India Legal 31 October 2015

RAMESH MENON:
CORRUPTION BEHIND THE BARS
36
NDIA
EGAL
I L
www.indialegalonline.com
`100
October 31, 2015
STORIES THAT COUNT
MEAT POLITICS
RAISING
THE
STAKES
INDERJIT BADHWAR,
AJITH PILLAI,
KALYANI SHANKAR,
RAKESH BHATNAGAR:
In-depth analysis of the

legal, political, ethical,
religious dimensions of
beef ban 22
VIPIN
PUBBY
Defamation
turbulence
42
TAHIR
MAHMOD
Is Muslim
personal law
still valid?
58
MEENA
MENON
Haji Ali
Dispute 50
PLUS:
z
Scrap
3-year law degrees? 46
z
Gurmeet
Ram Rahim Singh

Insan: Religion or politics? 54
z
Italian
war 66
Marines: Jurisdiction
LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
INDERJIT BADHWAR
THE COW CRISIS

HE more we read about the politics
of beef and meat, the more confused
we get. The greater the confusion,
the greater the mutual religious and
communal suspicion and hatred,
the greater the violence, the greater the polarization and the greater the benefit to the politician. Keeping the communal cauldron bubbling over meat politics rather than looking for
actual solutions and trying to clear the cobwebs of disinformation translates into votes
through divide-and-rule politics.
That, unfortunately, is what is happening in
India at the moment and I believe it is the duty
of journalistsas we have tried to do in our
cover story package written by Ajith Pillai,
Kalyani Shankar and Rakesh Bhatnagarto
dig deeper than ever before to unearth facts
and present them to the clear light of analysis
and reasoned debate. But journalists, I am
ashamed to admit, have by and large, themselves become rabble-rousers in this controversy, adding further fuel to the fires of obscurantism and unreason spreading across the land.
The first thing we should abjure is the use
of scriptures and religion and saintly commentaries to justify our positions and prejudices.
We have modern minds, thank the lord, and
we dont need to throw the Vedas or the
revered Bhagwad Gita or Quran or Bible at
each other to argue for or against orderly, civilized, humane conduct governed by constitu-
tional norms and the rule of law in our everyday lives.

Alas, not having read Sanskrit or Pali, I am
in no position to comment on who is wrong or
who is right regarding proscriptions against or
sanctions for beef eating in the Vedas or the
Sutras or the Shastras. In any case, many thousands of years later, the veracity of any of these
positions is no excuse for the cursed lynching
to death of a member of a minority religion for
storing meat.
Nor is this an argument for or against vegetarianism. Thats a personal preference. I
respect freedom of choice. This is, however, a
simple exposition of historical, constitutional,
legal, and economic reality as it has unfolded in
the present, along with the wisdom of thinkers
who are sound of mind and spirit. I may not be
able to quote the Atharva Veda or Guru
Vashista on this subject but I can certainly dig
up the writings of Gandhiji and jurists and
people of judicial eminence who have thought
deeply on this subject.
Agitations over cow slaughter and the sensitivity of Indias rulers to this issue date back
hundreds of years. I started my own career as a
cub reporter for The Indian Express in 1966
and covered the VHP-Hindu MahasabhaRSS-Jana Sangh agitation led by a
Shankaracharya. They wanted a constitutional
amendment to ban cow slaughter throughout
the country. The movement turned violent
INDIA LEGAL October 31, 2015
We really do
not stop to think
what true religion
is and merely go
about shouting
that cowslaughter should
be banned by
law. In villages
Hindus make
bullocks carry
huge burdens
which almost
crush the
animals. Is it not
cow-slaughter,
albeit slowly
carried out?
Mahatma Gandhi
as thousands of trisul-wielding sadhus broke

into the parliamentary compound and set fires
to adjoining properties. They also tried to ransack Congress President Kamrajs house. Eight
people, including a policeman were killed after
the police opened fire.
In April 1979, the 82-year-old Vinoba
Bhave proceeded with a fast-unto-death seeking a national ban on cow slaughter but called
it off after being assured that the government
would take steps to resolve the matter.
as the matter been resolved? What

does the law say about the matter?
What does the constitution say? Why
is Congress leader Digvijaya Singh daring the
ruling BJP to bring a national law on this subject and then offering Congress support to it?
Havent states already banned the sale, export
or consumption of beef? Many of these issues
have been addressed in the stories that follow.
Others I will try and addressalong with
commentaries from thinkersin the ensuing
paragraphs.
First, what does the constitution say? (The
question of banning cow slaughter was debated in the Constituent Assembly and a consensus emerged that there should be no national
statute banning the consumption of beef. The
goal was instead included in the non-binding
October 31, 2015
Directive Principles of State Policy.

No paraphrasing or interpretation here,
simply the language): The Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training and
practice is Entry 15 of the State List of the
Seventh Schedule of the constitution, meaning
that state legislatures have exclusive powers to
legislate the prevention of slaughter and
preservation of cattle. Some states allow the
slaughter of cattle with restrictions like a fitfor-slaughter certificate, which may be issued
depending on factors like age and gender of
cattle, continued economic viability, etc.
Others completely ban cattle slaughter, while
there is no restriction in a few states.
Prohibition of cow slaughter is a Directive
Principles of State Policy contained in Article
48 of the constitution. It reads: The State shall
endeavour to organise agriculture and animal
husbandry on modern and scientific lines and
shall, in particular, take steps for preserving
and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the
slaughter of cows and calves and other milch
and draught cattle.
hat did the father of the nation,

Gandhiji, who is used by both sides
for their arguments, actually say
during his prayer meeting (July 25, 1947,
Collected Works Vol. 88) when the Constituent
Assembly was under way in response to thousands of letters from Hindus on this subject?
He said: I have another telegram which says
that a friend has started a fast for this cause. In
India no law can be made to ban cow-slaughter. I do not doubt that Hindus are forbidden
the slaughter of cows. I have been long pledged
to serve the cow but how can my religion also
be the religion of the rest of the Indians? It will
mean coercion against those Indians who are
not Hindus.
We have been shouting from the housetops that there will be no coercion in the matter of religion. We have been reciting verses
from the Koran at the prayer. But if anyone
were to force me to recite these verses I would
not like it. How can I force anyone not to
slaughter cows unless he is himself so disposed? It is not as if there were only Hindus in
the Indian Union. There are Muslims, Parsis,
Christians and other religious groups here.
The assumption of the Hindus that India

now has become the land of the Hindus is erroneous. India belongs to all who live here. If we
stop cow slaughter by law here and the very
reverse happens in Pakistan, what will be the
result? Supposing they say Hindus would not
be allowed to visit temples because it was
against Shariat to worship idols? I see God
even in a stone but how do I harm others by
this belief? If therefore I am stopped from visiting temples I would still visit them. I shall
therefore suggest that these telegrams and letters should cease. It is not proper to waste
money on them.
We really do not stop to think what true
religion is and merely go about shouting that
cow-slaughter should be banned by law. In villages Hindus make bullocks carry huge burdens which almost crush the animals. Is it not
cow-slaughter, albeit slowly carried out? I shall
therefore suggest that the matter should not be
pressed in the Constituent Assembly.
And what do the courts say? There are two
major Supreme Court decisions, 47 years
apart, on this subject that give different rulings. The Hindu has quoted them at length.
The first (1958) was delivered by a five-judge
bench which held that there is no getting away
from the fact that beef or buffalo meat is an
item of food for a large section of the people in
India. The apex court found that cattle, except
cows of all ages and calves of both cows and
buffaloes, not capable of milch or draught, can
be slaughtered. The court classified such cattle
as useless. In fact, the apex court found that
keeping useless cattle alive would be a
wasteful drain on the nations cattle feed.
TO EACH HIS OWN

(Above) Individual
followers of various
faiths must decide their
priorities regarding cow
protection
hief Justice Das termed beef as the

common mans diet. The comparatively low prices of beef and buffalo flesh,
which are nearly half that of mutton or goats
flesh, is the main reason for their demand, the
Bench held. Poorer people, therefore, who can
hardly afford fruit or milk or ghee, are likely to
suffer from malnutrition if they are deprived of
even one slice of beef or buffalo flesh which
may sometimes be within their reach, the
Anil Shakya
In the reign of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of

Avadh, Hindus and Muslims showed
tremendous restraint when Holi and
Moharram fell on the same day.
apex court held in 1958.
This stand was reversed in 2005 when the
Supreme Court under Justice Lahoti upheld
Gujarats total ban on cattle slaughter, regardless of whether the bovine is useless or useful.
The Hindu reported: Chief Justice of India
(retired) R.C. Lahoti, heading a seven-judge
Bench wrote the majority opinion for the
court. The Bench pooh-poohed the reasoning
that beef was the poor mans protein-rich diet.
Beef contributes only 1.3 per cent of the
total meat consumption pattern of the Indian
society, the court held.
Acknowledging the Gujarat governments
version comparing the dung of a cow to a
Kohinoor diamond, the Supreme Court
disagreed with its 1958 verdict that useless cattle can be slaughtered. This is the land of
Mahatma Gandhi, Vinobha, F, Buddha, Nanak
and others. It will be an act of reprehensible
October 31, 2015
ingratitude to condemn cattle in old age as useless and send them to a slaughterhouse. We
have to remember... The weak and meek need
more protection and compassion, the apex
court observed.
n 2008, an extremely important judgment

that bridges what appears to be a seeming
gap between these two points of view was
delivered (Hinsa Virodhak Sangh vs Mirzapur
Moti Kuresh Jamat & Ors on 14 March, 2008)
by a bench of Justices HK Sema and Markandey Katju.
Like in a recent case in Maharashtra, the
petitioners were Muslim meat traders who
challenged Ahmedabads closing down of
butcher shops for a brief period in which the
Jain community observes its festival, Paryushan. In a nutshell, the court opined that
had the closures been ordered for a longer period of time, it would have amounted to a constitutional violation of the Muslim butchers right
to practice their livelihood, but for the sake
of diversity and tolerance and respect for all
sentiments, a short period of the ban could be
condoned.
But of great significance is Judge Katjus
stellar observations on the nature of the Indian
Anil Shakya
state and the supreme duty of all Indians to

uphold its diversity. He enunciates, through
historical examples and principles of natural
law, the primacy of avoiding playing the communal or religious card through intolerance
and reaping political benefit from the politics
of meat. I will quote him at length because his
observations ring truer than ever before:
It must be remembered that India is a multicultural pluralistic society with tremendous
diversity. There are a large number of religions,
castes, languages, ethnic groups, cultures, etc,
in our country. Somebody is tall, somebody is
short, somebody is fair, somebody is brown,
somebody is dark in complexion, someone has
Caucasian features, someone has Mongoloid
features, someone has Negroid features, etc.
We may compare our country with China
which is larger in population and size than
India. China has 1.3 billion people while our
population is 1.1 billion. Also, China has more
than twice our land area. However, there is
broad homogeneity in China. All Chinese have
Mongoloid features; they have a common written script (Mandarin Chinese) and 96% of
them belong to one ethnic group called the
Han Chinese.
On the other hand, India as stated above, has
tremendous diversity and this is due to large

scale migrations and invasion into India over
thousands of years.
People migrate from uncomfortable areas to
comfortable areas. Before the coming of modern industry there were agricultural societies
and India was a paradise for these because
agriculture requires level land, fertile soil,
plenty of water for irrigation etc. which was in
abundance in India. Why would anybody living in India migrate to Afghanistan which has
a harsh terrain, rocky and mountainous and
covered with snow for several months in a year
when one cannot grow any crop? Hence,
almost all migrations and invasions came from
outside into India (except in recent times when
some people have gone to other countries for
job opportunities). Most of the migrations/
invasions came from the North-West, and to a
much lesser extent from the North-East of
India. Thus, people kept pouring into India,
and it is for this reason that there is so much
diversity in India.
As the great Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri
wrote: In the land of Hind, the Caravans of the
peoples of the world kept coming in and India
kept getting formed.
Since India is a country of great diversity,
Template for peace

Extracts from Justice Markandey Katjus 2008 judgment
These days unfortunately some people

seem to be perpetually on a short fuse, and
are willing to protest often violently, about
anything under the sun on the ground that a
book or painting or film etc. has hurt the
sentiments of their community.
Emperor Akbar himself abstained from
eating meat on Fridays and Sundays and on
some other days, as has been
mentioned in the Ain-I-Akbari by Abul Fazl.
It was because of the wise policy of
toleration of the Great Emperor Akbar that
the Mughal empire lasted for so long, and
hence the same wise policy of toleration
alone can keep our country together despite
so much diversity.
the traders in meat of Ahmedabad will
not suffer much merely because their
business has been closed down for 9
days in a year.
8
October 31, 2015
it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our

country united to have tolerance and respect
for all communities and sects. It was due to the
wisdom of our founding fathers that we have a
Constitution which is secular in character, and
which caters to the tremendous diversity in our
country.
Thus it is the Constitution of India which is
keeping us together despite all our tremendous
diversity, because the Constitution gives equal
respect to all communities, sects, lingual and
ethnic groups, etc. in the country.
The architect of modern India was the great
Mughal Emperor Akbar who gave equal
respect to people of all communities and
appointed them to the highest offices on their
merits irrespective of their religion, caste, etc.
The Emperor Akbar held discussions with
scholars of all religions and gave respect not
only to Muslim scholars, but also to Hindus,
Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, etc. Those who came
to his court were given respect and the
Emperor heard their views, sometimes alone,
and sometimes in the Ibadatkhana (Hall of
Worship), where people of all religions assembled and discussed their views in a tolerant
spirit. The Emperor declared his policy of
Suleh-e-Kul, which means universal tolerance
of all religions and communities. He abolished
Jeziya in 1564 and the pilgrim tax in 1563 on
Hindus and permitted his Hindu wife to continue to practise her own religion even after
their marriage. This is evident from the Jodha
Bai Palace in Fatehpur Sikri which is built on
Hindu architectural pattern.
In 1578, the Parsi theologian Dastur
Mahyarji Rana was invited to the Emperors
court and he had detailed discussions with
Emperor Akbar and acquainted him about the
Parsi religion. Similarly, the Jesuit Priests
Father Antonio Monserrate, Father Rodolfo
Acquaviva and Father Francisco Enriques etc.
also came to the Emperors court....
The Emperor also became acquainted with
Sikhism and came into contact with Guru
Amar Das and Guru Ram Das (see The
Mughal Empire by R.C. Majumdar). Thus, as
stated in the Cambridge History of India
(Vol.IV The Mughal Period) Emperor Akbar
conceived the idea of becoming the father of all
his subjects, rather than the leader of only the
Muslims, and he was far ahead of his times. As
mentioned by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru in The

Discovery of India Akbars success is astonishing, for he created a sense of oneness among
the diverse elements of India.
The Emperor invited and received a Jain
delegation consisting of Hiravijaya Suri,
Bhanuchandra Upadhyaya and Vijayasena
Suri. Jainism, with its doctrine of non-violence, made a profound impression on him and
influenced his personal life. He curtailed his
food and drink and ultimately abstained from
flesh diet altogether for several months in the
year. He renounced hunting which was his
favourite pastime, restricted the practice of
fishing and released prisoners and caged birds.
Slaughter of animals was prohibited on certain
days and ultimately in 1587 for about half the
days in the year.
Akbars contact with Jains began as early as
1568, when Padma Sunder who belonged to
the Nagpuri Tapagaccha was honoured by him.
As mentioned in Dr. Ishwari Prasads The
Mughal Empire, the Jains had a great influence on the Emperor.... Having heard of the
virtues and learning of Hir Vijaya Suri in 1582
the Emperor sent an invitation to him through
the Mughal Viceroy at Ahmedabad. He accepted it in the interests of his religion. He was
offered money by the Viceroy to defray the
expenses of the journey but he refused. The
delegation consisting of Hir Vijaya Suri, Bhanu
Chandra Upadhyaya and Vijaya Sen Suri started on their journey and walked on foot to
Fatehpur Sikri and were received with great
honour befitting imperial guests. Hir Vijaya
Suri had discussion with Abul Fazl. He propounded the doctrine of Karma and an impersonal God. When he was introduced to the
Emperor he defended true religion and told
him that the foundation of faith should be daya
(compassion) and that God is one though he is
differently named by different faiths.
The Emperor received instruction in
Dharma from Suri who explained the Jain doctrines to him.... The Emperor was persuaded to
forbid the slaughter of animals for six months
in Gujarat and to abolish the confiscation of
the property of deceased persons, the Sujija
Tax (Jeziya) and a Sulka (possibly a tax on pilgrims) and to free caged birds and prisoners.
He stayed for four years at Akbars court and
left for Gujarat in 1586. He imparted a knowl-
In April 1979, Vinoba Bhave proceeded with a

fast-unto-death seeking a national ban on cow
slaughter but called it off after being assured
that the government would resolve the matter.
edge of Jainism to Akbar and obtained various
concessions to his religion. The Emperor is
said to have taken a vow to refrain from hunting and expressed a desire to leave off meateating for ever as it had become repulsive....
The killing of animals was forbidden for
certain days.
If the Emperor Akbar could forbid meat eating for six months in a year in Gujarat, is it
unreasonable to abstain from meat for nine
days in a year in Ahmedabad today? Emperor
Akbar was a propagator of Suleh-i-Kul (universal toleration) at a time when Europeans
were indulging in religious massacres e.g. the
St. Bartholomew Day massacre in 1572 of
Protestants, (called Huguenots) in France by
the Catholics, the burning at the stake of
Protestants by Queen Mary of England, the
massacre by the Duke of Alva of millions of
people for their resistance to Rome and the
burning at the stake of Jews during the
Spanish Inquisition. We may also mention the
subsequent massacre of the Catholics in
Ireland by Cromwell, and the mutual massacre
of Catholics and Protestants in Germany
Why is Congress
leader Digvijaya
Singh daring the
ruling BJP to
bring a national
law on this
subject and then
offering Congress
support to it?
during the thirty year war from 1618 to 1648 in
which the population of Germany was reduced
from 18 million to 12 million. Thus, Emperor
Akbar was far ahead of even the Europeans of
his times.
Emperor Akbar himself abstained from eating meat on Fridays and Sundays and on some
other days, as has been mentioned in the AinI-Akbari by Abul Fazl. It was because of the
wise policy of toleration of the Great Emperor
Akbar that the Mughal empire lasted for so
long, and hence the same wise policy of toleration alone can keep our country together
despite so much diversity.
We may give another historical illustration
of tolerance in our country. In the reign of
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Avadh, in a certain
year Holi and Muharrum coincidentally fell on
the same day. Holi is a festival of joy, whereas
Muharrum is an occasion for mourning. The
Hindus of Lucknow decided that they would
not celebrate Holi that year out of respect for
the sentiments for their Muslim brethren. On
that day, the Nawab joined the Muharrum procession and after burial of the Tazia at Karbala
he enquired why Holi is not being celebrated.
He was told that it was not being celebrated
because the Hindus out of respect for the sentiments of their Muslim brethren had decided
not to play Holi that year because it was a day
10
October 31, 2015
of mourning for the Muslims. On hearing this,

