and also regularise the sale deeds. As the respondents continued to ignore the order, the

complainants again filed a criminal complaint, following whichthe court decided to fine the builders `10,000 individually, fail-ing which they would have to undergo imprisonment. The court also ruled that the defendants in this case had

committed an offence under section 27 of the CPA.

FLAT DENIAL

CONSUMER WATCH

DIRECTIONLESS SALES DIRECT selling or non-store retail format has gained popu-larity in India, and become a major avenue for employment forthe youth. But the legal framework to safeguard the interestsof consumers in this segment is virtually absent.

In a timely initiative, Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA)organised a conference in New Delhi on March 12 to spreadawareness among the public on the issues relating to protec-tion of the direct selling consumer. The delegates at the conference were of the view that the

need of the hour is a legislation which can ensure protection ofconsumers from fraudulent deals offered by many non-storeretail formats.Chavi Hemanth, secretary general, IDSA said: “Such legisla-

tion will help in curbing the growth of fraudulent companieswhich shut down after usurping the money from the con-sumers.” Manoj Parida, joint secretary, ministry of consumeraffairs, emphasised on transparency and accountability for theprotection of consumer rights in India.

News capsules from the consumerworld to keep you well-informed

Illustrations: Aruna

April 15, 201478

Illustrations: Aruna

April 15, 2014 79

Qualityprogramme

INDIAN Medical Association (IMA)—the national organisation of licensedmedical practitioners—is worried that doctors and health centres can be andare tried under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) 1986. Subsequently, itdecided to petition the law ministry to withdraw medical services from theambit of the act.Medical negligence cases are on the rise in India, forcing people with com-

plaints against doctors to move consumer courts under the CPA. Apparently, the IMA’s move is being contemplated because of the landmark

compensation of `5.96 cr that the Supreme Court awarded to a plaintiff inOctober 2013, in a 15-year-old medical negligence case. Plaintiff Kunal Saha, an American citizen of Indian origin, moved the National

Consumer Forum in March 1999 seeking compensation after his wifeAnuradha died the year before during treatment at Kolkata’s AMRI Hospital.He accused the hospital and three doctors of medical negligence. The doc-tors at the hospital had recommended a heavy dose of depomedrol steroidwhen Anuradha had complained of acute pain, fever and rashes. Dissatisfied with the forum’s award of `1.72 cr as compensation, Saha

moved the Supreme Court in 2006. The apex court directed the AMRI author-ities and the three doctors to pay `5.96 cr by December 2013. Subsequently, the hospital sought one year extra time to pay the compen-

sation because of “financial hardship” while Saha filed a “contempt” pleaagainst AMRI Hospital for failure to pay the compensation on time. The apexcourt has kept the contempt petition pending, with next hearing date slatedfor May 5, 2014. The IMA has decided to become a party to the review petition that AMRI is

likely to file against the compensation order. It also wants a tribunal—otherthan the consumer courts—with medical experts under a judicial officer to beset up to hear similar complaints. According to Dr Narender Saini, secretary general, IMA, health is not a

concept that can be broken down in mathematical terms like any other com-modity. “While judicial officers can identify obvious medical malpractices”, hesaid, “subject knowledge is necessary to distinguish between a medicalaccident and medical negligence, and only a doctor can have that.”

DOC IN DOCK

THE Bureau of Indian Standards(BIS) wants more people to beaware of quality and their right todemand it. In a bid to ramp upawareness, India’s official qualitywatchdog now plans to rope inconsumer bodies as its ambas-sadors and enlighten people onvarious quality aspects.The awareness programme will

cover a gamut of consumer-related issues, including lessonson the benefits of purchasingproducts with the ISI stamp, thecertification mark for industrialproducts in India, etc.The move would also inculcate

quality consciousness andawareness among students, BIShopes. Selected organisationswill be provided with free trainingon standards formulationprocess along with the permis-sion to draw market samplesand testing at BIS-recognisedlaboratories across thecountry.The result will be pub-lished on the BIS website.As partners of BIS, consumer

organisations will be permitted toconduct raids on manufacturersand stockists to check sale ofspurious ISI products. Also, a national-level organi-

sation would be eligible tobecome member of the policy-level committees of BIS.

April 15, 201480

CONSUMER WATCH

Are the consumerscoming forward tocomplain?The ConsumerCoordination Councilstarted JAGO GRAHAKJAGO Multi MediaCampaign in 2005. It initiated the NationalConsumer Helpline andthe Consumer OnlineResource Centre to makeit easy and simple tocomplain. However asreported by Mid-Day, con-sumers are still reluctantto complain because ofthe inordinate time ittakes to resolve cases.

Which is the ruling body for consumer complaints?There are designated regulators and an array oflaws to address every type of consumer com-plaint. For example, all telephone-related complaints are guided under the TRAI Act or theIndian Telegraphs Act apart from the ConsumerProtection Act 1986.

How long does ittake for verdict tobe delivered in aconsumer case? There is no fixedtimeline. If you knowthe right people, then thetrial period can beshort; however,there are severalexamples in insur-ance, banking andhealthcare sec-tors where theconsumer hashad to fightfor compen-sation formore than15 years.

FAQs

When an individual takes on a corporate,are the scales not tilted on the sideof the latter?The scales are tilted towards themanufacturers and the serviceproviders, including state-ownedcompanies. An ordinary con-sumer often has tofight against anorganization withvast resources. However, there are variousconsumergroups thatcan advise andhelp individuals.

