Pairokar

Technology has, without doubt, brought immeasurable relief to humanity but at the same time it has also brought along the store of difficulties and embarrassment if that is not used judiciously. Thanks to technology one can get information from one end of the globe to the other in a few seconds, but it can also cause incalculable damage if used maliciously. Vicious propaganda can be made viral by re-tweeting and sharing of the message emanating from an unscrupulous person. In a recent case of defamation filed by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against the present Chief Minister of Delhi and others, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India have refused to differentiate between the Tweet and Retweet. However, the both Constitutional Courts have not spoken a word about the merit of the case, which has been left entirely to the Trial Court to decide. The factual matrix of the case is that Mr Kejriwal had accused that the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of indul

  My friend Sudhir Kumar made me available the reprint of a nearly five-decade-old book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’, written by an American author Robert M. Pirsig. The title of the book may be weird, but otherwise, it is an absorbing book. It fascinated me for more than one reason. Firstly, the author of this book was an alumnus of the ‘Banaras Hindu University’ (BHU) in the early thirties where I also studied four decades later in seventies. Secondly, it has very deftly handled the intricacies of Buddhism, Hinduism and Greek philosophy.  Very few people know the origin of word ‘Zen’ which is derived from Sanskrit word ‘Dhyan’(Meditation), which became ‘Chan’ in China and ‘Zen’ in Japan.  One of the bestselling books of the seventies and eighties it has been printed more than forty times.   It essentially contains three books which go side by side. The first part contains the account of a motorcycle trip from Minnesota, mid-western State of the USA bordering Ca

An eminent jurist Benjamin Cardozo has said that ‘the judge is not a knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty and goodness.’ Another jurist Felix Frankfurter has said that ‘for the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate once personal pulls and private views to the law of which all are guardians-those impersonal convictions make a society a civilized community and not the victims of personal rule.’ These two quotations are apt in the present circumstances when the judicial discipline was thrown overboard by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court resulting into the huge erosion in the image of the judiciary. Thanks to the timely and bold intervention of the Supreme Court, the rot that was spreading very fast in the name forum shopping and extracting favourable justice was stemmed otherwise, brokers and blackmailers would have brought further disrepute to the Institution. The controversy arose in the Supreme Court of India when a group

By  Parmanand Pandey Filmmaker Karan Johar has made us all aware how ecstatic he is at having become the father of twins born to a surrogate mother. As a single father, he would have been well aware that there is a Surrogacy Regulation Bill pending in parliament which, once passed, will make his actions illegal and even fetch him a 10-year jail term. Johar, and other celebrities like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan who also have children born through surrogacy, are fortunate since the proposed bill, due to be passed shortly, would have branded them as criminals. In fact, the bill is not just draconian, it flies in the face of Article 14 and 21 of the constitution which guarantees “equality before the law and equal protection of laws to all” and “protection of life and personal liberty of all persons”. The Surrogacy Regulation Bill proposes a blanket ban on commercial surrogacy and restricts ethical and altruistic surrogacy to legally wedded infertile Indian coup

      It is an oft-repeated saying that ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. There is no denying that transparency in every sphere of life works like auto-cleaner while the opacity breeds suspicion and corruption. It is, therefore, indeed laudable that the Supreme Court has taken up the cause of transparency in the right earnest by directing the audio-video recording of the court proceedings across the country.  The benefits of  video recordings will far outweigh the disadvantages and bring order and solemnity to the proceedings.  It has been a long-standing demand of the people throughout the country that the proceedings of the court should be recorded to ensure good conduct of the advocates and the judges.          It may be mentioned that the Chief Justice of India and the Prime minister have already spoken about the setting up of e-courts in the country as a method of reducing pending litigation and introducing transparency. There are several systems of e-courts th

A big debate is going on throughout the country with regard to linking of Adhaar Card with the bank accounts, mobile numbers and many other necessary services. There is a section of the society, which vehemently opposes it because it will violate the privacy of a citizen. The recent Supreme Court judgement in ‘K.S. Puttaswamy and anr vs the Union of India’ has made it abundantly clear that privacy is an inviolable right as it allows each human being to be left alone without being disturbed by the state. However, the autonomy of the individual is conditioned by the relationships with the rest of the society. Therefore, a right balance has to be struck between autonomy and free choice. There is another section of the society which has equally very strong and convincing argument in favour of linking of Adhaar with all other services for bringing about transparency in all walks of life, which is so imperative for rooting out the corruption and maintaining law and order. They say

Two recent judgements of Delhi and Punjab & Haryana High Courts resulting in the acquittal of accused persons, convicted by lower courts in rape cases, have created aflutter across the country. While the Delhi High Court has acquitted a high-profile filmmaker Mahmood Farooqui, who came into limelight for his film ‘Peepli Live’, which was themed on sensationalism in journalism. He was convicted by a lower Court of Delhi for raping a 26-year-old American researcher on the night of 28 th  March 2015. The logic for the acquittal of the accused filmmaker is highly unsettling because it has said that a ‘feeble no’ from the victim could a consensual one. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has even gone to the extent of shaming the victim by saying that she happens to be of ‘promiscuous character’. The Delhi High Court says, ‘instances of woman behaviour are not unknown that a feeble ‘no’ may mean a ‘yes’. If the parties are strangers, the same theory may not be applied, if the part

Talaq-e-biddat Goes but Dehumanising Halala Remains The obnoxious practice of triple Talaq, which has spoiled the lives of thousands of Muslim women across the country has now been outlawed by the Supreme Court of India. Muslim men have been divorcing women with gay abandon by saying talaq three times in one go, sometimes under the influence of Alcohol and sometimes in anger and many times for trivial reasons. It is surprising that triple Talaq has been continuing in a secular country like India while dozens of Muslim countries have already banned it. Therefore, banning of triple Talaq or  Talaq-e-biddat  through Supreme Court judgment in  ‘Shayara Bano vs Union of India and others’  has come as a huge relief to millions of Muslim women. Although marriage is a contract under Islamic law yet the right to divorce is available only to men. There are three types of Talaq:  Talaq-e-ahsan ,  Talaq-e- hasan  and  Talaq-e-biddat . ‘Khula’ is an annulment of marriage at the instance