Nawab Wajid Ali Shah declared that since
Hindus have respected the sentiments of their
Muslim brothers, it is also the duty of the
Muslims to respect the sentiments of their
Hindu brethren. Hence, he announced that
Holi would be celebrated the same day and he
himself was the first who started playing Holi
on that day and thereafter everyone in
Lucknow, including the Muslims, played Holi,
although it was Muharrum day also. It is this
kind of sentiment of tolerance which alone can
keep our country united.
We are making these comments because
what we are noticing now-a-days is a growing
tendency of intolerance in our country. Article
1(1) of the Constitution states: India i.e Bharat
is a Union of States.
It may be mentioned that during the
Constituent Assembly debates some members
of the Constituent Assembly were of the view
that India should be described as a Federation.
However, instead of the word Federation the
word Union was deliberately selected by the
Drafting Committee of the Constituent
Assembly to indicate two things, viz., (a) that
the Indian Union is not the result of an agreement by the States, and (b) that the component
States have no freedom to secede from it.
Moving the Draft Constitution for the consideration of the Constituent Assembly on
November 4, 1948, Dr. Ambedkar, Chairman
of the Drafting Committee explained the significance of the use of the expression Union
instead of the expression Federation: It is true that South Africa which is a unitary State is described as a Union. But Canada
which is a Federation is also called a Union.
Thus the description of India as a Union,
though its constitution is federal, does no violence to usage. But what is important is that
the use of the word Union is deliberate. I do
not know why the word Union was used in
the Canadian Constitution. But I can tell you
why the Drafting Committee has used it. The
Drafting Committee wanted to make it clear
that though India was to be a federation, the
federation was not the result of an agreement
by the States to join in a federation, and that
the federation not being the result of an agreement, no State has the right to secede from it.
The federation is a Union because it is inde-
structible. Though the country and the people

may be divided into different States for
convenience of administration, the country is
one integral whole, its people a single people
living under a single imperium derived from a
single source. The Americans had to wage a
civil war to establish that the States have no
right of secession and that their federation was
indestructible. The Drafting Committee
thought that it was better to make it clear at
the outset rather than to leave it to speculation
or to dispute....
Thus India is not an association or confederation of States, it is a Union of States and there
is only one nationality that is Indian. Hence
every Indian has a right to go anywhere in
India, to settle anywhere, and work and do
business of his choice in any part of India,
peacefully. These days unfortunately some
people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse,
and are willing to protest often violently, about
anything under the sun on the ground that a
book or painting or film etc. has hurt the sentiments of their community. These are dangerous tendencies and must be curbed with an
iron hand. We are one nation and must respect
each other and should have tolerance.
As the great Tamil Poet Subramaniya
Bharati wrote: Muppadhu kodi mugamudayal
Enil maipuram ondrudayal Ival Seppumozhi
padhinetudayal Enil Sindhanai ondrudayal,
which means, This is Bharatmaata has thirty
crores of faces! But her body is one. She speaks
eighteen languages! But her thought is one.
In the present case we have seen that for a
long period slaughter houses have been closed
in Gujarat for a few days out of respect for
the sentiments of the Jain community, which
has a sizable population in Gujarat and
Rajasthan. We see nothing unreasonable in
this restriction.
As already stated above, it is a short restriction for a few days and surely the non-vegetarians can remain vegetarian for this short period. Also, the traders in meat of Ahmedabad
will not suffer much merely because their business has been closed down for 9 days in a year.
There is no prohibition to their business for the
remaining 356 days in a year. In a multi cultural country like ours with such diversity, one
should not be over sensitive and over touchy
about a short restriction when it is being done
The comparatively low prices of beef and

buffalo flesh, which are nearly half that of mutton
or goats flesh, is the main reason for their
demand.
The 1958 judgment of Supreme Court
It will be an act of reprehensible ingratitude to

condemn cattle in old age as useless and send
them to a slaughter house. We have to
remember... The weak and meek need more
protection and compassion.
The 2005 judgment of Supreme Court
out of respect for the sentiments of a particular
section of society. It has been stated above that
the great Emperor Akbar himself used to
remain a vegetarian for a few days every week
out of respect for the vegetarian section of the
Indian society and out of respect for his Hindu
wife. We too should have similar respect for
the sentiments for others, even if they are a
minority sect.
aving listened to Judge Katjus wisdom, suppose we should go ahead, as

some are suggesting and make a constitutional law to prohibit the sale of beef
everywhere, have we given any heed to the
logistical and economic consequences? These
are not intended to deny proponents of a
national beef ban their right to propose it but
to point out what all this would entail.
Executive Editor, Ajith Pillai, in his detailed
analysis in this issue, brings out the problems
involved in maintaining economically unproductive cattle. As he says, it would require a
welfare plan at the national level which would
entail thousands of crores of seed money and
regular financial inputs year after year. Is any
government prepared to bear such colossal
costs brushing aside other priorities that are
crying out for attention? These are questions
which need to be addressed instead of talking
in the air about gau raksha.
editor@indialegalonline.com
11
OCTOBER 31, 2015
VOLUME. IX
ISSUE. 04
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LEAD
Till the Holy Cows Come Home
22
There is much ado about meat. The reasons are political, religious and
commercial. While INDERJIT BADHWAR examines the constitutional debates on the
issue, AJITH PILLAI assesses a uniform law on bovine slaughter. KALYANI SHANKAR
questions the politics behind the ban, and RAKESH BHATNAGAR says
vague laws contribute to the confusion
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12
October 31, 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
Mayhem
RAMESH MENON takes a close look at the condition of Indian jails that
are virtual hell holes of corruption, drug dealing, gang wars and
sexual predators
COLUMN
Editors Travails
As the resident editor of a major daily, VIPIN PUBBY has had his share of
defamation suits. He writes a personal account of the time and energy
wasted over frivolous suits to muzzle the press
LEGAL EYE
Abolish three-year law degrees

Justice N Kirubakaran of the Madras High Court roots for
five-year law courses and scrapping of the three-year courses.
VENKATASUBRAMANIAN reports
36
42
46
HEALTH
Breakthrough in MS
69
Students of IIT Madras have developed an algorithm that can help

detect multiple sclerosis, writes MURALI KRISHNAN
SOCIETY
CONTROVERSY
Shrine of Discontent
50
The decision to bar the entry of women into the mazaar of Haji Ali
Dargah in Mumbai has reached the Bombay High Court. MEENA
MENON reports it is now left to the judiciary to resolve the issue
Religion
or Politics?
The great, great

granddaughter of
Wajid Ali Shah, the
last Nawab of
Awadh, is all set to
bring the family
cuisine to the world.
Does this lawyer and
chef have a case up
her sleeve? SUJIT
BHAR examines
54
VIPIN PUBBY probes the

sudden pardon granted by the
Sikh clergy to Dera Sacha
Sauda head Gurmeet Ram
Rahim Singh
76
PROBE
INTERVIEW
Muslim Personal
Law Issue
58
72
Legacy Of
The Nawabs
All Charged Up
Latest raids of undercover steroid labs suggest that the market

for steroids goes way beyond the world of elite athletes, writes
DAVID EPSTEIN of ProPublica
AAI can mobilize funds

to set up airports
62
RAMESH MENON talks to RK Srivastava, chairman, Airports

Authority of India, about the challenges he faces
DIPLOMACY
Indo-Italian Imbroglio
66
The killing of two Kerala fishermen off the Indian coast by Italian
marines has become an international issue. PAPIA SAMAJDAR reports
REGULARS
Prof Tahir Mahmod, former member of the Law Commission of

India, talks to SABIHA FARHAT on the controversial subject
Edit................................................................................3
Ringside......................................................................14
Quote-Unquote...........................................................15
Supreme Court............................................................16
National Briefs.............................................................19
Courts......................................................................... 20
International Briefs.......................................................45
Is That Legal................................................................53
Figure It Out.................................................................61
Campus Update..........................................................75
Worldly Wise...........................................................81
People......................................................................... 82
Cover Design: ANTHONY LAWRENCE
13
Aruna
VERDICT
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that
religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy,
and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
Thomas Paine
14
October 31, 2015
QUOTE-UNQUOTE
My grandson wears a mask. He

looks like a ninja. When I asked
him why was he wearing a mask,
he said it was due to pollution.
Chief Justice of India HL Dattu, during
a hearing on pollution in Delhi in the
Supreme Court
When a poor man says

here take my privacy,
please give me money,
Your Lordships are
saying dont take the
money, please retain
your privacy.
Senior advocate KK
Venugopal, in support of
citizens willing to voluntarily
enrol for Aadhaar, in
the Supreme Court
I feel somewhat dissatisfied

with the local people. I, too,
am part of contemporary
Manipuri society, so why
should they isolate me;
celebrate me and sing my
glories but behave like I
have passed away?
Irom Sharmila, on fast since last
14 years against AFSPA, in DNA
As BJP workers, we need

to maintain restraint and
have no right to derail the
PMs agenda of good
governance and
development.... Even the
slightest action from our
end which can lead to
some other perception
should be avoided.
BJP national secretary Siddharth
Nath Singh, urging party members
to restrain themselves from
communalizing the Dadri lynching
A person like Owaisi was allowed to come

here from Hyderabad. Is the Samajwadi Party
government colluding with him? Is it not the
weakness of the government? This is UP,
we know how to send him packing.
If we collectively chicken
out of this, well all turn into
chickens and well all be
fried, grilled, toasted and
roasted.
IMF Chief Christine
Lagarde, on the
consequences of
failure to act on
global warming, at the
annual IMF
meeting in
Lima, Peru
We are on the
brink of a tyranny
of uniformity and
parochialism...
Being in a minority
is almost a crime.
Writer Ashok
Vajpayee, explaining the
reason for returning his
Sahitya Akademi Award
BJP MLA Sangeet Som, on AIMIM leader

Asaduddin Owaisis visit to Dadri village, in
The Wire
15
SUPREME COURT
AG can take private cases

he apex court ruled that Attorney
General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi was
well within his right to fight as a
lawyer for any private party unless
there was a conflict of interest. It
struck down a PIL that claimed that
Article 76, related to the appointment and powers of the attorney
general, didnt permit the AG to
represent private cases in court.
The PIL, filed by a Kerala-based
NGO, Centre for Consumer
Education, wanted the court to prevent Rohatgi from fighting such
cases against the government. It

claimed that as AG, Rohatgi was
duty-bound to defend the government in all legal matters and fighting
private matters was a clear case of
conflict of interest. Even the request
in the PIL to refer the issue to a
constitution bench was turned
down by the apex court.
Objections had been raised after
Rohatgi fought a case in July for
private bar owners in Kerala, challenging the Kerala governments
liquor policy.
No ruling on Srinivasan
he Supreme Court refused to be
dragged into the fight between
former BCCI president N Srinivasan
and the Board of Cricket Control in
India (BCCI) over the conflict of
interest issue.
The BCCI had moved the apex
court pleading that Srinivasan could
not attend board meetings as he still
had commercial interests as a
cricket administrator. Srinivasans
counsel refuted the allegation and

insisted that the matter could be
solved amicably.
The court observed that it was
up to BCCI to resolve the impasse
and asked the board to stick to its
stand if it felt so and observed that
Srinivasan could challenge it legally.
The court made it clear that it
would not hear any plea on the
developments in BCCI.
Fate of Aadhaar on hold

he centers move to get the
apex courts approval for making Aadhaar cards mandatory for
all social welfare schemes
received a setback as the court
did not change its August 11
interim verdict.
The court had ordered the
government to restrict the use of
Aadhaar card only for offering
subsidies on LPG cylinders,
kerosene and benefits from the
PDS. It referred the matter to a
16
October 31, 2015
constitution bench, which was yet

to be constituted.
The court clarified that it was
now up to the five-judge constitution bench to adjudicate on all
legal issues related to Aadhaar.
A clutch of petitions had pleaded that collection of data and other
personal details of a person for
Aadhaar cards violated the right
to privacy, a fundamental right
and could be misused by the
government.
Access given to
ex-CBI chiefs diary
ormer CBI special director ML Sharma-led panel
was allowed access to the
original visitors diary kept at
the residence of erstwhile
CBI chief Ranjit Sinha by the
apex court bench monitoring
the coal scam. The diary
was in the possession of the
apex court.
The panel appointed by
the Supreme Court is ascertaining whether people
accused in the 2G and coal
scams did meet the former
Stay on beef ban

ffering relief to the Jammu
and Kashmir government, the
apex court put on hold for two
months the order of the state high
court banning cow slaughter and
beef sale in the state.
The state government had
sought the apex courts intervention on the two recent verdicts of
the high court. While the Jammu
bench had ruled that the ban on
the sale of beef be
enforced, the Srinagar
bench took cognizance
of a petition against
the ban law and
sought an opinion
from the state government on its
validity.
The ambiguity
had forced the state
government to rush
to the apex court. It
pleaded that the two
orders contradicting each
other was impacting the law and

order situation in the state as
these could be misused and misinterpreted.
The apex court asked the
chief justice of the Jammu and
Kashmir High Court to form a
three-judge bench to look into the
legalities involved and examine
other aspects of the issue.
CBI director at his residence.

It was alleged that Sinha
favored such people during
CBI investigation into the
scams.
The panel wanted the
diary in order to proceed
with the inquiry and had
requested the court for it.
The coal scam bench
decided to forward the
panels request to the bench
headed by the chief justice
of India monitoring the
probe into 2G scam.
Be careful
granting bail
T
he apex court held that

courts should be careful in
granting bail to people who have
been repeatedly convicted.
Veering away from its probail stand, the highest court
observed that history sheeters
needed to be judged at a different level before accepting their
bail plea. They cant be compared to first-time offenders.
There is a need to take the past
record into account before
granting bail, it observed.
While striking down a bail
order of the Allahabad High
Court for a seasoned criminal in
a murder case, the apex court
observed that the judiciary
should be alert while granting
relief to such offenders who are
a threat to the society.
17
SUPREME COURT
Delhi to have
environment tax
aking note of Delhis air pollution levels posing serious
health concerns, the Supreme
Court gave an in-principle
approval to impose an environmental levy on all commercial
vehicles entering the national capital. The court ruled that `1,300 on
heavy trucks and `700 on light
commercial vehicles would
be levied.
However, the court was yet to
deliver a detailed order on the mat-
ter. It wanted to take into consideration the decisions of the National

Green Tribunal (NGT), which had
passed a similar order earlier.
Senior counsel Harish Salve,
appointed by the court to assist in
environment matters, had suggested the levy.
The court said it would pass
an order that would supersede the
one by the NGT and the order will
be implemented on an experimental basis for four months.
CBI gets credit for Vyapam

auding the ongoing investigation by the CBI into the
Vyapam scam, the Supreme
Court observed that there were
no deaths of persons linked to
the scam after the nodal agency
took over. In July, petitions were
filed after more than 30 people
had allegedly died in connection
with the scam, after which the
Supreme Court had ordered the
CBI to take over.
No death A
sentence
in Katara
case
Appearing for the Madhya

Pradesh government, Attorney
Mukul Rohatgi, however, argued
that the deaths were not related
to the scam. The bench then
asked him whether he could
affirmatively say that all deaths
were not related to the scam.
The bench added that it would
continue monitoring the matter
till it was satisfied that all its
orders had been complied with.
plea by Neelam Katara, mother of the

slain Nitish Katara, seeking death sentence for Vikas and Vishal Yadav who were
convicted for murdering her son in 2002
was rejected by the Supreme Court.
The court ruled that while it was a murder and could even be pre-meditated, it
certainly was not an honor killing nor
heinous enough to be considered as the
rarest of rare cases, thus warranting a

death penalty. Neelam Katara had moved
the apex court against the Delhi High Court
order sentencing both Vikas and Vishal
Yadav to a total of 30 years of jail term.
She had sought enhancement of the sentence to death or alternatively imprisonment for whole life. The apex court is yet
to decide on the quantum of sentence.
Illustrations: UdayShankar
18
October 31, 2015
NATIONAL BRIEFS
Indian woman
sues Wipro
n Indian woman employee at the

London office of IT giant Wipro
has filed a 1 million compensation
case against the firm, for sexual
discrimination, unequal pay and
unfair dismissal. She alleged that
she was subjected to a deeply
predatory, misogynistic culture and
forced into an affair with a

married boss of the Bangalore
headquartered firm, Business
Standard reports. In a petition
filed in the Central London
Employment Tribunal, the
woman claimed that she was
manipulated into an affair with a
married senior vice-president.
She added that she was paid far less
than the male staff, earning only
75,000 per annum rather than the
expected 150,000.
ISROs arm Antrix fined
Radhe Maa gets relief
n international arbitration court has directed Antrix, the commercial arm of Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to pay
$672 million (` 4,435.20 crore) in damages to
Devas Multimedia for unlawfully cancelling a
contract four years ago. In a statement,
Bengaluru-based Devas Multimedia said the
International Court of Arbitration (ICA) ruled in
its favor and found Antrix is liable for unlawfully terminating the Devas-Antrix agreement in
February 2011, The Financial Express reported.
Vodafone spared liability
here was relief for self-styled god

woman Radhe Maa as the Bombay
High Court granted her anticipatory bail
in a dowry harassment case. Justice
Revati Mohite Dere granted her application for anticipatory bail on a personal
bond of `25,000 on the condition that
she should not contact the complainant,
Nikki Gupta, who accused her of conniving with her in-laws in harassing her and
her family with demands for dowry,
according to a report in The Hindu.
Radhe Maa had moved the High Court
after a sessions court rejected her anticipatory bail petition on August 13. In her
petition, Radhe Maa denied the
allegations,
saying she had
never
instigated
the family and
that she was
being dragged
into the case
because the
complainants
in-laws were
her devotees.
n a major relief for Vodafone India, the

Bombay High Court quashed an order of
the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which
ruled that the IT department had the powers
to raise tax demand on the company, in a
` 8,500 crore transfer pricing case. The
division bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari
and AK Menon passed the order on a petition
filed by the company challenging the IT tribunal order of 2012, reported The Economic
Times. Transfer price is the amount used in
accounting for transfer of goods or services
from one place to another or from one company to another, which belongs to the same parent company. The transfer pricing case, dating
to 2008, pertains to the sale of one of its call
centres in Ahmedabad. Vodafone pleaded in
the High Court that the IT department had no
jurisdiction in the transfer pricing case
because the said transaction was not international and did not attract any tax.
Cannot sell
diabetes drug
he Delhi High Court this

week restrained Glenmark
pharmaceuticals from making or
selling its generic anti-diabetes
drugs Zita and Zita Met, giving
relief to US drug maker Merck
Sharp and Dohme Corporation.
According to Merck, sitagliptin
phosphate monohydrate, the
main component of Glenmarks
drug, could not be made without
manufacturing the active molecule sitagliptin, invented and
patented by the US drug maker,
according to a report in Mint. In
its order, the court said:
Defendant (Glenmark) is
restrained by a decree of permanent injunction from making,
using, selling, distributing,
advertising, exporting, offering
for sale or dealing in sitagliptin
phosphate monohydrate infringing the suit patent of the plaintiffs (Merck). The court said it
cannot allow Glenmark to continue to manufacture and market
its generic drugs just because it is
selling the drugs at a lower price.
Compiled by Vijay Patil

19
COURTS
Cant arrest Himachal CM

he CBI was debarred by the
Himachal Pradesh High Court
from arresting Chief Minister
Virbhadra Singh and his wife in a disproportionate assets case. Singh, in
a petition, had objected to the central
agency lodging an FIR against him
and raiding his residence in Shimla
and other premises.
Singhs counsel alleged that there
was a motive behind the CBI action
and attributed it to vendetta politics.
The court, in its interim order,
however, permitted the CBI to carry
on with its inquiry in the case. It also
asked the agency to keep the court

posted before grilling the couple. It
will hear the matter again on
November 18.
Singhs petition had alleged that
the CBI had exceeded its brief as the
case was yet to be decided by the
Delhi High Court while income tax
authorities were looking into all
relevant documents. It wanted the
court to ask the CBI to stop all
investigations and quash the FIR. It
also claimed that permissions were
not taken by the CBI before conducting the raid on the CMs residence.
Upholding transgenders rights

he Delhi High court gave the go-ahead to
Shivani Bhat, a transgender and a green
card holder in the US, to go back and pursue
undergraduate studies in California. Shivani,
a teenager who lived with her parents in the
US, claimed a male identity. She was
brought back to India by her parents in June.
Once here, they seized her passport, green
card and other travel documents and got her
admitted to a college in Agra so that she
could be reformed.
Shivani fled from Agra and, with the help
of NGO activists, knocked at the door of the
Delhi High Court, objecting to the action of
her parents. She pleaded for protection, and

for help in getting back all her relevant documents so that she could return to the US.
While taking serious note of the rights of
the transgender, the court ruled that nobody
would escort Shivani on her return journey,
her passport and green card be returned to
her and she would not be harassed after her
return to the US. It asked her parents to buy
a return ticket and took a firm undertaking
from them that she would get monetary support for her education. The court also asked
the Delhi Police to provide her protection till
she left the country the country.
Pressing for prison reforms

here is a need for new prisons in
India to match the current prison-population ratio, observed the Bombay High
Court while disapproving the condition of
jails in Maharashtra. It also took note of
the governments nonchalance towards
overcrowding in jails and the pathetic living condition of inmates.
The court, in an initiative, launched a
pilot project and ordered an inspection of
the Yerawada Prison in Pune by a judicial
20
October 31, 2015
officer. It asked for a report on the living

conditions of the inmates, the quality of
food being provided and whether the
inmates received adequate security.
The court ruled that once that was
done, it would examine the same aspects
in other prisons of the state too. It also
asked the state government to respond
on the need for more interview windows (used by inmates to meet family
members or lawyers) in jails.
Punishment for 7/11 convicts
special MCOCA court awarded death

penalty to five convicts and life
imprisonment to seven in the 7/11
Mumbai local train blasts case.
Seven RDX bombs went off in the
first class coaches of trains on July 11,
2006, that left more than 180 people
dead and over 800 injured.
Kamal Ansari, Mohammad Faisal

Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham
Qutu-buddin Siddiqui, Naveed Hussain
Khan and Asif Khan were given death
sentence by the special court for
planting of the bombs.
While deciding on the quantum of
punishment, the court took into account
offences committed by them, such as
spreading terror, criminal conspiracy
and murder. They were punished in
accordance with Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act (UAPA), MCOCA, IPC,
Explosives Substances Act, 1908 and
Railways Act, 1989.
The court gave life terms to Tanveer
Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari,
Mohammed Majid Mohammed Shafi,
Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh,
Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari,
Muzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail
Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed
Latiur Rehman Shaikh. They were
charged under UAPA, MCOCA and IPC.
Adultery rules you

out for alimony
The husband got a divorce from the

family court but was asked to shell
out the alimony. He challenged the order
on alimony in the high court.
married woman who has had willful

sex with another man and even bore
a child cant be awarded a permanent
alimony after divorce, ruled a
Nagpur bench of the Bombay
High Court. Citing it adultery,
ruling her impure, and
going by the Hindu Marriage
Act, the court struck down
the verdict of the family
court which had directed
the husband to pay her
`1,500 monthly alimony,
after granting divorce.
The woman had left her
husband after 22 years of marriage and stayed with another
man. She also had a child with him.
Employ more police

for Delhi
he Delhi High Court did not buy the
centers plea that it was unable to
employ additional 16,000 policemen to
ensure safety in the capital due to lack
of money. The court also didnt entertain
the argument put forward by the center
that an austerity drive was in place as
the government was beset with financial
constraints.
Holding that ensuring safety of the
capital was paramount, the court asked
the center to somehow manage funds to
meet the expenditure of adding more
policemen.
The court also did not agree with the
centers claim that at present one
policeman was attending to 241 people,
saying the ratio was much higher.
Cant evade a stand

on rallies
aking a serious note of the problems
faced by the public during political
rallies and meetings in Kolkata, the
Calcutta High Court threatened to prohibit
such rallies. It did not take kindly to political parties avoiding calls from the court
to appear before it to respond to a PIL.
It asked the state government to
inform all political parties through releases in newspapers by November 19, asking them to be present in court on
November 27.
The court had, in response to a PIL
against such rallies on weekdays, asked
the petitioner Akshay Sarangi to ask all
political parties or their representatives to
be present in court on October 6. But no
party turned up in court on that day.
Compiled by Prabir Biswas

21
LEAD/ Meat and Beef Politics
Cww in the
Communal Cauldron
MILCHING MILEAGE
Cow protection has now
become a major political plank
Rumors of beef consumption and

cow slaughter are being used to
polarize society. If any govt is
serious about a total ban, will it
invest in cow welfare and have a
uniform law on bovine slaughter?
By Ajith Pillai
22
October 31, 2015
oliticians will not publicly admit it.

But in private they tell you that there
are two curious aspects of the politics
that is linked to the cow. One, that
demanding a blanket ban on the
slaughter and consumption of the
species Bos taurus (which includes
cows and bulls) is a shrewd card to play when a political
party is in the opposition. But when in power, implementing any ban is not a very viable proposition.
Secondly, any political and communal milking of the
UNI
issue is only possible when the legal position

is not uniform and is suitably vague.
NO UNIFORM LAW
Thats how it is today. Take a look at the cow
ban map of India and you will find parts of
the country where there is no ban (Kerala,
West Bengal, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and
Sikkim). In some states like Andhra Pradesh
and Telangana, bulls can be slaughtered, provided fit-for-slaughter certificates are issued.
In Tamil Nadu, slaughter and consumption
of economically unviable animals is allowed.
In Punjab, culling of animals is allowed for
export. In Karnataka, possession of beef is
not a crime and slaughter of older animals is
permissible. In several states, including
Delhi, the cows poorer cousin, buffalo
(Bubalus bubalis) can be killed for its meat.
In Uttar Pradesh, imported beef in sealed
containers can be served to foreigners and

buffaloes can be slaughtered.
There is no uniform law and several
shades of grey. Added to this is the fact that
buffalo meat is not banned and can easily
and conveniently be mistaken for beef. We
now know that only a forensic test can conclusively ascertain the origin of the animal
from which any meat is obtained.
The unfortunate killing of Mohammed
Akhlaq and the mob attack on his family in
Dadri, outside Delhi, for allegedly cooking
beef at their home has taught us just that.
The UP police sent the meat sample to a
Mathura lab, where it was finally confirmed
that it was mutton.
While a blanket ban on slaughtering of
bovine animals is what right-wing Hindutva
groups have been demanding, there is reluctance to implement such a sweeping nationwide law. The reason cited is that 25
COSTLY
TO KEEP
(Above, L-R)
Feeding cattle,
especially those
past their prime,
is unviable
23
UNI
A cow is usually considered economically

useful so long as it produces milk. Cattle
owners prefer to get rid of animals once they
have passed their milk yielding years.
ONE FOR THE PHOTO OP
(Above) BJP MP
Hema Malini feeding a cow
during the inauguration of
a cow research facility
in Mathura
24
October 31, 2015
percent of the population (as per the 2011

census) is SC/ST and they consume beef or
buffalo meat as do the states in the Northeast, making such a ban impractical.
But the unstated reason is that a ban
like the one in operation varying from state
to statemakes cow protection a reason to
target minority communities. Rumors of beef
consumption and cattle slaughter can be
used as a political tool without the state taking on the responsibility of tending to old
and unproductive animals.
Devdutt Pattanaik, who writes on Indian
mythology, makes this telling observation in
The Hindu where he analyzes why the present status quo vis-a-vis cow ban is most con-
venient to politicians: It allows them (Hindutva groups) to terrorize and dominate

Muslims and liberals. It gives them global
attention and makes them the focus of a controversy-hungry media. It is this rather than
cow protection that the go-rakshaks really
seek. Pattanaik also observes that the cow
has become politicized to meet vested interests and that the consumption of beef in
Vedic times is a well-recognized fact.
COST OF UPKEEP
According to the 2014 livestock census of the
Ministry of Agriculture, there are 118 million
milch animals in the country. A cow is usually considered economically useful so long
as it produces milk. This varies from five to
eight years, although dairy farmers say that
after a few cycles of pregnancy, the output
usually declines, rendering the animal a liability. What do they do with the animal? It is
usually sent for slaughter for its meat and
commercial exploitation of its hide, etc.
and infrastructure across the country for the

welfare of cattle discarded by farmers.
An official told India Legal: The cost
involved will be enormous. An entire workforce will have to be created and maintained
to tend to the animals in retirement. It will
be difficult to sustain such a program even
though voluntary organizations may come
forward to help. It will require consistent
financial support and will necessitate an
annual budgetary allocation. Where will this
input come from?
But then, other questions will still remain.
What happens to the bull which has a key
role in the biological process that gives birth
to a cow? Will it be left to slaughter? And
what of the buffalo which also produces
milk? And which agency will police cattle
farms to ensure that all animals past their
prime are sent off to welfare homes and not
disposed off otherwise? Will there be a cow
police created which will be tasked with this
responsibility?
NOT TO BE COWED DOWN

(Left) VHP activists protest
against cow slaughter in
Bangalore
ECONOMIC DIMENSION
According to the official the only other viable
alternative is through the setting up of
Otherwise, it has to be tended to for the rest

of its life which could extend up to 15 years
(internationally recognized lifespan) or
more. Any recovery of cost for its upkeep
from sale of its urine and dung would cover
only a small fraction of the money involved,
since even by the most conservative estimates, an ageing animal will require at least
`30 a day for just basic feed.
As things stand, cattle owners prefer to
get rid of animals once they have passed their
milk yielding years. In fact, even when a cow
is not in lactation, it is let loose on the streets
of cities to fend for itself. In Delhi, one can
see such cattle feeding at refuse dumps and
consuming whatever comes its way, including plastic bags and stale food.
But should the state take responsibility of
tending to cattle throughout its life when it
would require a huge budgetary allocation?
According to sources in the Ministry of
Agriculture, seed amount of at least `10,000
crore would be required to set up gaushalas
UP animal
husbandry
minister Raj
Kishor Singh
told the state
assembly in
February that
over 13,000 FIRs
were filed in
UP between
2012-2014
involving cases
of illegal
slaughtering.
25
Will a total ban on cattle slaughter impact

the business and the thousands employed by
the meat processing industry?
India is a mature society.

We need to rise above
these kinds of incidents
because they certainly
dont give a good name
as far as the country is
concerned. It is the
responsibility of every
Indian to stay clear of
unfortunate instances
like this.
Arun Jaitley, at the Columbia
University in New York
Cow ban allows Hindutva

groups to terrorize and
dominate Muslims and
liberals. It gives them
global attention and
makes them the focus of a
controversy-hungry media.
It is this rather than cow
protection that the
go-rakshaks really seek.
Devdutt Pattanaik, writer of
Indian mythology, in
The Hindu
centers where animals, which have lived out

their usefulness, can be put to sleep through
administration of suitable medication. But
this formula may not find favor with those
who would want a natural death for the
revered cow and not assisted killing.
There is also another economic dimension. The meat export industry has been
doing impressive business and earned over
$5 billion in the last fiscal. It has grown by
over 20 percent in recent years, making it a
sunrise industry. Its primary export has been
packaged beef dominated by buffalo meat.
26
October 31, 2015
WHEN HAZINESS PAYS

Perhaps, finance minister Arun Jaitley may
have had this in mind as well as the bad press
over the Dadri lynching when he made a
statement in New York at the Columbia
University condemning the incident. He
said: India is a mature society. We need to
rise above these kinds of incidents because
they certainly don't give a good name as far
as the country is concerned. I have also said
they can amount to policy diversions in that
context, so it is the responsibility of every
Indian in his actions or comments to stay
clear of unfortunate and condemnable
instances like this."
That cow protection is being used to
polarize society along religious and caste
lines is very evident. If one looks back, there
are several Dadri-like instances where the
animal has been used as a convenient excuse
to unleash violence. Last year Santosh
Kumar, a Valmiki, was reportedly attacked by
men on motorcycles outside Delhi for carrying carcasses of cows in his tempo. He had
been contracted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation to cremate the dead cows.
Similarly, five Dalits were set upon by a VHP
mob in Jhajjar, Haryana, for carrying carcasses they were authorized to carry for cremation. In February, Uttar Pradesh animal
husbandry minister Raj Kishor Singh told
the state assembly that over 13,000 FIRs
were filed in UP between 2012-2014 involving cases of illegal slaughtering.
At the end of the day, it is easy to see why
no government wants to end the cow crisis by
investing money in long-term cow welfare
and protection. For a start, it simply does not
marry well with all the push towards fiscal
discipline. When the welfare state for
humans is being made to fade out, old age
homes for the cow may not exactly look good
in the balance books and may not find favor
with international monetary agencies.
But keeping the communal cauldron boiling in the name of the animal makes a lot
of sense when it comes to playing divisive
politics. IL
RELIGION MATTERS
Jain devotees queuing
up at a temple on the
last day of Paryushan
One Mans Meat Is

Another Mans Poison
There is much ado about meat nowadays. And the reason for this
issues resurgence is political, religious and commercial. But is its ban
wise? What does it do to Indias secular image?
By Kalyani Shankar
28
October 31, 2015
HOULD the state decide

what one should eat or not
eat? Can a minority community impose its wishes on the
majority community? These
are the questions dogging the
country after a beef ban was
imposed by Maharashtra in March and a
meat ban by the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal
Corporation last month. Its echo was heard
in Delhis backyard in Dadri (UP) on September 28 when a Muslim ironsmith was
dragged from his home and beaten to death
by an angry mob after rumors that his family
had been eating beef and storing it in their
home. His son was seriously injured. The
issue has now taken a communal color with
political parties jumping into the fray.

With more states announcing similar
bans, the issue has become contentious.
Many are not opposed to a ban for a day or
two, but a ban for four consecutive days and
the wide publicity given to it, has created
apprehensions. Jains who constitute a miniscule 0.37 percent of the Indian population
are influencing the BJP on vegetarianism in
most BJP-ruled states.
The meat ban has several angles apart
from the role of the state. It has a legal angle
(courts are examining it), a political angle
(BJP versus the rest), a communal angle
(Muslims versus Hindus), a class angle
(wealthy Jains versus the rest), a religious
angle (Hindus versus Muslims), a health
FAITH RULES
Jain devotees during a ritual
of forgiveness and fasting
while celebrating Paryushan
29
The meat ban

issue may polarize
voting in Bihar
elections. The Shiv
Sena has opposed
it in Mumbai
despite supporting
the Jains earlier.
The Congress, too,
has taken on the
BJP after having
banned it in state
after state.
angle (nutrition) and a community angle
(Jains versus the rest).
GROWING UNREST
It all started with a meat ban for four days
during Paryushan, an annual Jain festival in
Maharashtra, last month. The unrest was
already there in the state after a beef ban in
March, although only a small group of
Brahmins and Jains eat vegetarian food.
Those who support the ban (read BJP)
argue that this was not the first time it was
imposed. Gujarat had imposed it in April
1960 when the state was created. Rajasthan
had imposed it during Paryushan for many
years. Haryana too imposed a meat ban on
September 10 when its urban local bodies
30
October 31, 2015
ordered all slaughter houses to remain nonoperational during Paryushan. Cow slaughter is banned in MP and Chhattisgarh follows
the same rules as MP since it was carved out
of it in 2000. In Jammu and Kashmir, the
high court had called for strict implementation of a long-forgotten law prohibiting
slaughter of cows, oxen and buffaloes.
Then why is there an uproar now? Firstly,
the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation
had increased the duration of the meat ban.
Secondly, it comes close on the heels of the
beef ban imposed in BJP-ruled states. Thirdly, it became a fight between wealthy Jains
and others. Fourthly, Bihar elections are taking place and any communal or political
issue polarizes the voters.
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena, which has
always stood by the Jains, and its cousin
MNS, oppose it for their turf war. The
Congress accuses the BJP of majoritarianism
after itself having banned it in state after
state. The NCP, the AIMIM and the SP have
joined the Sena in opposing the ban. Left
parties, the SP, AIMIM, AAP and other parties are calling it an anti-Muslim stand. The
TMC wants Prime Minister Modi to respond.
POLITICAL GAINS
Why should the BJP oblige the Jains? First of
all, the Jain community, a core voting block
for the BJP, had been putting pressure on

the party to increase the meat ban to eight
days from two days during Paryushan. The
BJP climbed down after protests and made
it four days. The Jains are major funders of
the BJP and are an influential community.
The Congress too had pampered the Jains
by giving them minority status in 2014.
Secondly, it was a pre-poll promise and
the BJP could not wriggle out of it. Did not
the BJP stand by the beef ban earlier citing
majoritarian sentiment as the deciding factor for protecting the cow? Thirdly, there is
some merit that this was not the first time
the ban was imposed. It was done way back
in 1964 and then in 1994. Later, in 2003
and in 2013, there was a two-day ban.
Fourthly, the BJP wants to expand its
influence well beyond the Mumbai suburb
of Mira Bhayandar because in 2017, the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
(BMC) will go to the polls. The Shiv Sena
has traditionally controlled the BMC. The
BJP is getting ambitious and is contemplating fighting the corporation elections on
its own.
Lastly, on the religious side, the Hindu
majority consisting of about 80 percent of
the 1.2 billion people regard cows as sacred.
Muslims see this as an assault on secularism where the state is committed to supporting different religions equally.
OPPOSITE VIEW
While the minority Jain communitys sentiments should be respected, opponents of
the meat ban ask whether the BJP would
demonstrate the same level of compassion
towards other minorities also. Secondly, the
ban would affect thousands of people
(mostly Muslims) depending on the meat
business. It also provides livelihood to millions of people. Thirdly, there is also a
health argumentmeat is a source of nutrition. Since it is cheaper than chicken or
mutton, it forms a staple diet for many
Muslims, tribals and Dalits. Fourthly, no
one is objecting to Jains following their religion or observing fasts but they cant
impose a ban that affects others.
The legal angle is, in fact, quite interesting. Courts have been ruling on the cattle
issue as far back as the fifties and sixties. In

1969, a five-judge constitution bench held that
hurting the feelings of a particular community
or society cannot be a valid reason for a ban
on slaughter.
The Jain Paryushan issue had reached the
Supreme Court in 2008 and it upheld a decision
of local authorities in Gujarat to close slaughter
houses during the festival. Justice Markandey
Katju observed: If the Emperor Akbar could
forbid meat-eating for six months in a year in
Gujarat, is it unreasonable to abstain from meat
for nine days in a year in Ahmedabad today?
In 2009, the apex court upheld a Rishikesh
Municipal Corporation decision to ban the sale
of eggs in the holy town and held that the prohibition on trade would be ascertained as per the
social and economic life of the community,
falling back on Article 15A.
In the present case, keeping in mind the
sensitivity of the people of a section of the society, the apex court refused to interfere in the
FACT OF THE MATTER

(Top) India exports only
buffalo meat, also called
carabeef
(Above) Engineer Sheikh
Abdul Rashid, MLA (center)
along with Awami Itehad Party
workers during a dharna near
the main gate of civil
secretariat in Srinagar during
a protest on beef-ban issue
31
been a long-pending demand of the Sangh

Parivar. President Pranab Mukherjee gave
his assent to a law 19 years after the legislation was passed by the Shiva Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra in 1996. Other
states where cow slaughter is banned include
Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab, Odisha, Puducherry, Madhya Pradesh,
Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal
Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar, Delhi and
Andhra Pradesh. However, the implementation differs from state to state and it depends
on the political climate.
MAKING
AMENDS?
(Above) UP CM
Akhilesh Yadav
(third from right)
meeting the
family members
of Mohammad
Akhlaq, who was
lynched in Dadri
(Right) The BMC
building in
Mumbai; the BJP
is eyeing the
2017 BMC polls
Bombay High Courts order to put on hold a

meat ban. The bench observed: These are
not issues forced down the throat of anyone.
A spirit of tolerance has to be inculcated.
The Supreme Court also asked the High
Court to decide within six months whether
the sale of meat should be banned during
religious festivals. The High Court had said
that it was only going by law and not by sentiment and politics.
The basis for the meat ban and beef ban
stems from the fact that cow protection has
32
October 31, 2015
ECONOMIC ANGLE
On the economic side, the export of beef
(meat of cow, oxen and calf ) is prohibited as
per the meat export policy of the government. While cows are sacred for Hindus,
export of buffalo meat remains a huge industry. India is home to 300 million cattle and is
the world's largest beef exporter and the
fifth-biggest consumer.
Meat from India is in demand in at least
65 countries as it is 20 percent cheaper than
from Brazil or other countries. Also, buyers
in Islamic countries are assured it is halal
meat. Global meat consumption is expected
to double by 2050.
India being the top beef exporter is not
something the saffron parties are proud of
even though the meat is not of the cow or its
progeny. India exports only buffalo meat, also
called carabeef . Although Prime Minister
Modi during the 2014 campaign decried this
pink revolution, the $5 billion meat industry is growing with a 20 percent increase in
registration of meat exporters last year.
In such situation, was the meat or beef
ban a wise decision? Is not meat eating a personal choice? What business does the state
have to interfere in what is cooking in your
kitchen or what is kept in your refrigerator?
Politics and religion should be kept out
and incidents such as Dadri should be condemned. No one has the right to become a
moral policeman.
Then and then only, will the social fabric
of secular India remain intact. IL
The writer is the former political

editor of Hindustan Times
Different Rules
for Different States
Part of the confusion regarding cow slaughter and beef consumption

are vague laws. It serves political interests to keep it that way
By Rakesh Bhatnagar
HERE has been a spate of diktats in recent times over cow

slaughter and beef consumption. In rare cases, it has led to
tragic events such as the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq by a mob in Dadri
over suspicion that he had beef in his home.
What had led to confusion are vague laws all
over the country regarding both issues. And a
series of judgments have not really cleared
the matter. Take the following cases.
No state law explicitly bans the consumption of beef. Jammu and Kashmir, ruled by
the BJP-PDP combine, for example, imposed
a ban on cow slaughter and consumption of
beef. However, on October 6, the Supreme
Court suspended it for two months so that
the state high court could take a final call on
two conflicting orders passed by different
benches on the issue. In Delhi, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab,
34
October 31, 2015
Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the slaughter

of cow and its progeny, bulls and bullocks is
completely banned. Most states prohibit the
slaughter of cows. However, Assam and West
Bengal permit its slaughter if it is over the
age of 10 and 14 years, respectively. Most
states prohibit the slaughter of calves. With
the exception of Bihar and Rajasthan where
the age of a calf is given as below three years,
other states have not defined its age.
Theres no restriction on cow slaughter in
Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram,
Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.
In Delhi, Goa, Puducherry, Punjab and Uttar
Pradesh, violation of laws on cattle slaughter
are both cognizable and non-bailable
offences. Most of other states specify that
offences would be cognizable only. Delhi and
Madhya Pradesh have fixed a mandatory
minimum imprisonment term of six months,
but in several states, including Delhi, there is
no ban on culling buffaloes (see map).
SPIRIT OF TOLERANCE
Contrary to the stand it took in 2005, the
Supreme Court recently came out strongly on
these curbs and declined to approve a temporary ban on the sale of meat in Mumbai
in view of the Jain festival, Paryushan.
On September 18, 2015, it declared that a
ban cannot be forced down somebodys
throat and that the spirit of tolerance was
paramount.
Unfortunately, the beef ban has led to a
growing underground business, giving rise to
about 30,000 illegal and unlicensed abattoirs in India.
While the ban on beef directly affects a
Bovine slaughter map

