Pairokar

It is a welcome that the Supreme Court of India has reviewed its decision of 18th June wherein it banned the Jagannath Rath Yatra (chariot procession festival) at Puri, which started today. Jagannath Rat Yatra is attached to the sentiments and faiths of millions of people, then why the permission for symbolic Yatra, as it has been given now, was not given at the first place is beyond logic and law of our understanding? My friend Ipshit Pratihari, who is also one of the servitors, was totally distraught and heartbroken on the 18th of June to learn the order of the Supreme Court. This Yatra is happening at a time when the world is facing an extraordinary problem due to Wuhan Virus but when all activities are allowed to go on with proper distancing and by wearing of the masks, then there should not have been any problem in permitting the Yatra. The Yatra is not posing any law and order problem, social disaffection, or ill will among the people. It has been continuing for hundreds of year...

Virtual Courts and E filings of the cases have, without doubt, come to stay even after the COVID-19. As history is known by the AD and the BC, similarly the Google has also become a watershed in many areas. Google has completely changed the method of education, the research and the journalism etc., One belongs to the age of ‘Before Google’ and the other is ‘After Google’. Today one has all information under the sun (even beyond sun) in one’s own Android phone, thanks to Google. Mental blocks always work against accepting anything new. Therefore, Virtual Courts will take some time to get more acceptability when advocates and judges get accustomed to this new technology in due course.         However, we find that some advocates are so non-serious that they try to take undue liberty of the new system of Virtual Courts. Recently it was reported that an Advocate appeared wearing vests before a Virtual Court for which he was rightly rebuked by the Rajasthan High Cour...

Once the initial diffidence is over, E-filing of the cases, counter-affidavits, rejoinders, and additional documents become simple and easy beyond description. The only problem that arises is of the attestation of the documents by notary and oath commissioner for which an exemption application can be filed. The technology of the Virtual Courts is useful for both advocates and clients as well. The VCs lack the warmth, the wit, the bonhomie, the exchange of pleasantries and socialisation with other advocates. But then this Kovid-19 has robbed such luxurious of everybody, not only of the advocates and the persons associated with courts. The need is to expand the hearing in the VCs from urgent cases to other normal cases. Presently it is confined only to taking of the PILs and urgent matters. The minor technical glitzes that arise during the hearings can be improved and fine-tuned sooner than later without any ado. My experience of conducting the cases in the Virtual Courts in the last few...

A few days back a petition was filed in the Supreme Court against the 11th May notification of the Government of Haryana which said that Hindi should be used in all Courts and Tribunals of the state. To the great relief of the people, the Supreme Court junked the petition. Dismissing the Petition, a bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy asked the petitioner as to what was wrong with the law which allowed the vehicle of justice to be in their own native language as around 80% of the litigants do not understand English. The Bench commended the State by observing obiter dicta that ‘it is fair for the state to bring such law. Even, during the British Rule, the recording of evidence was done in vernacular language’. The Apex Court ruled that the amendment in the ‘official language act does not violate, in any manner, the fundamental rights. Before that, on the 19th of December Delhi High Court passed an important order for replacing more than 400 Arabic and...

    The more we get aged, the more diffident we become in adopting the new technology or anything new because our mental blocks often come into the play. This is what we find in the functioning of the courts as most of the judges and the lawyers have been pursuing a set pattern of filing, removing defects, appearing, and arguing before the courts. Most of us have become habitual of the system that has been in the vogue for decades together. Judges have also followed the same trend year after year. This is the reason that most of the aged and comparatively old judges usually pose mental resistance in adopting the new technology. The same is the case with the elderly lawyers, court staffs and the persons manning the registry.     Although the introduction of modern technology in the courts have started for quite a long time it has not got expected result and speed until very late. We have been hearing about the paperless courts but to the best of our knowledg...

    Pandit Arjun Prasad Bastola, a Sanskrit and Vedic scholar, who is also on the Board of Pashupatinath temple is a well-wisher of India. He once told me that relationship between India and Nepal is like warp and woof from time immemorial and that cannot be separated. Two of the most sacred shrines, Pashupatinath and Vaikunthdham are situated in Nepal, and every Hindu nurse desire to visit those places. Nepal has its presence in almost all important religious places of India. Nepali temple of Varanasi is one of the important religious/tourist places in North India. Millions of Nepalese live in India and lakhs of Indians live in Nepal. They have far and wide business interests. Thousands of Indians and Nepalese have their relatives on both sides of the border. There is no language problem of communication between the two countries. So much so, Hindi and Nepali both are written in the same Devnagari script. Buddhism has more deep and pervasive effect in Nepal than t...

    It will not be an exaggeration to say that the way the problems of migrant workers and the students scattered in many parts of the country have been handled by Yogi the Aditynath government of Uttar Pradesh deserve kudos. Uttar Pradesh happens to be the passage of the migrant workers of other states, therefore, it had to bear major brunt than other states. Remember the crowd of migrant workers, which was made to assemble at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal only a few days after the first lockdown. Most of them were from Delhi. Thus, it was the primary responsibility of the government of Delhi to have taken care of them but instead of that, the buses of DTC were arranged to ferry them to Anand Vihar Bus Station. Yogi government did the splendid job by arranging hundreds of buses to take them to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and those who belonged to Bihar and Jharkhand were dropped at the border. State governments were requested to take them to their respective plac...