Is it worthwhile to get every complaint, bigor small, addressed?Every consumer has a right to get his grievanceredressed, howsoever small the financialamount involved may be. However, consumer organizations can take the

lead by claiming compensation on behalf ofseveral consumers. This can be done underclass action litigation or a public interest litiga-tion (PIL) to seek justice for consumers who arehelpless and economically hamstrung.The organizations can create data on such

cases and facilitate the government to bring arobust policy on refund and exchange of defec-tive or sub-standard products or services. This can be done through deterrent penaltiesfor intentional delays in providing resolutions oradopting unfair trade practise.

Is it possible that the consumer has filed a false complaint?It is quite possible and that is why the CPA 1986 was amended topunish consumers for false or frivolous claims. The consumer isliable to pay up to `10,000 for filing such complaints. Under Section26 of the act, the relevant provision is as follows: “Where a complaint instituted before the District Forum, the StateCommission or as the case may be, the National Commission, isfound to be frivolous or vexatious, it shall, for reasons to be record-ed in writing, dismiss the complaint and make an order that thecomplainant shall pay to the opposite party such cost, not exceed-ing `10,000, as may be specified in the order.”

81April 15, 2014

IS THAT LEGAL?

Construction of a dam on a riverhas led to submersion of an oldtemple. The devotees seek analternative site to build a newtemple, but the Governmentrefuses. In case of road, dam orother national projects, is thegovernment obliged to providealternative land keeping in mindreligious sentiments of people?No, in case of submergence oftemple owing to a constructionof a dam the government isunder no obligation to providean alternative site keeping inview the religious sentiments ofthe people. In case of displace-ment or acquisition of land thelaw provides for compensation tobe awardedfor the landacquired.

A student gets his postgraduate degreefrom an institution with deemed univer-sity status, but just two years later, thisinstitution gets derecognised. Will thestudent lose the chance of applying togovernment or private jobs whichrequire postgraduate qualification?Even if the institution loses its deemeduniversity status it will not cast any ret-rospective effect to the degree holderswho passed out from there before itsderecognition became operative. Thoughthe issue is sub-judice before the apexcourt, the government has not made anyadverse declarations or prohibitions forsuch students. But perhaps recruiters’perceptions, especially in the private sector, will be influenced by this.

A hot-headed student leader had been arrested at the height of a student movementon charges of damaging public property. He spent a few days in jail before beingreleased on bail. The case dragged on for a few years when charges against him were dropped. Now, as he applies for international assignments, will his past cometo haunt him?Even if the person faced charges of damaging property and was jailed, what mattersis that the charges against him were dropped later. Therefore it’s not a hurdle in hisapplying for international assignments. He will be treated as innocent, like any otherperson. Had he been convicted then the matter would have been different.

Ignorance of law is no excuse. Here are answers tosome frequently-asked legal queries regarding matters that affect us on day-to-day basis

Illustrations: Aruna

An Indian employee of the UN systemhas not been filing his income tax returnfor the simple reason that salaries of UNemployees are tax free. To his surprise,the income tax department sends him anotice for non-filing of return. What doeslaw say about it?It has been explicitly stated in Section18(b) of the UN (Privileges andImmunities) Act 1947 that an official ofthe UN shall be exempt from taxation onthe salaries and emoluments paid tothem by the United Nations. But for any income falling under the

head “Salaries” under the IT Act 1961received otherwise he ought to have filed a return.

have fun with english. get theright answers andplay better scrabble

WORDLYWISE

1. Lingua franca means………. ………... A: foreign language B: French language C: mutual language D: legal language

2. What do you understand by theword ‘perfunctory’?A: prompt B: perfect C: half-hearted D: functional

3. Actions speak ……..than words.A: more B: louder C: better D: less

4. Matricide is thekilling of a motherbut senicide is themurder of an ..….. …..... A: American soldier B: old person C: outgoing officer D: elderly woman

5. A misogynist hates…….. A: pregnancies B: gynaecologists C: miscellaneousthings D: women

6. Gita is suffering fromheliophobia becauseshe fears …...A: sunlight B: blood C: helicopters D: hills

7. An anthomaniac hasa passion for ……... A: maths B: history

C: AnthologyD: flowers

8. Pomology is thestudy of ….. . A: women B: fish C: hair D: fruits

9. An angle exceeding90 degrees is called……… angle. A: wide B: right C: obtuse D: long

10. In the diseasecalled ‘glossitis’, ……… is affected. A: tongue B: liver C: nose D: throat

11. Plural of radius is …A: radiuses B: radii C: radius D: radiae

12. Italian word ‘ciao’ isanother way to say….. .A: sorry B: goodbye C: yes D: thanks

13. In the SMS lingo,O4U will mean ….….…. A: only for you B: nothing for us C: ordered for us D: one for you

14. The boss wasimpressed by herexcellent command…. English.

A: on B: of C: in D: over

15. Tagore’s story centres …. officepolitics. A: at B: on C: around D: in

16. Oxymoron means acombination of ……... A: Two contradictorywords B: Oxygen and moron C: Orbit and electron D: No such word

17. It’s ‘Ifs and buts’and ‘fair and square’,but ‘pick and ……. ? A: choose B: play C: pocket D: go

18. Which spelling is correct?A. gragarious B. gregarious C. gregerious D. grigareous

19. An ……..…. is aninscription on a tombstone.A: epigram B: epigraph C: epitaph D: epithet

20. What does <3 meanin internet slang? A: less than 3 B: love C: we three D: all three

SCORES

0 to 7 correct—You needto do this more often.

8 to 12 correct—Good, get the scrabble

board out. Above 12—Bravo!

Keep it up! 1. Mutual language2. Half-hearted 3. louder 4. old person 5. women 6. sunlight 7. flowers

8. fruits 9. obtuse 10. tongue 11. radii 12. goodbye 13. only for you 14. of

15. on 16. two contradictorywords 17. choose 18. gregarious 19. epitaph 20. love

ANSWERS

textdoctor2@gmail.com

Aruna

82 April 15, 2014