Laws regarding cow slaughter in
various Indian states
No Ban
Total Ban
Conditional culling
Export/ sale to foreigners allowed
Old laws contested
Conditional slaughter:
In many states where cow slaughter is banned, bull and buffalo
slaughter is allowed. In Gujarat, buffaloes can be culled.
In states like Assam, Andhra and
Telangana, a fit-for-slaughter certificate allows for slaughter.
Himachal allows cow slaughter
for research work.
Himachal, Odisha allow cow
slaughter in case of contagious disease
Old laws contested:
In J&K, law prohibits slaughter of
cow and buffalo. But now, the
Supreme Court has suspended the
ban on cow slaughter and beef sale
for two months, and asked the state
High Court to examine legal issues.
In Manipur, despite a 1939 law,
beef is consumed.
Graphics: Anthony Lawrence
majority of SCs and STs and people of other

religions, this has been a core issue for the
ruling BJP. The BJP election manifesto in
2014 had said the party would protect the
cow. In view of the contribution of the cow
and its progeny to agriculture, socio economic and cultural life of the country, the department of animal husbandry will be suitably
strengthened and empowered for the protection of cow and its progeny, the
manifesto stated.
UPHOLDING BAN
On October 26, 2005, a seven-judge SC
Bench comprising of then Chief Justice
RC Lahoti, Justices BN Agrawal, Arun
Kumar, GP Mathur, CK Thakker and PK
Balasubramanyan upheld the 1994 ban by
Gujarat regarding cow slaughter, saying
it had been imposed to maintain the
environment as envisaged in Article 48-A of
the Constitution. This Article deals with
environment, forests and wild life.
The judgment said: Protection and
improvement of environment is necessary for
safeguarding forests and wild life, which in
turn protects and improves the environment.

Forests and wild life are clearly interrelated and inter-dependent. They protect
each other.
The judges also said that cow progeny
excreta is scientifically recognized as a source
of rich organic manure.
It enables farmers to avoid the use of
chemicals and inorganic manure. However,
Justice AK Mathur was the sole voice of
dissent in this bench.
In a separate judgment, he dismissed
the appeal filed by Gujarat and held: The
court should guard zealously Fundamental
Rights guaranteed to the citizens of the society, but at the same time strike a balance
between these rights and the larger interests
of the society.
But when such right clashes with the
larger interest of the country it must yield to
the latter. Therefore, wherever any enactment is made for advancement of Directive
Principles and it runs counter to the
Fundamental Rights an attempt should be
made to harmonise the same if it promotes
larger public interest. IL
The Supreme
Court has
declined to
approve a
temporary ban
on the sale of
meat in Mumbai
in view of the
Jain festival,
Paryushan.
35
SPECIAL REPORT/ Jails
Mayhem
Behind
The
the Bars
Indian jails are hell holes of

corruption, drug dealing,
gang wars and sexual
predators. Far from being
institutions to reform
criminals, they are sliding into
more chaos and despair
By Ramesh Menon
AILS are supposed to be institutions which reform criminals

and show them a new path after
they realize the gravity of their
crimes. But have overcrowded
Indian jails failed in this effort?
Why have they become dens of
corruption, drug consumption, gang wars,
ugly fights and jail-breaks? Why are VIP prisoners treated differently? Why has sexual
exploitation continued? Why have prisoners
who are too poor to pay bribes for basic facilities like edible food, suffered through their
terms? Many questions. Disturbing answers.
Far from emerging as reformatories, jails
have become veritable hell holes. Many prisoners stay there for years as undertrials suffering humiliation, bloody fights, sickness
36
October 31, 2015
caused by unhygienic conditions and fighting

off sexual predators. Many have committed
suicide as it was their only escape. Questions
of security and human rights are often raised
about Indian jails.
The most recent incident has been in Tihar
Jail, one of the largest and supposedly bestrun jails in India, which saw much reform and
change when Magsaysay Award winner Kiran
Bedi was at the helm of affairs. However, it
has recently seen a series of gang wars, murders and jail-breaks.
Early this month, two prominent undertrials in Tihar got into a fight to establish
supremacy and ended up killing each other.
Ishwar, who was being tried for attempt-tomurder, multiple cases of snatching and robbery, was returning from an eye camp within
some of Indias most wanted criminals and

terrorists. It is perceived to be one of the
worst kept jails in the country. Like most jails
in India, it is cramped and overcrowded.
n any jail, a prisoner has to pay a price to

get decent facilities to get away from
stinking and unkempt cells which lead to
sickness. Lunch is ready as early as 7 am in
the morning and dinner at 3pm in the prisons
of Maharashtra. As there are no refrigeration
facilities, imagine what condition the food
would be in by the time it is consumed. They
are stored unhygenically and that too in hot
and humid places.
This fortnight, the Maharashtra government ordered a high-level probe into irregularities in Arthur Road Jail about an alleged
illegal rate card where inmates are charged
money for basic amenities. The home department has asked Additional Director General
of Police (prisons) Meeran Borwankar to look
into the allegations and take immediate
action against the guilty.
Six months ago, five undertrialsthree of
whom were detained under the Maharashtra
Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA)
dramatically escaped from Nagpur Central
Jail. A day later, when Borwankar searched
the jail, she found 23 mobile phones. Some of
them had internet and WhatsApp facilities.
Liquor bottles and batteries were also
CHAOS AND
DESPAIR
(Left) A Tihar jail
prisoner injured in
a fight with
another inmate
being taken out of
a hospital after
treatment
(Below) Tihar Jail
has recently seen
a series of gang
wars, murders
and jail-breaks
the jail when Anil Choudhary, who has been

charged with numerous robberies, attacked
him with a sharp piece of metal, inflicting
him with deep gashes. Ishwar reportedly fell
unconscious while three of his aides caught
Choudhary and attacked him. Both were
rushed to hospital but could not be saved.
Ishwar had been sent to prison numerous
times in the last eight years, while Choudhary
had been in prison for the last three years.
Last month, two rival gang leaders were killed
in another fight between them in a moving
police van.
It is not just Tihar. Every jail has such stories that reek of corruption and mismanagement. Mumbai's Arthur Road Jailwhich
housed Ajmal Kasab, hanged for being part of
the 2008 Mumbai terror attackshouses
37
pended Prison Superintendent Vaibhav

Kamble after the jail break and ordered an
inquiry by the Director General of the AntiCorruption Bureau. Fadnavis said: The prisoners could not have escaped without internal
help. We had installed mobile jammers in the
prison, but their operations were suspended
before the prisoners escaped.
CRAMPED AND
OVERCROWDED
Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail is
perceived to be one of the
worst kept jails in the country
Additional DG of
Police (prisons),
Maharashtra,
Meeran Borwankar
(right) has been
linked to a CCTV
scam. She
reportedly got
cameras installed
in all the prisons of
the state, but most
were not in
working condition.
38
October 31, 2015
found in the jail.

Vijay Gawli, a jail staffer, had earlier told
the media that inmates were allowed access to
mobile phones by the senior supervisory staff.
Gawli had said that seniors often provided
liquor, cigarettes and mobile phones to prisoners. He alleged that even sex workers were
brought into jail to entertain some prisoners.
In fact, Gawli had lodged a police complaint
alleging that a senior jail official had forced
him to sign statements saying that his comments to the media were incorrect. A show
cause notice was served on Gawli for this
indiscretion.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis sus-
nce upon a time, the Maharashtra

police enjoyed the reputation of
being one of the best in the country.
However, in recent years, this has got ruined
with police officials involved in rape, extortion, underworld links, disproportionate
assets, custodial death, fake encounters,
shoddy investigation and so on. From 2006 to
2010, over 21,000 cases were registered
against the state policepersons, including
ones of illegal detention and custodial death.
The National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB) puts the state police fifth on a list
headed by Madhya Pradesh (93,710 complaints), followed by Uttar Pradesh (34,364),
Delhi (29,165) and Punjab (23,090).
Maharashtra with a 1,80,000 strong
police force is the largest in the country. It has
a ratio of 17.93 policemen for a population of
10,000 which is also the best in the country.
States with a larger population like Uttar
Pradesh have a lesser ratio.
Last year, a report of the Public Accounts
Committee in Maharashtra made a searing
indictment of prisons in the state, pointing
out how they were riddled with corruption,
that addictive substances were being provided to inmates and that they had inadequate
manpower to guard these facilities.
The report proposed that jammers be
installed to paralyze mobile phones within
jails and insisted that CCTV cameras be put
up. It said that some districts like Gondia did
not have any facility to house prisoners. The
report said: Society will not be safe if there
are no prisons. The number of criminals in
the state is increasing. As criminals from
other states are also being kept in
Maharashtra, the number of jails we have is
falling short.
The state has 47 jails and 172 sub-jails and
also has the reputation of having the most
corrupt jails in the country. Posting to a
Maharashtra jail is considered a coveted one,

said a source to India Legal, as it involves
rampant corruption. The source said that it is
common to pay a price for beedis, cigarettes,
liquor, better facilities and also to escape
harassment at the hand of jail officials. To corner VIPs into paying bribes, they are often put
into cramped cells all alone on the pretext
that there is a security threat when there is
none, the source added.
Numerous jail officials have cases lodged
against them for criminal activities. Two years
ago, IPS officer AK Jain was convicted in a
corruption case and sentenced to five years in
jail. He was also asked to pay a fine of `1.5
lakh by a Mumbai court. He and his chartered
accountant were arrested by the Mumbai
Police for accepting a bribe.
n a knee-jerk reaction to the goings on at

Yerawada Central Jail in Pune, which is
one of the largest in South Asia, the
Maharashtra
government
transferred
Superintendent Sharad Khatavkar replacing
him with Yogesh Desai. Many wondered if
that was a sound decision as Desai was under
the scanner in three cases, including the
killing of Chhota Rajans henchman OP Singh
and an alleged recruitment fraud.
When Desai was the superintendent of
Adharwadi Jail in Kalyan, he was caught by
the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on January 10, 2001, for accepting a bribe of
`15,000 from a relative of a jail inmate. But
later, Desai was acquitted of the charge.
The jail administration

in Maharashtra
needs to clean up
the system before
corruption spreads
even more. Many
officials were known
for illegal activities
when Satej Patil, aka
Bunty Patil (left), was
the minister of state
for home in
Maharashtra.
However, he came under the scanner
again in November 2002 when OP Singh was
killed by another gang member, DK Rao, in
Nashik Road Jail. Desai, who was then superintendent of the jail, was suspended.
Later, Desai was named in alleged irregularities in recruitment of prison staff. A total
of 13 officers from the prison department,
including Desai, were being investigated after
a case was filed with the Pune police alleging
that these officials collected money from candidates and passed them in a recruitment
examination for sentries. This case is still pending in court. He was later transferred out
of Yerawada.
Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court
Complaints, inquiries and cases registered against Police Personnel during 2007-2011
Judicial
Complaints/
Cases
declared
false/ unsubstantiated
No. of cases
registered
during the
year
119
278
28,412
17,215
99
204
54,873
24,302
611
2010
58,438
21,563
2011
61,765
21,144
Year
No. of Inquiry Instituted
No. of
complaints
received/
alleged
during the
year
Departmental
Magisterial
2007
51,767
13,953
2008
48,939
2009
No. of cases
Reported for
regular
Departmental
action
Sent for
trials/
charge
sheeted
7,908
3,129
941
29,577
5,445
4,596
1,132
481
28,120
14,975
9,759
1,618
326
268
31,115
10,470
9,665
861
282
246
28,789
11,171
10,020
913
Source: NCRB
39
Two CDs were recently sent to the president of

India which reportedly had evidence of Yogesh
Desais (right) involvement in corrupt activities
and links with Satej Patil, aka Bunty Patil.
too had come down on Borwankar for the
manner in which she dealt with a case of
alleged harassment by Asha Bajaj, a Powai
resident. Bajaj was sent to Yerawada mental
asylum on June 14. She managed to escape on
June 16 and filed a petition in the high court
challenging the police action against her. The
court ruled that her detention in a mental
hospital was unlawful. According to the 22page judgment, the division bench of Justice
Bilal Nazki and Justice Ashutosh Kumbhkoni
had expressed unhappiness with the role
played by the senior IPS officer and the conduct of a magistrate who sent Bajaj to the
mental asylum. The judges said: We are of
the view that the whole exercise of sending
Bajaj to the mental hospital was done with a
preconceived plan in which the main role has
been played by Borwankar.
EMBROILED IN
CONTROVERSY
Yerawada Central
Jail in Pune
40
October 31, 2015
he court observed: If Meeran

Borwankar had any grievance, she
could have taken recourse to law and
Asha Bajaj could have been booked for the
offences she might have committed. But the
course taken by Meeran Borwankar was
absolutely wrong and was not expected of an
officer of the calibre of Borwankar. There was
no material to suggest that there was any reason for the police officer to believe that Asha
Bajajs presence was dangerous by reason of
her mental illness.
Borwankars name has also been linked to
a CCTV scam. She reportedly got cameras
installed in all the prisons of Maharashtra but
most of them were not in working condition.
The bills for the cameras were inflated and
the quality was poor. No proper tender was
floated for the project.
A complaint has been filed before the president of India to take action against notorious
officers in Maharashtra.
The jail administration in Maharashtra
needs to perk up and clean up the system
before the virus of corruption spreads even
more. Many of the officials were known for
their illegal activities when Satej Patilalso
known as Bunty Patilwas the minister of
state for home in Maharashtra.
Right now, there does not seem to be any
concrete plan to reform the jail administration or reach out to reform the prisoners.
In the Pradeep Annasaheb Pathrikar vs
State of Maharashtra, a sessions court in
Mumbai in July 2015 did not grant relief to
the Superintendent of Arthur Road Jail,
Vasudav Burkule, and Deputy Superintendent Pradeep Pathrikar in a bribery case.
They were charge-sheeted by the ACB under
sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
It was alleged that Pathrikar in connivance
with Burkule, demanded a bribe of `40,000
from the prison officer for ensuring that he
cleared one of the papers in the departmental
Prison Officer Grade II examination. The
prosecution made out a case based on a complaint filed by the prison officer to the ACB.
They alleged that based on the complaint,
ACB had laid a trap for Pathrikar and he
was nabbed.
According to the ACB, the prison officer
was asked by Pathrikar to go to his office and
hand over the cash. He was told to put the
cash on the center table. After doing so, the
officer signaled to ACB officials and Pathrikar
was caught red-handed. According to the
prosecution, all evidence showed that
Burkule wanted the amount and Pathrikar
was carrying out the plan of action.
owever, Pathrikar in his discharge

application to the sessions court,
challenged the charge-sheet and
denied all allegations. He even accused the
prison officer of framing him. Pathrikar further alleged that he was used as a tool to
frame Burkule. On all these grounds, he
claimed discharge.
Looking at all the evidence and facts and
circumstances, the sessions court found that
both Pathrikar and Burkule were indeed
guilty. It observed that during the course of
the investigation, prima facie it appeared that
the amount was accepted by Pathrikar on
behalf of Burkule.
The defense tried to allude to other cases
to bail them out, but the court was not convinced. However, it ruled that the accused
may raise their objections once again at the
time of the final hearing. There was no room
for entertaining them at the initial stage of
framing charges. It rejected the discharge
application and allowed ACB to proceed with
the investigation.
Jails all over India have such stories to tell.
In 2010, Wikileaks quoting a diplomatic
cable, said that the Red Cross had briefed US
diplomats about the use of electrocution,
beatings and sexual humiliation of detainees
in Jammus Kot Bhalwal Jail in 2005.
Former Director General of Police Kiran
Bedi told India Legal: We all know what is
wrong. If the leadership in jails walks around
every morning instead of sitting in their
offices, they will immediately know what is
wrong and what needs to be done. She insists
that the other officers should also walk
We all know what is

wrong. If the leadership
in jails walks around
every morning instead of
sitting in their offices,
they will immediately
know what is wrong and
what needs to be done.
Kiran Bedi, former
Director General of Police
Number of Police Personnel Undertrial,

Convicted & Acquitted during 2007-2011
No of poliof police
No of personnel
cepersons Nopersonnel
whose cases
in whose
were withcases Convicted Acquitted
drawn or
trial
was
otherwise completed
disposed off
SI.
NO
Year
No of
police
personnel
sent for
trial
2007
1,273
199
149
43
106
2008
1,245
125
128
33
95
2009
1,279
132
142
43
99
2010
1,107
141
205
53
152
2011
1,229
475
439
47
392
Source: NCRB
around and connect with prisoners, opening

communication lines.
When Bedi was in charge of Tihar Jail,
Bedi transformed it into a jail that attracted
international attention. She made prisoners
study, gave them vocational training, introduced them to daily spiritual exercises and
lectures, put gangsters in a separate ward and
led from the front. The results were there for
all to see. But that, as we see, was merely a
flash in the pan.
There are good practices to learn from in
the Indian context itself. But unless there are
prison reforms, jails here will only slide into
more chaos and despair. Corruption, gang
wars and jail-breaks cannot be wished away.
They need to be dealt with sternly if there has
to be light at the end of the tunnel. IL
41
COLUMN/ Vipin Pubby/Defamation Notices
Anthony Lawrence
Slapped by a Suit
As the resident editor of a major daily, this writer has had his share of
defamation suits. Here is a personal account of the time and energy
wasted over frivolous suits aimed at muzzling the press
By Vipin Pubby in Chandigarh
OR over 17 years, I had been bearing the cross with my name

marked by an asterisk on the back
page of the newspaper editions I
edited. The symbol was a pointer
to the declaration that I was responsible for the
selection of stories under the Press and
Registration of Books (PRB) Act.
This was also aimed at absolving the editorin-chief, the managing editor, the executive
editor, the printer, publisher and all and sundry
42
October 31, 2015
from the fangs of defamation laws of the country. And I have had a fair share of brushes with
the law.
After signing scores of vakalatnamas, paying
innumerable visits to various court premises,
spending hours waiting for a call from the peon
outside the court rooms, standing still before
the magistrates and judges as the counsels
argued the cases and getting to sign haajri, I
have come out unscathed. Either the cases were
dismissed after years of hearings or were with-
drawn by the alleged victims of defamation due

to sheer exhaustion.
DELAYING TACTICS
The cases dragged on as the advocates
employed tactics to deliberately delay the hearings to let the hearings go on for years together.
Besides, there were all those adjournments
because either the magistrate would go on sudden unannounced leave or there would be a
strike by lawyers or the counsel of either side
would fall ill or would be busy in some other
court. On all such occasions, we would just sign
in our presence and get another tareekh.
It is also true that most of the cases had little
leg to stand on and it was obvious from the very
beginning that these cannot pass muster. Other
than the cases which ended up in the courts,
there were at least five times the number of legal
notices for defamation that were received for
the person responsible under the PRB Act. I
shall come to that in a moment.
In almost all the cases that were slapped on
me, which included both civil and criminal
defamation and in many cases both, there was
little evidence that I or the newspaper could
have had any vested interest. In most cases the
newspaper would have been happy to make
amends to settle the issue.
CASE DISMISSED
One such case pertained to a woman from
Hoshiarpur in Punjab. The Indian Express had
run a series on the scandal involving allotment
of petrol pumps in the country. While referring
to one of the allottees, our reporter mentioned
that she was married and related to an influential person. The allotment to her was cancelled
among that of several others. After several
months, we received a court summon as she
had filed a defamation case for describing her as
a married woman. She maintained that she was
unmarried and she sought damages as no one
was ready to marry her citing our story! Not just
that, she also filed a complaint with the SC/ST
Commission, which marked it to the state vigilance department which, in turn, summoned
me for questioning.
The case went on for several years till we
heard that she had stopped coming for the
hearings and the case had been dismissed.
Another defamation case was filed by the
Former railways
minister Pawan
Bansal moved
court against us
for allegedly
defaming him.
Fortunately,
elections were
announced and
he withdrew
the case.
firebrand Akali leader Simranjit Singh Mann,
for which I must have visited the holy town of
Fatehgarh Sahib over a dozen times. I was a
defendant, along with the reporter who had
quoted a police officer in one of her stories saying that Mann was getting funds from abroad.
The police officer had made the remarks at a
press conference and several other newspapers
had also carried the news item. However Mann,
possibly piqued by some other reports by her,
slapped a suit against us. Even though he rarely
made an appearance in the court, we were not
given any exemption. After years of litigation,
the judge threw out the case. Fortunately for us,
Mann did not drag us to higher courts or we
would have had to spend several more years to
get to the final judgment.
Another example: The newspaper published a small story based on one of the numerous press releases that land in newspaper offices
daily. The release carried certain defamatory
statements signed by around 50 students and
one of our junior reporters faithfully reproduced the charges. The story went past all the
gatekeepers and was published even though the
lady against whom these charges were made
was not contacted by the reporter for her version. Instead of approaching the newspaper she
filed a case in the court. Her plea was that the
signatures were forged and that the press
release was planted by her professional rivals.
The court issued us a notice.
On the first day of the hearing, the magistrate asked us if we were ready to publish her
43
COLUMN/ Vipin Pubby/Defamation Notices
In Akali leader
Simranjit Singh
Manns case, I
must have visited
Fatehgarh Sahib
over a dozen
times. While he
rarely came to
the court, we
were not given
any exemption.
Criminalize
defamation?
IN July this year, Subramanian
Swamy and Rahul Gandhi
had challenged the constitutional validity of Sections 499
and 500 of the IPC which
relate to criminal defamation.
They argued that initiation of
criminal proceedings will have
an adverse effect on a persons right to free speech
under Article 19(1)(a) of the
Constitution. The two leaders
had been charged with defamation for their speeches in
Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra,
respectively.
The Supreme Court, hearing their petitions, had observed that political debates
may not come under the definition of criminal offence for
defamation. Reserving its
verdict, it wanted the center to
respond on the issue.
The center, arguing for the
retention, had said: There will
be anarchy in the society and
everyone will think he has a
right to hurl abuses if the
criminal defamation is
repealed as a penal offence.
Later in September, the
apex court stayed three criminal defamation cases against
Swamy for commenting on
Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa.
44
October 31, 2015
version and regrets. Given the harassment we

had faced in the past, we immediately agreed
and the magistrate advised the petitioner to
resolve the issue. However she was adamant
and fought it over eight years, with scores of
adjournments and dozens of hearings.
Over the years, we became familiar with
each other after meeting in the courts. One day,
we got talking and she realized that we are
fighting each other unwittingly while the real
culpritsthe one who issued the alleged press
release and the junior reporter who had filed
the piecewere nowhere on the scene. It was
then resolved that she would withdraw both the
civil and the criminal cases and we shall publish
our regretsomething we had agreed eight
years ago.
Yet another case is going on for nearly 10
years in a Jalandhar court. We came to know
about the existence of the case several years
after it was filed in 2005 as we had shifted our
premises and the notices kept coming to the old
address. It was filed by a baba who had made us
and some other newspapers a party to a case
filed against a village panchayat which had allegedly defamed him.
TARGET OF MANY
There has also been no dearth of politicians filing cases. Former railways minister and MP
from Chandigarh Pawan Bansal, himself a
lawyer, moved court to seek action against us
and some local BJP leaders for allegedly defaming him. We appeared in court a couple of times
but then, fortunately, elections were announced

and he withdrew the case.
Interestingly, I also had the honor of
receiving legal notices from a couple of bureaucrats. The local deputy commissioner once sent
us a notice that we were trying to create public
disorder by publishing false news about him.
The notice was on behalf of the office of the
deputy commissioner and not by the officer in
his personal capacity. However, it was not taken
any further after their seniors were apprised of
the notices.
Now coming to the legal notices received by
us. The incidence of receiving such notices was
at least five times the number of cases finally
pursued against us. This was something which
our legal team took very seriously and it made it
a point to give a detailed reply, evidently to
avoid taking the case to the courts.
However, over the years I realized that this
ploy was often used to muzzle the media and
prevent follow-ups or similar reports appearing
in other newspapers. Many of those who sent
legal notices also mailed copies to the other editors warning of legal action if they wrote anything about it. This effectively ensured that the
story got buried in a deep freeze. Legal departments of newspapers would get extra cautious
and even journalists would like to avoid getting
into any trouble. This was by far an effective tool
to prevent the exposure of scandals.
There are still a couple of cases pending in
the courts. One of these involves a senior IPS
officer, now retired, who had named nearly 60
editors and reporters as respondents in a
defamation case. Though the case was filed
about six years ago, nearly half of the respondents have so far not been served the notices.
With the Supreme Court hearing a bunch of
petitions challenging Sections 499 and 500 of
the IPC (which criminalizes defamatory
speech) filed by politicians, some hope is in
sight that defamation is at least decriminalized.
It is essential that such fetters are removed if
free speech is to remain meaningful. Reasonable restrictions are already in place under
other existing laws and the provision of exemplary costs under civil proceedings should be
sufficient to deter defamation. IL
The writer served as resident editor of

The Indian Express in Chandigarh
INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS
BP to pay $20 billion damages

T
he US Justice Department
and five states announced a
$20 billion final settlement of
environmental damage claims
against BP arising from the
2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico, reports
USA Today.
The deal, once approved by a
judge, would resolve all civil
claims against BP and end five
Tourists may skip Maldives
ourists could be urged to

boycott beach resorts on
the Maldives following a highly
critical United Nations ruling
condemning the illegal imprisonment of its former president,
Mohamed Nasheed, reports
The Guardian.
Nasheed, sentenced in
March this year to 13 years in

prison after being found guilty
of terrorism, did not receive a
fair trial, according to the UN
Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention (WGAD).
The latest twist in the protracted legal battle, pitting barrister Amal Clooney against
Cherie Booth QC, has focused
international attention on the
islands increasingly controversial human rights record.
Nasheed, 48, was the first
democratically-elected president of the Maldives and highlighted the dangers of global
warming to his low-lying nation.
He was ousted in 2012.
No plea deal for Snowden
SA whistleblower Edward
Snowden has said that the
US justice department has
made no effort to contact him
so far to discuss a deal that
would see him return from exile
in Russia.
Snowden, who is wanted in
the US under the Espionage
Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, said he had offered to
do time in prison as part of a
deal. We are still waiting for
them to call us back, he said
in an interview on BBC
Panorama.
His comments come barely
months after Eric Holder, who

was US attorney-general until
April, said Snowdens revelations had spurred a necessary
debate. He said the possibility exists of a plea deal.
years of a legal fight over a 134

million-gallon spill that affected
1,300 miles of shoreline. It would
also bind the company to a massive cleanup project in the Gulf
Coast area to restore wildlife,
habitat and water quality.
The settlement, filed in a
federal court in New Orleans,
finalizes an agreement first
announced in July.
Hillary for tougher

gun control law
Brazils Rousseff
faces legal battle
Brazilian audit court has

ruled that President Dilma
Rousseff broke the countrys law
in managing last years budget.
The government was accused of
borrowing money illegally from
state banks to make up for
budget shortfalls. The irregularities amount to more than $26
billion, according to the court.
The opposition says the ruling by the Federal Accounts
Courtwhich reports to the
Congresspaves the way for
impeachment proceedings.
Rousseff was re-elected less
than a year ago but has record
low popularity ratings.
The Brazilian government
said it would challenge this
ruling in the Supreme Court.
If the decision is upheld by the
Supreme Court, the governments accounts will be assessed by the Congress, where
Rousseffs coalition holds a
majority.
emocratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton
proposed new gun control
laws in the wake of the
deadly Oregon school
shooting, stressing on the
abolishment of legislation
that protects gun makers
and dealers from being sued
by shooting victims.
Clinton also vowed to
use executive powers as
president to expand background checks at gun shows
and ban domestic abusers
from purchasing guns.
Her promise comes after
a deadly shooting at Umqua
Community College in
Roseburg, Oregon, in early
October, leaving eight students and a teacher dead.
Clinton also blasted the
Republicans, arguing that
they put the NRA [National
Rifle Association] ahead of
American families.
Compiled by Anuj Raina

45
LEGAL EYE/ Law Schools
Abolish three-year
law degrees: Judge
In an order, Justice N
Kirubakaran of the Madurai
Bench of the Madras High Court
roots for five-year law courses
and asks for scrapping of the
three-year courses
By Venkatasubramanian
CATCH EM YOUNG
Toppers at the
convocation
ceremony of National
Law University,
Bangalore
46
October 31, 2015
survey has shown that Indias national law

schools, which offer five-year courses, are
marked by elitism and lack of diversity.
However, in an order, Justice N
Kirubakaran of the Madurai bench of the
Madras High Court, found virtues in the
National Law Universities (NLU), and
rated their education several notches higher than the traditional
three-year law degree course still offered by many universities
and accessed by all. In an order passed by him in SM Anantha
Murugan vs The Chairman, Bar Council of India, New Delhi, on
It is only in the three-year course, criminals join

and not in the five-year course as age factor is a
problem. Therefore, three year course has to be
scrapped in the interest of the judicial system.
Justice N Kirubakaran of the Madurai bench
of the Madras High Court
between the privileged who get admission to
the NLUs and those who didnt. A total of
97 percent of the students surveyed went to
higher secondary schools that had English as
the medium of instruction, despite the fact that
English was the mother tongue for only 3.5
percent of them.
October 6, Justice Kirubakaran has directed
early abolition of three-year law degree courses. He has attributed the propensity among
lawyers to indulge in criminal behavior to aged
persons wanting to study and contribute to the
practice of law through the three-year course.
However, a recent survey conducted by
Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access
(IDIA), attempts to drive the policy in the area
of inclusive legal education and diversity
within law schools and the legal profession.
This project was initiated by Shamnad
Basheer, a product of the five-year law school,
and conducted by him along with Geetanjali
Sharma. The survey collected responses from
students of nine top national law schools.
ELITIST NLUs?
In more than 70 percent of households of NLU
students, both parents were conversant with
English. Forty-two percent of students were
found to have a friend or close relative in the
legal profession, while under 10 percent had a
parent who was a lawyer. More than 83 percent
of students parents earned more than `3 lakh
per year and 53 percent earned above `7 lakh
per year, yet nearly 80 percent of students
OLD WORK ETHOS?

Patna High Court
advocates abstain
from work during a
strike to protest
seating arrangement
in the court premises
Photos: UNI
LAW SURVEY
The IDIA project aims at reaching out to marginalized and under-represented groups, sensitizing them to law as a viable career option and
helping interested students in acquiring
admission to these law schools.
IDIAs research has confirmed elitism and
the lack of diversity in student populations in
NLUs. In a blog written on August 7 this year,
Basheer brought to light some disturbing findings. Hardly one percent of students who made
it to the top five NLUs were from a vernacular
medium school. IDIA surveyed 550 students,
of whom 18 were from non-traditional backgrounds supported by it.
Among the findings, lack of English skills
was cited as the most distinguishing factor
47
LEGAL EYE/ Law Schools
Among IDIAs
research
findings, lack of
English skills
was cited as
the most
distinguishing
factor between
the privileged
who get
admission
to the NLUs
and those
who didnt.
LEGAL EAGLES IN
THE MAKING
Mock court
competitions are an
important event in law
school calendars
took expensive coaching, which can cost

`1 lakh or more to crack the highly competitive
Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). Only
1.6 percent of students came from Muslim
families, despite Muslims making up 12 percent of Indias population.
The survey showed that these types of
minority issues could extend to bullying and
ragging, as 7.3 percent of respondents reported
that they had faced harassment, ethnic or
racial abuse because of their background,
including their lack of English conversational
skills or dressing sense, and 12.4 percent
reported difficulty fitting into law schools
because of their background.
Three-year law courses have been able to
attract students from various disciplines,
whereas five-year courses attract only those
fresh from schools without a basic degree in
any of the disciplines. Those with degrees in
other disciplines have been found to be eclectic
in their approach to understanding and practicing law and confront legal problems with a
fresh perspective, which is not the case with the
five-year law students.
With their basic degrees in other disciplines, those who are the products of threeyear law courses have been found to bring by
instinct and training, an inter-disciplinary
approach to the practice of law, which would
otherwise be lost if it is confined to mere literal
interpretation of the legal provisions.

It is not as if the five-year courses are without any merit. Thanks to NLUs, many bright
law graduates have joined the legal profession,
thus contributing to its dynamism. The profession stands to benefit when both the three-year
and five-year courses cater to the educational
needs of different sections of society.
AGE FACTOR
However, Justice Kirubakaran order said: It is
only in the three-year course, criminals join
and not in the five-year course as age factor is a
problem. Therefore, three year course has to be
scrapped in the interest of the judicial system,
he concludes.
Justice Kirubakaran also says: If a criminal
gets an avatar of an advocate by purchasing a
law degree, if any action is taken against him,
he would play the advocate card and the advocate community would resort to boycott of
courts paralyzing the courts functioning without even verifying as to whether action has
been taken against regular practitioner or a
criminal turned lawyer.
Label of advocate makes the criminal
to have acquaintance with police, threaten
police and to conduct katta panchayat without
any problems and avoid police action, including filing of complaints against them, he further says.
ENTRY OF CRIMINALS
The reason for the entry of criminals into the
legal profession has to be squarely attributed to
alleged Bar leaders and many Bar Council
members and their boycott of courts, he says.
According to him, the word a person used
in Section 24 of the Advocates Act means a
person with honesty, moral values, ethics,
integrity and without a criminal background
and that person alone is qualified to be admitted as an advocate on a state roll.
The State Bar Council is duty bound to verify the nature of the crimes alleged and also
verify the antecedent of the candidate seeking
enrolment in a meticulous manner so as to
deny entry pass to such criminal elements into
the legal profession, he holds.
If a person accused of criminal offences is
allowed to enroll, he would stand as an accused
in one case and in some other cases, he would
48
October 31, 2015
be representing as an advocate; such an incongruous situation should be avoided, he held.

Parliament should amend the Advocates
Act to incorporate provisions for disqualifying
persons accused of offences, except bailable
offences attracting up to three years imprisonment, and compoundable offences (including
matrimonial, family and civil dispute offences).
They should be disqualified either from
getting into law colleges or entering into the
profession and till the amendment is brought
in, there shall be a direction to the Bar Council
of India (BCI) and bar councils to follow this
mandate, he said.
Justice Kirubakaran has directed the BCI
and the bar councils not to enrol any candidate
accused or convicted of such offences, and
those dismissed or removed from any service or
who had left service pursuant to any departmental action/domestic proceedings.
BAR COUNCILS
Bar councils should grant conditional/provisional enrolment to law graduates, who have
criminal cases involving bailable offences
attracting punishment up to three years and
compoundable offences, open a separate file for

this purpose, and monitor the cases by obtaining information about the outcome.
If convicted subsequently in such offences, the
Bar Council should issue show cause notice to
revoke provisional enrolment of such advocates, he has held.
Justice Kirubakaran has observed that the
number of advocates should be directly proportionate to the number of cases and conseque-ntly, the number of colleges.
In the US, there is one lawyer for every 300
people or approximately 0.36 percent of the
total population. According to a story published by a website in 2013, the national average in India is 886 non-lawyers per lawyer.
This suggests that we are still a less litigious
society, as compared to the US, and there is
scope for increasing the proportion of lawyers
to non-lawyer population if only to create
greater awareness of the rights of the marginalized and the under-privileged.
Justice Kirubakaran has directed that
because the Bar Council has failed in its duty,
its functions must be entrusted to an expert
body of legal luminaries, academicians, etc. IL
CREAM OF THE
CROP
The five-year law
courses at various law
schools provide a
vibrant atmosphere,
but to the elite
49
CONTROVERSY/ Gender Injustice
Access
Denied
The decision to bar entry of women into

the mazaar of Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai
has reached the Bombay High Court.
With successive state governments not
taking any decisive action, it is now left
to the judiciary to resolve the issue
By Meena Menon
OMETIME in 2012 when

women went to the Haji Ali
dargah off the Worli seaface
in Mumbai, they found their
access to the mazaar (tomb)
of the famous Sufi saint Haji
Ali Shah Bukhari blocked
with steel. Since then, for two years, activists
Noorjehan Safia Niaz and others have been
trying to regain entry which had been closed
in the name of Sharia, according to the
trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah.
After exhausting all options, Niaz and
Zakia Soman, joint founders of the Bharatiya
Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) filed a PIL
in August, 2014 in the Bombay High Court.
While the last hearing on August 19 did not
take place, Niaz said that the previous order
in July had asked the petitioners and the government to sort out the issue.
The matter is still pending as another
50
October 31, 2015
hearing due on October 9 had been postponed to October 13, 2015.

Niaz recalls that earlier, the inner sanctum was open for everyone. The development was shocking for me as we used to visit
it often since we were children. The shrine
has separate entrances for men and women
but we were allowed to go right up to the
mazaar and pray, she says. According to her,
she was able to enter the sanctum till March
2011 but it was around July 2012 that the
steel bars were put up and women had to
pray from a little distance.
The BMMA activists met the president of
the Haji Ali Trust, Abdul Sattar Merchant in
July 2012 and the petition quotes the reasons
given by him for not allowing women near
the mazaar. Women wear blouses which are
wide-necked and they bend down on the
mazaar (tomb) thus showing their breasts.
Unko unke pallo ka hosh nahi rahta hai
For three years,

activists
Noorjehan Safia
Niaz and others
have been trying
to regain entry
into the mazaar
of the Haji Ali
Dargah, which
was closed to
women in 2012
by trustees of
the shrine, in
the name
of Sharia.
GENDER BIAS
(Below) The trustees of
the Haji Ali feel it was a
mistake to allow women
access to the mazaar
(they dont pay attention to the pallu). Sattar

told BMMA that the decision was taken for
the safety and security of women. He held
that the rule is written in the Sharia and
hence they were following it. He admitted
that earlier they were not aware of the provisions of the Sharia and had made a mistake.
As soon as they realized it, it was rectified.
he BMMA was indignant about this

Sharia rule and decided to survey all
the 19 dargahs in Mumbai in 2012.
They found that only seven of them did not
allow women to pray beside the tomb. If this
is part of the Sharia, it should apply everywhere, Niaz said.
The women then sought the intervention
of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission which transferred the matter to the
state minorities department. A meeting
which was called by the department was
51
CONTROVERSY/ Gender Injustice
FIGHT AGAINST
PREJUDICE
Noorjehan Safia
Niaz recalls that
as a child she
often visited
the inner
sanctum of the
dargah
The Bombay
High Court
wanted the
trustees to
consider the
petitioners'
request and
take a
decision, one
way or the
other. The
court said it
may consider
granting relief
to them if the
decision is not
in their favor.
52
October 31, 2015
not attended by the trustees of the dargah.

The Haji Ali Trust also did not respond to letters from BMMA.
The 550-year-old dargah symbolised the
syncretic culture of Mumbai, in a sense, and
the liberal Sufi tradition, Niaz adds. The PIL
demanded, among other things, that the high
court declare that women have an equal right
of entry and access to all parts, including the
inner sanctum of the dargah, on par with the
male devotees.
The petitioners said they were aware that
gender discrimination was being practiced at
several places of worship cutting across religious lines. They were of the considered
opinion that all discriminatory practices,
wherever they were existing, were unconstitutional and ought to be prohibited and prevented. The petition also pointed out the
failure of the state to take a decisive step in
this matter.
On August 5, 2015, the division bench of
the Bombay High Court said that the Haji Ali
Trust disputed that women were allowed to
enter the sanctum before 2012. The court
held that, Notwithstanding the controversy
as to whether women were permitted prior to
2012 or not we had requested the trustees to
consider the request and take a decision and
if possible resolve the inter se dispute by finding an amicable solution to the problem.
However, we are informed that no decision is
taken so far.
The bench hoped that the trustees will
apply their mind and consider the request of
the petitioners and take a decision, one way
or the other. If the decision is not in favour of
the petitioners, the court said it may consider
if such relief can be granted by the court after
hearing both sides.
he trustees have not responded to any

of the calls for meeting by the petitioners. The Congress-led state government at that time did not take much
interest in the case and did not even file a
reply although it was one of the respondents.
Even when the matter was taken up in 2012,
the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission had said it was a religious matter and it
was not within the purview of the government to take a decision. The current chairperson of the Commission, Mohammed Hussain Khan, said it was a religious matter and
he did not wish to comment on it.
The Haji Ali Dargah complex with the
tomb of saint Haji Ali Shah Bukhari and a
mosque is built on rocks off the sea. It was
given its present-day shape in the early 19th
century, according to its website. Over
10,000 to 15,000 visitors pay homage daily
and the website proclaims that people from
all parts of the world without restrictions of
caste, creed and religion visit the dargah.
The PIL said the restriction imposed on
the entry of women into the inner sanctum
emanated from a very conservative and
extremist Salafi ideology which was against
the values of personal freedom and dignity,
and especially against womens freedom and
equality. Denying women access to the tomb
of the Haji Ali dargah infringes upon the fundamental rights of the women guaranteed by
the Constitution of India. Even if the Sharia
says something which is contrary to the principles enshrined in constitution, it is the constitution alone which, as the supreme law of
the land, should prevail over contravening
personal laws. IL
The author has served as deputy editor
of The Hindu
IS THAT LEGAL?
Freedom to Eat
What a person wants to eat is a matter of
personal choice. But we see bans being
imposed. Isnt choice of food a
fundamental right?
The freedom to eat what one wants to is a
fundamental right under Article 21 of the
constitution and can only be restrained
under procedures established by law. The
right could be curtailed or taken away only
in the interest of the public at large or for
maintaining the social fabric of India.
India is a diverse country with varied religions, culture, traditions, ethnicity, etc. As
such, food habits and preferences also differ
from place to place within the country.

Therefore, there is a need to observe tolerance. Even the Supreme Court observed in
Shree Tapagachiya Atma Kamal
Labhdisuriswarji Gyanmandir Trust vs
Bombay Mutton Dealer Association And Ors.
that there has to be spirit of tolerance and

accommodation. Some sensibilities are
called for. It cannot be in the spirit of conflict. The spirit of tolerance is very important
and it has to be inculcated in a very subtle
mannerin a very sensible manner.
No Room for Rent

If anybody from a minority community
is denied a house in a locality due to
his/her faith, can the owner, or the
office bearers of the housing society
be taken to court?
If one goes by the verdict of the
Supreme Court in Zoroastrian
Cooperative Housing Society Limited
vs District Registrar Cooperative
Societies (2005), the co-operative
society is not State under Article 12
Penalty for Varsities

If an overseas university, which offers distance education programs or conducts its
courses in India through partners here, doesnt come up to expectations, can students
take legal action?
Yes, in this case, the aggrieved students can
appeal for action in Indian courts under the
Consumer Protection Act 1986 or under the
writ of Article 226 in the concerned jurisdictions of the high courts.
The proposed Distance Education Council
of India Bill 2014 also deals with the issue
The Bill proposes that in case of a complaint
filed before the Council or if the Council is
satisfied that the varsity has violated any of
the said provisions or any direction issued by

it, it may direct the institution to pay by way
of penalty, an amount not less than `10
lakh but which may be extended to `50 lakh.
Further, the Bill lays down that any
institution which offers or gives
admission to students through
misleading or wrongful information in its prospectus or advertisements in the media or fails
to publish disclosures as
required by the Council, shall
be liable to refund the fee so
levied or collected; its illegal gains
may be confiscated and penalty levied
not less than `50 lakh but which may
increase to `2.5 crore.
The Council can also initiate criminal pro-
and therefore not bound by the duty

not to discriminate due to religion
under Article 15. In that case, the
court allowed a housing society to
rent and sell accommodation only to
members of a particular religious
community, citing the freedom of
association under Article 19(1)(c) of
the constitution.
But having said that, Article
19(1)(c) can be subjected to
reasonable restrictions, and parliament can make laws in that regard.
ceedings which may lead to punishment upto

three years, in addition to the penalty already
imposed by the Council.
Answers by Shailendra Singh

53
CONTROVERSY/ Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
ONTROVERSY over the

alleged blasphemous acts by
the head of Dera Sacha Sauda,
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh,
has been ignited again with the
decision of the Sikh clergy to pardon him.
The move, many believe, is aimed at
strengthening the chances of the ruling
Shiromani Akali Dal to stage a third
consecutive victory in the assembly elections
less than a year-and-a-half away.
The pardon to the Dera chief pertained to
an alleged act of blasphemy in 2007. A section of Sikhs, particularly the radicals, had
objected to Singh dressing in an attire
believed to be worn by their 10th guru, Guru
Gobind Singh. It was alleged that he was imitating the guru while distributing amrit (nectar) to his followers. Incensed Sikhs attacked
several centres of the Dera. Finally, the Dera
chief denied that he had sought to imitate
any Sikh guru. However, the Sikh clergy
comprising the head priests of the five holy
Takhts, issued him a hukamnama to seek
pardon and also ex-communicated him.
Though the Dera chief wrote to the Sikh clergy explaining his position, he was not pardoned. Now, after eight years, he has been
pardoned in a rather hush-hush move.
Photos: UNI
I beg your
Pardon...
Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram

Rahim Singh is again in the news. After the
Sikh clergy ex-communicated him in 2007, it
has suddenly pardoned him. Is there a
political motive behind this?
By Vipin Pubby
54
October 31, 2015
SECOND FILM
The decision to pardon Singh came in the
wake of the release of his second film MSG 2:
The Messenger of God late in September.
Punjab had banned the first film in the series
on the grounds that it would lead to protests
and vitiate law and order. Lakhs of Dera
devotees had then made a beeline to cinema
halls in neighboring Haryana, Delhi and
Chandigarh. The Dera claimed the film had
grossed over `100 crore, a figure disputed by
the film industry on the grounds that the
tickets were purchased in bulk by the Dera.
However, the film was screened in several
cinema halls for over two months regularly.
The present controversy started when the
second film was released. This time, the
Punjab government did not ban the film, but
cinema hall owners and distributors alleged
that it had unofficially sent a word around
that the film should not be screened lest it
lead to violence. A communication from an
official of a leading mall and multiplex owner

to the producer said that they had received
verbal orders not to screen the film.
With the film being screened elsewhere,
Dera followers started protests at several
places and also met deputy chief minister
Sukhbir Singh Badal. It is believed that a deal
was stuck, as the protests were withdrawn
immediately, and a couple of days later the
Sikh clergy announded pardon to the
Dera chief. Incidentally, Sukhbir Singh Badal
is also president of the Shiromani
Akali Dal whose candidates form a vast
majority of members of the Shiromani
Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
Significantly, it is the SGPC which appoints
the Sikh clergy.
Shortly after the pardon, despite protests,
exhibitors started screening the film.
Interestingly, the Dera has now claimed that
the film is on the verge of grossing `200
croreagain, disputed by the film industry.
of devotees in Punjab. As per rough

estimates, its followers have considerable
influence in at least 40 of the 117 assembly
segments in the state.
In the past, the Dera had been claiming
that it does not support any political party.
However, it was well-known that it would
silently spread the word among its followers
to vote for a particular candidate or party. No
wonder, candidates across party lines would
visit the Dera to seek Singhs blessing before
starting their campaign.
In the 2007 assembly elections, its
believed that the Dera had pulled its weight
in favor of Congress candidates. Though the
Congress eventually lost to the SAD-BJP
Most observers
see a clear
political
motive behind
the grant of
pardon to
the Dera chief.
POLITICAL MOVE
Most political observers see a clear political
motive behind the grant of pardon and
mending fences with Singh. The Dera claims
the support of crores of devotees across the
country and abroad. Although based in Sirsa,
Haryana, the Dera has a huge number
CONTROVERSIAL
PARDON
(Above) An MSG-2
poster
(Left) People
protesting the
pardoning of the
Dera chief
55
CONTROVERSY/ Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh
EYEING POLITICAL MILEAGE

(L-R) Partap Singh Bajwa of the
Congress; former Punjab chief
minister Capt Amarinder Singh;
deputy CM of Punjab, Sukhbir
Singh Badal
Good work
Despite the bad publicity
that the Dera Sacha Sauda
has got in the past, it has
done yeoman service in the
aftermath of the Nepal earthquake and the floods in
Kashmir. It has also undertaken the marriage of sex
workers, with its guru,
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh,
adopting these women as
daughters and marrying
them off to devotees who
volunteer to do so. In addition, the Dera has been frequently organizing blood
donation camps, afforestation drives, sanitation campaigns and marriages of
poor girls. One of its latest
decisions was adopting victims of acid attacks and
marrying them to volunteers.
The Dera has at least 17
Guinness World records,
including largest eye health
screening, most diabetes
screenings and largest
blood donation camp.
56
October 31, 2015
combine, it did well in Dera-dominated constituencies. Trouble for the Dera started
shortly after the formation of the new state
government, with reports of alleged blasphemy by Singh, who is also facing charges of
rape, murder and forced castration.
The Dera came into the focus again on the
eve of the 2012 assembly elections. There was
uncertainty over support from it even though
candidates had been meeting Singh. In what
was more than a coincidence, a blasphemy
case against Singh was withdrawn two days
before the elections in February 2012 from a
Bathinda court. It is believed that it was a
quid pro quo and SAD-BJP candidates
received support from Dera followers, which
partly helped the alliance to retain power.
The Dera had come out in support of the BJP
in the Haryana Assembly elections where the
party registered its first-ever win last year. It
is believed that it was the BJP which nudged
SAD to mend fences with the Dera in view of
the coming elections in the state.
TURMOIL IN PUNJAB
The current political turmoil in Punjab has
seen the main opposition Congress witnessing a no-holds barred duel between former
chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and the
state party chief, Partap Singh Bajwa. Also,
there is a virtual split in the Aam Aadmi
Party, which got four MPs from the state.
There were also reports that the Badals were
toying with the idea of calling for a dissolu-
tion of the assembly and seeking early elections to capitalize on their popularity. They
might be waiting for the outcome of the
Bihar elections to take a final step.
The Dera, meanwhile, is exulting in the
success of its second film and is planning a
sequel. Reports say it may have Hrithik
Roshan in some role. The two films produced
so far are basically a documentary on the
Dera and its chief with lavish sets.
The Dera, which allows its followers to
practise any religion they wish, does take an
undertaking from them that they will shun
drugs and other intoxicants and live a simple
and spiritual life. It is well-known for its contribution to social causes and has a lakhstrong volunteer force which is despatched
wherever any calamity strikes. (See box)
Meanwhile, some Sikh organizations had
called for a bandh to protest against the pardon given to Singh. However, it did not evoke
much response. These groups have decided
to meet again next month and call for Sarbat
Khalsa (congregation of general Sikhs) to
oppose the pardon granted by the Sikh clergy. They have also demanded removal of the
five Sikh head priests.
In an attempt to defuse the situation, the
head priest of the Akal Takht has decided to
form an advisory committee which would
advise the Sikh clergy on important decisions. The SAD-BJP alliance will have to wait
and watch for any further reaction from
radical Sikhs to the issue. IL
SOCIETY/ Communal Atmosphere
Writers and their Angst

A movement to regain freedom and secular space has begun.
Already some dozen writers have given back their Sahitya
Akademi awards. Why is the PM silent?
By Ajith Pillai
HERE is a new churning within

the country that should send a
strong signal to the government
and the larger Sangh Parivar and
its supporters. As we go to print,
a dozen writers have already returned their
Sahitya Akademi awards protesting the rising intolerance and the communal atmosphere prevailing in the country. Their protest
has been triggered by two flashpoints: The
killing of rationalist writer MM Kalburgi;
and the Dadri incident in which 50-year-old
Mohammed Akhlaq was killed and his family
attacked on September 28 by a mob for
allegedly having beef in his house.
Among the writers who have registered
their displeasure are the likes of Nayantara
Sahgal, Shashi Deshpande, Ashok Vajpeyi,
Sara Joseph, Rahman Abbas, Uday Prakash
and Gurcharan Singh. Their action should
be seen as a significant intellectual awakening which cannot be ignored since it can have
far-reaching consequences.
Already writers, poets and intellectuals
from across the country have joined what can
best be described as a movement to regain
freedom and secular space.
Former West Bengal governor and
Mahatma Gandhis grandson, Gopalkrishna
Gandhi put it rather succinctly when he told
an interviewer: I don't remember an earlier
occasion when without a formal conference
resolution, writers have returned their
Sahitya Akademi awards. If writers and
dissenters dont protest, who will? They have
suddenly found their voice. This is a landmark moment that will be remembered in
association with the murders of rationalists
and the murder of Akhlaq.
Documentary
filmmaker
Anand Patwardhan, who appeared on a TV discussion over the
weekend, pointed out that what
the nation was witnessing was
more
sinister
than
the
Emergency. He had fought
against it and recalled how personal freedom was then at stake
but there was no attempt to alter
the cultural ethos of society.
That, he said, was systematically
being done now with the governments backing.
ncidentally,
Nayantara
Sahgal returned her award
with a signed note which
she concluded with the following dedication: In memory of
the Indians who have been murdered, in support of all Indians
who uphold the right to dissent,
and of all dissenters who now
live in fear and uncertainty, I am
returning my Sahitya Akademi Award. She
also blamed Narendra Modi for his silence.
The Prime Minister remains silent about
this reign of terror. We must assume he dare
not alienate evil-doers who support his ideology," she said.
As voices of protest grow, the Sahitya
Akademi, which has been roundly attacked
for not taking a strong enough position on
Kalburgis murder, has been on the defensive.
But its tepid condemnation of the writers
killing, allegedly by members of the Hindu
fringe, has not quite cooled tempers. Neither
has the governments silence. IL
SCRIPTING DISSENT
Nayantara Sahgal
returned her Sahitya
Akademi Award
57
INTERVIEW / Prof Tahir Mahmod
No Govt Interested
in Codifying Muslim
Personal Law
A 1939 Act enacted by the British said that
Muslims would be governed by their personal Law (ie, the Shariat). The Shariat
allows Muslims to follow their rites of passage in accordance with Islamic practices,
be it marriage, divorce, childrens custody
or inheritance. However, the Shariat is not
codified, which means that whatever
guidelines are spelt out in the Quran and
Hadith have not been spelt out in Hindi/
Urdu/ English and vernacular languages
like in all laws. Prof Tahir Mahmod, former
member of the Law Commission of India,
has been a strong proponent of codification. He speaks to SABIHA FARHAT
about why this has not been done so far.
What is your opinion on codification of the

Muslim personal law?
Codification of the Shariat is the need of the
hour. India is a country of personal laws and
every community has them. Hindu law is also a
personal law despite the word personal not
being used. It has four acts, representing
Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. Christians
and Parsis too have personal laws. But they are
all codified, so there arent many problems. As
the Muslim personal law is not codified, a judge
has to look up several books. And these books
are based on old cases. In most cases, the law
has been misrepresented, so what is in practice
is not really personal law.
58
October 31, 2015
Maulanas are opposing codification....

They have a single-point agenda: How to keep
Muslims socially backward. For the past 43
years, all they have been worried about is
whether the Supreme Court has stopped any
man from divorcing his wife by pronouncing
talaq, talaq, talaq.
And successive governments have opposed
change by pandering to maulanas because they
need votes. I have been writing about the
need for reforms in Muslim personal law for 50
years now.
A Muslim group has formulated a draft of the
codified Muslim personal law....
Codification is a process which can only be done
by parliament through legislation. Private codification has no meaning. Only the state can do
it. In 1995, the Supreme Court gave a sound
judgment in the Sarla Mudgal case. It told the
government to entrust the work of codification
of the personal law of minorities to the Law
Commission of India, with the instruction that
it should prepare the draft in consultation with
the Minorities Commission. What can be a better mechanism?
Today, 20 years and many government

changes later, they still havent done it. No government will bring an official bill because that
will compromise its political interest.
What about countries like Pakistan and
Bangladesh?
In matters of personal law, they are much more
advanced than us. In fact, the entire Muslim
world, except Saudi Arabia, has reformed personal law. Since 1972, I have been translating
acts passed in other countries to reform personal law into English. Fortunately, I know Persian
and Arabic. My first book, Family Law Reform
in Muslim World, was a compilation of changes
in Shariat. In fact, a Personal Law Board was set
up that year as a reaction to the book. But nothing has been done on this issue.
As the Muslim personal law is not

codified, a judge has to look up
several books. In most cases, the
law has been misrepresented.
TAKE A STEP
FORWARD
(Left) Codification
will bring greater
clarity to rights of
Muslim women
59
INTERVIEW / Prof Tahir Mahmod
Hadith, a supportive text) is full of directions for

Muslim men to marry widows or divorced
women. It says that marrying a widow or a
divorced woman is better than marrying young,
eligible women. Who does it?
VEIL OF
TRADITION
Muslim
leadership
has prevented
codification,
thereby
hindering
progress and
equality for
Muslim
women
60
October 31, 2015
And you say that India is much worse?

Yes. Nowhere does divorce take place by merely
saying talaq, talaq, talaq. And India has
among the largest population of Muslims. It is a
very complex situation as no government is
interested in this. The Law Commission,
despite directions from the Supreme Court, has
not worked on it
What does the Shariat say on inheritance of
property by women?
When the Quran was written some 1,500 years
ago, it was brilliant. A daughter was given half
the share of what was given to the son. It was for
the first time in history that women had a right
to inheritance. Forget reforms for the time
being, at least practice what is given. Hadith
(Shariat is derived from the Quran and the
How can we reform the Shariat then?

It is very simple. I will give you an example.
There is a Muslim Marriage Dissolution Act
(1939). It suggests by its very name that it must
be for all Muslims. But it is only for Muslim
women. This law provides the grounds by
which a woman can obtain a divorce from
court. It states: Any woman married according
to Muslim law can obtain a divorce. We only
need to add one word here Any woman or
man married. This way, we can get rid of the
entire talaq issue and make the law equal for all.
This is how it is for other communities.
So we dont need any new laws, only minor
additions and deletions. And this is what I have
written in reports submitted to the Law
Commission. These acts, like the Muslim Marriage Dissolution Act, were passed by the central
legislature; just add the word man to it.
When the Muslim Women Act was drafted,
the law minister referred it to me. I just changed
a few words to create the scope for maintenance
after the period of separation. The draft presented by maulvis had said: Maintenance for
the period of separation (before final divorce). I
just changed it to maintenance during the period of separation. You can imagine the implications. This law has been interpreted by the
Supreme Court to obtain maintenance even
after divorce till she remarries. This is supported by the Quran too. Nowhere does it mention
that women cannot get maintenance after
divorce. I can challenge the maulvis on this.
What about a uniform civil code?
That is a utopia. Is there a draft of this? The
Modi government will not bring it in. The most
favorable aspect of Hindu society is its joint
family system as the Hindu joint family gets
special relief in the Income Tax Act. Will the
Hindus give this up? Under a uniform civil
code, this provision will have to go as no other
community has a joint family system.
All those who talk of a uniform civil code,
would not have read the provisions of it in the
Indian constitution. IL
FIGURE
IT OUT
Indians number 127,42,39,769, forming
17.25 percent of the global population.
There are some 40 crore children in
the country.
The level of womens education in India

witnessed a sharp rise between 2001 and
2011, with 116 percent more women passing out as graduates or above as compared
to just a 65 percent increase among men.
As per the National Crime Records

Bureau, the country has recorded 3.48
lakh cases of cruelty by husbands or inlaws in the past three years. West Bengal
tops the chart with 61,259 such cases, followed by Rajasthan (44,311) and Andhra
Pradesh (34,835).
95 percent of Indias 1.27 billion citizens still qualify as poor or low-income.

Globally, the equivalent proportion is
71 percent. As far as middle-income
Indians go, only 2 percent of the country actually falls into this zone, compared to 13 percent of the globe.
More than 72 lakh cases relating to

crimes, including murder, rape and
riots, are pending in different courts
across the country, with Maharashtra
having the highest backlog of over 13
lakh. Gujarat was second with more
than 8 lakh cases.
Snake bites kill 46,000 Indians every

year. Some 2.5 lakh snake bite cases are
registered every year.
Some 10,670 Indian kids were kidnapped in 2010.

Seven people die every day in India due
to structural collapses, including houses,
buildings, bridges and dams.
2.5 lakh farmers committed suicide
in the last 50 years.
Sixteen Indians died in road accidents
every hour in 2014, most of them on twowheelers, and a majority of them as a
result of overspeeding and careless
driving.
Some 61,000 millionaires moved out
of India in the past 14 years.
Almost 1.5 lakh people in India need
a kidney but only 3,000 of them receive
one. About 90 percent of people on the
waiting list die without getting an
organ transplant.
India is one of the fastest-growing

outbound travel markets in the world,
and the number of Indian tourists travelling abroad is set to rise from 15 million currently to about 50 million by
2020.
The number of football viewers in India
has risen tremendously from 83 million in
2008 to 155 million in 2012, and has only
been on the rise ever since.
For every 2,000 patients, the country has only one doctor. The total number of doctors (allopathic) registered in
the country till July 31, 2015, is around
8,56,000, out of which six lakh are
presently active practitioners.
79 percent of Indias metropolitan cities
have very high levels of particulate matter
and nitrogen dioxide, the main causes of
air pollution.
About 100 million Indians dont have
access to safe sources of water.
Compiled byMahesh Trivedi
61
INTERVIEW/ AAI Chairman/RK Srivastava
AAI has the capacity to

mobilize funds to set up
airports
Anil Shakya
RK SRIVASTAVA took over as chairman of the

Airports Authority of India early this year.
The 1984 IAS batch officer from the Jharkhand
cadre talks to Managing Editor
RAMESH MENON about the challenges he
faces and the road ahead. Excerpts:
What were the major challenges
you encountered when you
took over?
AAI is a large organization with a panIndia presence. Being a public sector
undertaking, it is constrained with the
rigid framework of government policies
that need to catch up with ever-changing global trends and practices. We
want to bust the myth that the public
sector is inefficient. As we facilitate air
transport, we have been facing several
challenges. We met them by creating
infrastructure in Tier-II and III cities,
improving operational efficiency of the
terminals, providing better amenities
to passengers, strengthening the safety
measures and building a capable workforce. We have adopted multi-pronged
strategies, enhanced internal capacity
and employed external resources.
When did the government realize

that airport modernization should
be a priority?
After the opening up of the Indian
62
October 31, 2015
WORLD CLASS
Swanky interiors of the
Kolkata Airport
economy, a phenomenal surge in GDP

growth was accompanied by an
unprecedented surge in air traffic.
Since 2003-04, the government decided to modernize airports and drew a
road map for the construction of new
terminals as well as expanding and
strengthening the existing ones along
with the related infrastructure.
In the next 10 years, how many airports will India need? Are we
doing anything to achieve
this goal?
Going by the statistics, India has about
464 airports and airstrips, out of which
AAI manages 125 airports. About 76
airports have scheduled flight operations. Most of the state capitals and big
cities have got an airport, except
Arunachal Pradesh. Over the last five
years, the cumulative Compound
Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) has been
around nine percent, resulting in
impressive growth in air traffic. In the
last six months, traffic growth over the
previous years has been 18 percent.
There has been a substantial increase
in the movement of aircraft and cargo
as well. Going by the thumb rule, the
rate of increase of air traffic is 150 percent of the GDP growth rate.
As the economy grows further, pas-
AAI is a large
organization with a
pan-India presence.
We want to bust the
myth that the public
sector is inefficient.
senger growth will saturate existing
infrastructure unless expansion of the
airports is undertaken to match the
growing demand. The present traffic is
around 190 million against the capacity
of 250 million passengers created over
the last few years.
AAI, therefore, envisages making all
its airports operational and further
enhance the capacity of its terminals.
We are also actively engaging with
state governments to develop new
Greenfield airports. We are working
towards making a paradigm shift in
our strategy to develop new airports
through Special Purpose Vehicles
(SPVs), in which the state governments PSUs and the people at large
are stakeholders. This will go a long
way in improving regional connectivity
and in developing airports in remote
areas by activating currently
unused airports.
What role do airports play in helping the local economy? Will the
concept of an Aerocity take off in
India?
The development of airports in any
area has a direct bearing in boosting
the local economy. At the construction
stage, for an investment of around a
crore of rupees, employment of approximately 17,000 man days is created. At
the operational stage, employment is
generated for a thousand people if an
airport handles a million passengers.
AAI has already taken up development of 26 airports like Agatti, Akola,
Leh, Pantnagar, Vijayawada, Tezu,
Kishangarh and Hubli. Fourteen airports have been completed, six are in
progress and another six are in the
planning stage. The government has
also given the green signal for the
development of 14 new Greenfield airports, of which Pakyong near Gangtok
in Sikkim is being developed by AAI.
The concept of an Aerocity in India
is now catching up. In fact, if you see
the AAI Act, it is more developmentand operation-centric. The development of transport infrastructure in
India has always been seen as a welfare
measure. Giving a commercial dimension to such development for realizing
the CAPEX (capital expenditure)
63
INTERVIEW/ AAI Chairman/RK Srivastava
and OPEX (operational expenditure) is

now increasingly being recognized. You
may witness this in the development of
highways, where realization of capital
expenditure through toll tax is emphasized. The concept of an Aerocity has
been introduced for the first time in
Delhi. In Durgapur and Chandigarh,
large chunks of land have been
acquired on the outskirts of airports for
the development of aerocities, with the
airports becoming the nucleus for
growth. AAI has already taken up feasibility studies of Lucknow, Raipur and
Tirupati airports.
The PM is talking of Digital India.
What kind of e-systems do you see in
airports in the next five years?
In todays world, airports across the
world are digitally connected and that
is how the journey from one part of the

globe to another has increasingly
become seamless. The interface with
airport operators and airlines with passengers is increasingly getting reduced
due to technology. AAI is going to
introduce automated self-check-ins
and baggage drops. It has also set up
Airport Operations Control Centers
(AOCCs) at 10 places for collaborative
decision-making.
Do you think you are adequately

staffed to handle the load
across airports?
For most of the activities at airports,
we need highly technical and skilled
staff. With the introduction of new
technology in operations and navigations, the requirements and qualifications of the staff have undergone
There has been a substantial increase in the

movement of aircraft and cargo. Going by the
thumb rule, the rate of increase of air traffic is
150 percent of the GDP growth rate.
ETHNIC TOUCH
Interiors of the
Chennai Airport
64
October 31, 2015
changes. With an increase in traffic

volume, work regarding management
of Air Navigation Services has
increased. We have been doing the
exercise on a continuous basis to meet
such requirements. In the near future,
AAI will be adequately staffed.
What are some of the safety and

security features that you are contemplating at airports?
AAI is focused on making air navigation safe for air travel. We have been
continuously upgrading safety measures by introducing latest equipments
and procedures. Similarly, the focus
has been on strengthening the security
features at the airports by equipping
security personnel with new gadgets
and comprehensive training. All the
standards and features determined by
the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security
(BCAS) are met at every airport.
Do you see airports as a sunrise

industry in India? What are the
possibilities of small private and
corporate aircrafts plying?
What are the international MoUs

that AAI has signed?
Air transport is a sunrise industry with

increasing volume of GDP and expanding reach. There is a demand for development of new airports in every nook
and corner of the country. With the
new Civil Aviation Policy, new vistas
regarding inter-state and intra-state air
connectivity and growth in the private
and corporate aircraft sector are likely
to open. It is likely to boost commercial
operations in small places and places of
tourist importance. Certainly, the
demand for smaller private and corporate aircrafts will increase.
AAI has sought branding in Delhi

and Mumbai airports. What has
happened to it? Are the private airport operators there like GMR and
GVK respectively ready to share
the limelight with AAI?
AAI does have a brand of its own. GVK
and GMR are partners in the SPVs created for development and operation of
the airports at the political and commercial capitals of India. This experiment of managing two airports with
private partners has been a success
story. The development and management of infrastructure, particularly in
the transport sector, have been evolving in India and has taken on a new
commercial dimension.
Aviation, however, is the only sector
where direct investment from the consolidated fund of India has been minimal. AAI, over a period of time, has
established itself as a financially viable
proposition. I expect that AAI, with its
own standing, can mobilize enough
funds from its internal resources and
from the market to set up airport infrastructure. With the capacity development of people involved in the operation, we can meet the challenges of
running airports efficiently as well.
Was it a good idea to privatize certain airports considering that it

has proved costly for fliers with all
kinds of charges thrown in?
Privatization of airports was taken up
AAI has signed several MoUs with

IATA for Skill Development in Airport
Management as per Global Standards
& ATC E&F Agreement, with ACIICAO for the Aviation Management
Professional Accreditation Program.
AAIs has some special plans for

PM Narendra Modis constituency,
Varanasi. What are they?
Expansion of airports
is imperative because
of increase in traffic.
in the middle of the last decade at a
time when air traffic in India witnessed
an unprecedented growth following the
entry of low-cost carriers. Traffic
growth necessitated the sudden expansion and modernization of airports.
At that time, two serious issues
emergedavailability of funds and
capacity to build infrastructure. That
necessitated modernization and expansion of Delhi and Mumbai airports
through the SPV route. The investment
required to modernize these airports
led to an increase in airport charges in
the initial control period. However, it is
expected to come down in the subsequent control periods.
Many of AAIs skilled employees

have joined private airport operators like GMR and GVK. Isnt this
a loss for AAI?
In todays world, migration of skilled
employees from one organization to
another is the order of day and we
should learn to live with that.
Varanasi is a very important international tourist destination, being a spiritual capital and a holy destination for
Buddhists. AAI proposes to construct a
new ATC tower and extend the runway
for Code D (B-767) type of aircrafts.
We have approached the state government to provide about 593 acres of
land to provide ILS and Cat III B landing facilities.
We also propose to extend the
runway and expand the apron. Further,
we plan to undertake city-side development in order to provide hotels,
restaurants and set up aviation-related
activities.
What about technological upgradation matching international

standards?
AAI has been very pro-active in introducing the latest technology in its
operation and navigation services. For
CNS and ATM (Communications,
Navigation, Surveillance and Air Traffic
Management), new equipment with
the latest technology have been
brought in. We have embarked upon
Air Traffic Flow Management.
We have executed the coveted project
of GPS aided Geo Augmented
Navigation (GAGAN) system, which
has been operationalized after due certification from the DGCA. This has catapulted India amongst the first four
countries in the world to have adopted
satellite-based navigation. The newly
introduced ADS-B technology provides
improved surveillance of the entire
airspace. IL
65
DIPLOMACY/ Italian Marines Case
The Rome
Complication
The killing of two Kerala fisherman off the Indian coast by Italian marines
has become an international issue. All cases are on hold and a lot
depends on the international tribunals verdict whether it has the power to
arbitrate on the matter
By Papia Samajdar
N February 2012, 20.5 nautical

miles off the coast of Kerala, two
marinesMassimiliano Latorre
and Salvatore Gironein an oil
tanker flying an Italian flag had
shot dead two unarmed Indian
fishermen. They claimed the fishing boat was on a collision path with the
tanker, hinting at the likelihood of the boat
being a pirate vessel. Twenty rounds of automatic ammunition were fired by the marines
although not even a single bullet flew back
their way. The tanker, MT Enrica Lexie, had
taken off from Sri Lanka and was headed to
Djibouti (Africa), carrying a crew of 34 accompanied by six Italian marines.
The Italians maintained they feared pirate
attacks, though there were no alerts on that
day, February 12. Italy also asked for diplomatic immunity for the two marines as they were
on duty serving the government of Italy.
However, diplomatic immunity under the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, is not applicable to officers on commercial ships, and hence India
(Kerala Police followed by the Union of India)
66
October 31, 2015
charged the marines under IPC for murder.

The Italians have been contesting the
investigation and the jurisdiction of the Kerala Police, the Kollum district court, the
Kerala High Court and the National Investigation Agency at the Union level. A special
tribunal had to be set up by the then Congress-led UPA government when it decided to
take over the case.
In the judgement to the writ petition filed
in Indias Supreme Court by the Italians, contesting the legality of Kerala Polices right to
investigation, the chief justice of India (CJI)
held: Admittedly, the incident took place at a
distance of about 20.5 nautical miles from the
coastline of the State of Kerala, a unit within
the Indian Union. The incident, therefore,
occurred not within the Territorial Waters of
the coastline of the State of Kerala, but within
the Contiguous Zone, over which the State
Police of the State of Kerala ordinarily has no
jurisdiction.
While commenting on the stand taken by
the Union of India and Kerala, the CJI
observed that the State of Kerala had no jurisdiction over the Contiguous Zone and even if
CROSSING LIMITS?
Italian marines
Massimiliano Latorre
(left) and Salvatore
Girone have been
accused of killing two
Kerala fisherman on
the high seas
the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and

the Code of Criminal Procedure Code were
extended to the Contiguous Zone, it did not
vest the State of Kerala with the powers to
investigate and, thereafter, to try the offence.
What, in effect, is the result of such extension
is that the Union of India extended the application of the Indian Penal Code and the Code
of Criminal Procedure to the Contiguous
Zone, which entitled the Union of India to
take cognizance of, investigate and prosecute
persons who commit any infraction of the
domestic laws within the contiguous Zone.
On the legality of the jurisdiction of the
Union of India, the court maintained that
while India is entitled both under its
Domestic Law and the Public International
Law to exercise rights of sovereignty up to 24
nautical miles from the baseline on the basis of
which the width of Territorial Waters is measured, it can exercise only sovereign rights
within the Exclusive Economic Zone for certain purposes. The incident of firing from the
Italian vessel on the Indian shipping vessel
having occurred within the Contiguous Zone,
the Union of India is entitled to prosecute the
two Italian Marines under the criminal justice

system prevalent in the country.
International Tribunal for the Law of the
Sea has passed an interim order asking the
states involved to suspend all proceedings
regarding the case, until it is clear whether the
tribunal has jurisdiction in this case.
Politically, India cant take a back seat. The
case has become a high-profile one with the
media watching over it like a hawk on all the
developmentsincluding political and diplomatic efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. Though India has tried to pacify the
Italians through diplomatic means, the latter
have remained bull-headed, denying Indian
jurisdiction in the case. The Italians maintain
that since the incident happened in the high
seas, due to the threat of piracy, and because
the officials were on state duty on board a ship
flying an Italian flag, the case should be tried
under the Italian law.
Although murder under IPC is a non-bailable offence, the center, which took over the
case after the Italians refuted the Kerala High
Courts jurisdiction, not only gave bail to the
two accused marines, but also allowed
The International
tribunal has
given its first
decision asking
both India and
Italy to suspend
the trial. Both the
countries have
made their
submissions as
was mandated.
The president of
the tribunal may
ask for more
documents
before issuing
the order.
67
DIPLOMACY/ Italian Marines Case
I have searched
and can find no
provision in the
articles of the
Convention to
support the
submission that
a case of
murder...
involving
accused of one
State and victims
of another can
be tried by an
international
tribunal.
Judge Lucky, one of
the judges hearing the
case in UNCLOS
ALL AT SEA?
The Italian
commercial oil tanker,
MT Enrica Lexie
them to fly back to their country to vote, for

Christmas and for medical treatment. The
Indian government has been falling over itself
to make sure none of the civil liberties of the
marines are compromised even when they are
charged with murder.
Italy, unhappy with the application of
Indian jurisdiction and facing pressure at home, did not even wait for the Supreme Court
ruling on August 26, 2015, which halted all
court proceedings against the marines. It even
appealed to the International Tribunal for the
Law of the Sea under Article 290 para 5 of
UNCLOS seeking provisional measures. Italy
demanded that
(a) India shall refrain from taking or enforcing
any judicial or administrative measures
against Sergeant Massimiliano Latorre and
Sergeant Salvatore Girone in connection with
the Enrica Lexie incident on the high seas, and
from exercising any other form of jurisdiction
over what transpired,
(b) India shall take all measures necessary to
ensure that restrictions on the liberty, security
and movement of the marines be immediately
lifted to enable Sergeant Girone to travel to
and remain in Italy and Sergeant Latorre to
remain in Italy throughout the duration of the
proceedings before the Annex VII Tribunal.
The tribunal, according to Article 290 of
UNCLOS (if it has prima facie jurisdiction),
may prescribe provisional measures if it considers appropriate.
However, the question that one may ask
here is: Is there sufficient reason for a prima
facie case?
The UNCLOS tribunal does not have the

jurisdiction to try this case, as it is a domestic
murder. The murder of the two fishermen
happened on an Indian boat, off the Indian
shore, on the Indian contiguous zone, impacting the Indian people.
Though UNCLOS is not explicitly clear
about crimes such as these, one must refer to
the dissenting note of Judge Lucky, one of ten
judges hearing the Enrica Lexie incident case
at the international tribunal. He observed:
For the avoidance of doubt, and to support
my view that an Annex VII tribunal will not
have jurisdiction to deal with this case, I have
searched and can find no provision in the articles of the Convention to support the submission that a case of murder in the EEZ involving accused of one State and victims of another can be tried by an international tribunal.
This is a matter for the domestic court of the
relevant forum. Municipal or domestic courts
have the experience to hear and determine
criminal cases.
Criticizing Italy for dissenting with the
conduct of the Indian jurisdiction, Judge
Lucky also notes it as an abuse of process. It
seems apparent to me that Italy engaged the
Judicial system of India with several applications, for bail, conditions of bail, jurisdiction
and for a stay of investigation and a stay of
judicial proceedings. All these applications
were addressed by the Supreme Court during
the past 3 years. In July this year Italy filed
this case for provisional measures notwithstanding that the Supreme Court of India is
considering the matter and a Special Court
has been established to hear and determine
issues relating to jurisdiction and related matters. I find that an abuse of process is evident.
The debate on jurisdiction may get resolved when the tribunal takes a call on its jurisdiction in the case. It has given its first decision by asking both Italy and India to suspend
the trial.
Both the countries have made their submissions to the international court as was
mandated. The president of the tribunal
might ask for more documents if needed,
before issuing the order. IL
The author was senior communication
officer with Centre for Policy Research
68
October 31, 2015
HEALTH/ Multiple Sclerosis
Cracking the MS code
Students of IIT Madras have developed an algorithm that can help

detect multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease affecting the nervous
system and affecting 2.5 million people globally
By Murali Krishnan
ROUP Captain Prabhal

Malakar suffers from primary-progressive multiple
sclerosis (PPMS) characterized by a steady worsening of
neurologic functioning. He is 59, but for the
last 18 years, he has had to counter a disease
which is increasing in India and in the world.
The earlier belief that MS in India was
vastly different from that seen in the West
has given way to the realization that they are
more or less the same with minor differences.
MS has increased in India in recent years
and estimates are that there are between one

lakh to two lakh such patients in the 18-35
age group.The Multiple Sclerosis Foundation
estimates that more than four lakh people in
the US and about 2.5 million people around
the world have MS. About 200 new cases are
diagnosed each week in the US and
radiologists have discovered that rates of MS
are higher farther from the equator.
Malakar, who is also the honorary secretary of the Delhi chapter of Multiple Sclerosis
Society of India, is happy to learn about the
new research done by engineers for timely
BREAKTHROUGH
PROJECT
(Above) The IIT-Madras
team that has developed
the algorithm for timely
detection of the disease
69
HEALTH/ Multiple Sclerosis
The earlier you

detect a
debilitating
disease like
MS, the better
for the
treatment to
start. The
engineers have
done
marvelous work
on this. Time is
of essence for
any treatment,
Group Captain
Prabhal
Malakar, a
patient of MS
for 18 years.
70
October 31, 2015
recognition. The earlier you detect a debilitating disease like MS, the better for the
treatment to start. The engineers have done
marvelous work on this. Time is of essence
for any treatment, says Malakar.
USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
These engineers are students of Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and
have developed algorithms using artificial
intelligence that will help in improving diagnosis and treatment of glioma, a malignant
tumour of the glial tissue of the nervous
system and MS. The algorithms for image
analysis are basically a tool for diagnosis and
aid clinicians in judging the progression of
the disease and the usefulness of therapy.
There are four categories of MS: relapsing
remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), secondary progressive multiple sclerosis
(SPMS), primary progressive multiple
sclerosis (PPMS) and progressive relapsing
multiple sclerosis (PRMS). The commonest
type of MS is RRMS.
Symptoms vary from patient to patient,
but people with MS can suffer from fatigue or
electric-shock sensations and have problems
with vision, muscle control, balance and
speech. At times, attacks are followed by
periods of limited or complete recovery, but

they can progress to permanent disability.
These algorithms can be used for automatic analysis of MRI images in large scale
clinical trials and research studies.
The accuracy of these algorithms has been
evaluated independently, says Ganapathy.
Krishnamurthi, professor, engineering
design, IIT-Madras. What we have developed is a technique that will develop fast
evaluation of therapeutic techniques using
imaging modalities, especially MRI.
The primary research has been to develop
algorithms that separate the images of
tumors or lesions from the background. This
would help machines identify lesions and
troubled spots in the images and define them
from the rest of the image.
DEEP LEARNING TECHNOLOGY
The team has used a technology known as
Deep Learning, which is inspired by
advances in neuroscience and is loosely
based on the understanding of information
processing and communication within the
nervous system. It is an advanced branch of
study called neural networks that seeks to
enable machines to simulate human beings
in recognizing pictures and sounds
through interpretations of how the brain
processes them.
Right now, our algorithm has been
evaluated on a very small data set and based
on that we are able to tell that this algorithm
is doing well and giving us good results, says
Suthirth Vaidya, a student from the
engineering team. Vaidya believes if the
performance of this algorithm is put to use
on a large data set, doctors will be able to use
it on a day-to-day basis.
While human beings can easily identify a
person in different photographs, to enable a
machine to do so would need very complex
algorithms. If these algorithms are in place,
the accuracy in recognizing the images is
expected to be much better and faster.
The next step in this endeavor would be to
test extensively the effectiveness of the
software and subsequently, deploy it for use
by clinical collaborators. Based on the performance in a clinical setting, the engineers
will try to get regulatory approval. Since
training accurate models require large

amounts of data, ethical committee
approvals from various hospitals would
be required.
The institute is in collaboration with the
Thiruvanathapuram-based Sree Chitra
Thirunal Hospital for Medical Sciences and
Technology and is confident of seeing
the product put to use in a span of two to
four years.
DIFFICULT TASK
The team felt that accurate labeling of disorder-affected regions in the brain MRI could
be a difficult affair due to its complex shape
and vague boundaries. It is a mind-numbing
task since radiologists cannot visualize in
3D and the task needs to be performed slice
by slice.
These methods, when implemented, can
substantially reduce the time and cost for
diagnosis of various brain diseases like MS.
The algorithms for image analysis are basically a tool for diagnosis and aid clinicians to
judge the progression of the disease and
efficacy of therapy.
Vaidyas colleague Abhijith Chunduru
was also part of the team that won the
Longitudinal Multiple Sclerosis Segmentation challenge at the International
Symposium on Biomedical Imaging in New
York a few months earlier. Chunduru
believes it would indeed be possible to bring
Labeling of the disorder-affected regions in

the brain MRI is a mind-numbing task since
radiologists cannot visualise in 3-D and the
task is to be performed slice by slice.
down the cost of diagnosis of MS.
This would help radiologists make very
quick analysis and get quantitative numbers
on how quickly or slowly the disease is progressing within patients, says Chunduru.
MS is the most widespread disabling
neurological condition of young adults
around the world.
There are relapsing and remitting types
of MS and progressive types, but the
course is rarely predictable. Unfortunately,
researchers still dont fully understand the
causes of MS or why the rate of progression is
so difficult to determine despite millions of
dollars being pumped into research for
many years.
Krishnamurthi believes that the clinical
trials to assess the effectiveness of the
software is crucial.
Yes, these algorithms will play a very
good role, especially five years from now
when we would have got over the bumps and
problems. That is our belief, he adds. That
would come as a big relief to many MS
patients. IL
(Above) A scan of the

progressive
neurological disease
71
SOCIETY/ Awadhi Cuisine
Legacy
of the
Nawabs
The great, great granddaughter of
Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of
Awadh, is all set to bring the family
cuisine to the world. Does this lawyer
and cook have a case up her sleeve?
By Sujit Bhar in Kolkata
PRESERVING
ROYAL CUISINE
(Above) An
illustration of Wajid
Ali Shah
72
October 31, 2015
ANZILAT Fatima is the

great, great granddaughter of Wajid Ali Shah, the
last ruler of the erstwhile
kingdom of Awadh. She is
in her late forties, of composed bearing, displaying from deep within, her nawabi lineage
and culture. Manzilat also happens to be a
non-practicing lawyer of the Calcutta High
Court (she graduated from law from the
Aligarh Muslim University). And, though she
has no cases on her plate, she is a very persuasive advocate of authentic Awadhi cuisine
in her kitchen in Kolkata.
The good news is that she plans to bring
the flavor of genuine Awadhi cooking from
the confines of her family to the world. She
has been talking to prospective business
partners for her Awadhi food chain (she

wouldnt divulge any names), but before
Durga Puja, she is planning a surprise.
Kolkata would obviously be the first city to
benefit from such a restaurant, and it seems
Lucknow could be the next. Delhi remains
the obvious entry into big time, later.
Manzilat has already shown her keen
desire to recreate some of the old favorites
from the glory days of Awadh. To this end,
she associated with a food blogger to organise a pop-up food fun at a Kolkata restaurant
on March 1. It was a success, to put it mildly,
with the word spreading quickly among
foodies in the city of all the Awadhi goodies
which were on offer.
That was the seed. Now plans are afoot to
take it to the great-banyan-of-an-idea stage.
The recipes to be featured in the prospective

venture are those handed down to her family
from her ancestor, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.
She insists that she is the descendant of the
son of the Nawabs chief begum, Hazrat
Mahal. That means her family is not only his
direct heir in matters of property and rights,
they are also direct heirs in matters of any
intellectual property that accrues. This
includes the family recipes.
Before Manzilat starts talking about her
favorite topicfoodshe begins with a quick
disclaimer about Awadh cuisine: We belong
to the Shia community, our preferences
regarding all things would be different from
the Sunnisthe Mughals were predominantly Sunnihence our taste-buds have developed differently as well. She gives the example of the Muharram Hazarigenerally a
I am sure the original recipes are only with

me, through my mother and grandmother.
But people are free to experiment.
Manzilat Fatima, great, great granddaughter of
Wajid Ali Shah
paratha with beef Ghutwaan kebab on top
and says that this developed a bit differently
in Awadh, in UP, from the Mughal dishes
further north.
When she begins sharing details, one gets
a clearer picture of Awadhi food with its
moderate spices and enduring, unique aftertaste. She agrees that the current mishmash
of recipes floating around households and
restaurants have somewhat distorted the
original basics, and that is why she is bent
73
SOCIETY/ Awadhi Cuisine
Wajid Ali Shah

was a patron of
the arts and a
man of letters.
He loved the
good life and
was passionate
and particular
about his food.
ROYAL HERITAGE
(From top) Manzilats
grandfather Mehar
Qudr, and her father,
Prince Kaukub Qudr
74
October 31, 2015
on presenting to the connoisseur the real

taste of Awadh. You see, the biryani, for
example, as it was originally in Awadh, is
more akin to what is now available in
Kolkata, she explains. We, in this part of the
country, have adapted our taste-buds to the
Awadhi type, against say the Hyderabadi
biryani. I cook the biryani here with mustard
oil; some say its heresy, but I am determined
to bring back the taste of history. I also use
turmeric in small quantities.
She agrees that there have been others
claiming that the hereditary bloodline follows their families and this bothers her. I am
okay with others preparing and selling what
they call Awadhi cuisine, especially our family cuisine. However, doing so while saying
that the recipes are with them because they
represent the direct bloodline is something I
am not willing to accept. I am sure the original recipes are only with me, through my
mother and grandmother. But people are free
to experiment. As in many royal family
issues, this also seems to be slowly heading to
the courts although no cases have been filed
as of now.
Manzilat explains how, despite Nawab
Wajid Ali Shahs many wives and concubines,
her family derives the direct heritage. Of his
wives, Hazrat Mahal was the chief begum,
she explains. And only the children of the
chief begum gain the rights to heritage. That
was how Birjis Qudr became the next king,
followed by Mehar Qudr, and my father
Prince Kaukub Qudr. Now the title holder is
Prince Suleman Qudr, whose son Kamran Ali
Meerza, is the youngest prince in the family.
She switches from lineage to food. My
mother had a great deal of those recipes, and
traditions that were customary, says
Manzilat. Take for example potatoes in
biriyani. That was a no-no, in the Sultanate
of Awadh. It spoils the purity of taste. But
when the Nawab was exiled here, along with
his huge family and entourage, it was a
matter of feeding his followers, a matter of
adding bulk, on a rather small allowance.
And Bengal has always been a great potatoproducing state.
Pre-Raj history tells us that Wajid Ali
Shah was exiled from his state when the
British annexed his kingdom in 1856, a year
before the Sepoy Mutiny. The Nawab spent
his last years in Kolkatas Mitia Bruj (Garden
Reach) area, a broken man. He was a patron
of the arts and a man of letters. He loved the
good life and was passionate and particular
about his food.
One hopes that Manzilat succeeds in her
new venture. Heres to the slow-cooked
pasanda kebab, the herbs in the nahari, the
Ghutwaan kebab, and much more. Surely,
the lawyer and cook in her will do justice to a
cuisine with a very rich history. IL
CAMPUS UPDATE
NALSAR to host IDI session

ALSAR University of Law,
Hyderabad, is set to host the
next session of Nobel awardwinning organization, the Institut
de Droit International (IDI), in
2017. The event is being held in
India for the first time since the
inception of IDI in 1873. It
comprises legal experts from
across the globe. During the
eight-day event, 125 members
from 59 countries will discuss
legal issues of international

importance. PS Rao, the first
Indian to head IDI, said that
every year the session provides
solutions to legal conflicts that
arise between countries. The
next session will discuss mass
migration to Europe, war crimes
in the Middle East, bringing the
Security Councils decisions
under the jurisdiction of
international law and so on.
Workshop on teaching ethics

cknowledging the
importance of the role of
teachers in value-building,
National University of Law, Delhi
will be conducting a workshop on
Ethics in Teaching. It will sensi-
tize teachers about the various

dimensions, influences and
consequences of ethics and
values in teaching.
The workshop will be conducted
between October 16-17.
IP Clinic at Nirma varsity

n IP Clinic has
been inaugurated
at the Institute of Law,
Nirma University.
While inaugurating, former
chair professor of West
Bengal National University of
Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS)
Kolkata, Prof Shamnad
Basheer, mentioned that the
education system, where
creativity and
innovation are
hardly respected,
needs to change.
Jatin Trivedi of
Partners YJ Trivedi
& Co, Ahmedabad,
was present at the
event. The IP Clinic
will be providing IP
counselling and
Convocation at NLU, Lucknow

r Ram Manohar Lohiya
National Law University,
Lucknow, will hold its
second convocation on
October 31. The venue will
be Dr BR Ambedkar Auditorium
at the University. For the first
time, students will wear safas
and strolls, instead of
gowns. The notification
adds that students who
do not adhere to the dress

code will not be allowed to
attend the ceremony.
A Gold Medal has been
instituted for Best
Performance in competitive
examinations like UPSC/State
Public Services for 2009 and
2010 batches. Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav
will be the chief guest.
advisory services.
Counselling sessions
of various stakeholders,
including the academia,
industry, NGOs and
enterprises will be
organized to enable
them to understand the
implications of the IPR
regime for day-to-day
business.
75
PROBE/ Doping
Everyones Juicing
Latest raids of undercover steroid labs suggest the market for steroids
goes way beyond the world of elite athletes
By David Epstein
BEHIND THE FACADE
OF FITNESS
The urge to have a picture- perfect
AN EMBARRASSED
body has given a boost to steroid
DRAGON
consumption
(Below) Investors at a
brokerage house in
Shanghai after Chinese
stocks tumbled on
July 8, this year
76
October 31, 2015
ARLIER this month (in

September), the Drug
Enforcement Administration announced that it had
busted 16 underground
labs and seized 134,000
steroid tablets and pills,
8,200 liters of injectable steroid liquid (thats
140 kegs worth), and 1,400 pounds of the raw
powder from which steroids are made. In
Arizona alone, four labs and 150,000 doses of
all types were taken by DEA agents in an
undercover operation that spanned 20 states
and four foreign countries.
There are, clearly, a lot of steroids out in
the world. Investigators suspect there are
hundreds more labs churning out performance-enhancing drugs. According to the
DEA, most of the material used to make
steroids isnt even in the USits in China. As
big as it was, the DEA inquiry offers a view
through the smallest of keyholes of this illicit
business.
One reasonable inference from the
amount of steroids seized might be: there
must be a heck of a lot of athletes who are
doping. And thats true.
This month, the British Parliament
released a previously unpublished study by
the World Anti-Doping Agency that used
anonymous surveys to estimate the prevalence of doping at some recent competitions.
It estimated that between 29 and 34 percent
of the athletes at the 2011 world championships in track and field in Daegu, South
Korea used performance-enhancing drugs
that season. As many as half of the competitors at the 2011 Pan-Arab Games in Doha,
Qatar had recently juiced, the study found. (I
was at those Pan-Arab Games, and privy to
the barely noted fact that nine gold medals
were stripped before the event even ended.)
Amazingly enough, world-class athletes
are merely the fine layer of frost atop the
icebergs tip when it comes to the steroid
economy.
To illustrate, and speaking of ice, take
Iceland. As part of this recent operation, a lab
was busted there. Iceland sent five athletes
total, all skiers, to the last Olympics.

(Compare that to nine people who were
arrested at the steroid lab.) Its unlikely that
an underground steroid economy in Iceland
subsists on elite athletes alone. So who is driving this tremendous market?
ne answer is non-elite athletes. In

years of reporting on performanceenhancing drugs, Ive frequently
been asked why athletes in smaller sports or
facing lower stakes would dope, given that
theres little money in it for them.
My answer: people like being good at
sports, and anyone who has ever scheduled
their life around training for a sport, no matter how big or small, would never have to ask
that question.
My alma mater, Columbia University,
launched a steroid probe into the football
team way back in 1988, when the team had
not won a game in five years. Two players
admitted to steroid use as part of that internal
investigation.
More than a decade later, while I was a
Columbia student-athlete, two students were
busted for selling steroids on campus, and
one claimed he sold to an athlete.
This is a university that gives no athletic
scholarships and whose greatest sports successes (post-Lou Gehrig) have come in the
pool, on the track, and in the fencing hall. I
happen to know about these incidents only
because I went there. And still, my reporting
has shown that there are nowhere near
enough sub-elite athletes to account for the
booming trade in illegal steroids. So,
Amazingly
enough,
world-class
athletes are
merely the fine
layer of frost atop
the icebergs tip
when it comes
to the steroid
economy.
77
PROBE/ Doping
FIGHT TO THE FINISH

(Above, L-R) The 2011
World Athletics
Championships in South
Korea has come under
cloud for extensive doping
Malaysia's badminton star
Lee Chong Wei faces the
prospect of a two-year ban
after he tested positive for
a banned drug at the
World Championship in
Copenhagen
Steroids are
popular even in
professions
where physical
strength is prized,
such as police
officers and
soldiers.
78
October 31, 2015
again, who is driving this market?

In my observation, the main customers for
whats being churned out of the illegal labs
the DEA took down are gym-goers who want
to get stronger and look different, supplemented by people in professions where physical strength is prized, such as police officers
and soldiers.
or a 2008 Sports Illustrated article on

steroids that I co-wrote with L Jon
Wertheim, I spent several days in
England with a man named Tony Fitton.
Despite not having a college degree, in the
1980s Fitton was given a faculty position at
Auburn University, in the National Strength
Research Center.Fitton was already wellversed in steroid use. Years earlier, he had disrupted a study on the training effects of
steroids when he began buying the treatment
medication from other participants.
At Auburn, Fittons job consisted mostly of
helping legendary strongman Bill Kazmaier
train. I didnt even have a bloody typewriter,
Fitton told me. He was, though, a rather brilliant kitchen chemist. He scoured pharmacology and medical texts, often experimenting
on himself. He once noticed that a blood pressure drug in trials was causing a peculiar side
effectit made patients eyebrows grow
together. Fitton figured that if the drug could
regrow hair, he could sell it to steroid users to
UNI
help with the bald patches that sometimes

develop from steroid use. Today, you know
that drug as minoxidil, the active ingredient
in Rogaine.
Fitton was also providing steroids to elite
athletes. In the course of reporting that story,
several NFL players admitted theyd been his
clientsbut I was surprised by what I saw
when I got my hands on his old business
ledger, and other documents related to his
dealings. The ledger recounted about a year of
his sales, and while college football and NFL
players, power lifters, professional wrestlers
and bodybuilders were among the buyers, the
ledger was filled with a diverse smattering of
customers, from gym owners to policemen
and soldiers to droves of guys who just wanted to have bigger muscles.
Years later, when I met with a convicted
steroid dealer in Florida whod been selling to
a chiropractor working with the Washington
Capitals, he told me that police officers and
military personnel were steady clients. And,
while he also sold to some competitive athletes, he said that young men who wanted to
change their physique comprised most of the
demand. He, himself, began taking steroids
after admiring Arnold Schwarzenegger carry-
ing a tree trunk in the 1985 film Commando.

A year before that movie hit the theaters,
Fitton was caught by a customs agent bringing steroids across the border from Mexico,
and became the first person to be federally
prosecuted for steroid smuggling. Steroids
werent even controlled substances yet, but
they did require a prescription, and he had
more than 2,000 boxes worth of the steroid
Dianabol in his car.
In 1997, he was arrested againhe told me
his supply was coming via commercial airline
pilots who picked up steroids in countries
where they could be purchased legally. By that
point, Fitton had been arrested for steroid
distribution three times, and had jumped bail
twice. He was sentenced to four months in
prison, but his punishment was delayed,
because a legal dietary supplement company
was happy to employ him and had arranged a
chance for him to advise the Green Bay
Packers on strength training. The Packers
declined to comment on why the team would
allow Fitton any contact with their players.
Fitton, who was ultimately deported,
might seem like an odd hire for a supplement
company, but the supplement industry has a
history of overlap with the steroid world.
Patrick Arnold, the chemist who created
There is loads of money to be made, legal

risks are minimal and theres no shortage of
people who want to look like the statuesque
models they see in the magazines.
designer steroids for BALCO, was better
known in the workout world for having made
muscle-building supplements, including
androstenedione, the substance that first
started performance-enhancing drug trouble
for Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire when a
reporter spotted it in his locker.
At the time, it was legally available over
the counter, and after it was mentioned in
relation to McGwire in the news in 1998, sales
reportedly exploded by 1,000%, thanks to
people at home who wanted to be as muscly
as Big Mac.
ick up any muscle mag at the grocery

store, and youll get a sense of the target market. While many famous magazines are barely more substantial than pamphlets these days, Muscular Development, for
example, can still stop a door.
Past issues of the magazine have featured
Q&As in which an expert will give specific
SILVER-SCREEN
FANTASIES
The image of Arnold
Schwarzenegger
carrying a tree trunk in
the movie Commando
drove many youngsters
to imitate his fitness
level
79
PROBE/ Doping
and sometimes show photos of extremely fit

and scantily clad women. An issue might feature a wide range of lifestyle advice to men,
from the bizarredont tattoo genitals
because a medical report found (surprise!)
there can be some unpleasant repercussionsto ads with the familiar tone of
womens magazine advice columns.
One example gives four rules: #1Respect
Gym Etiquette; #2Train Hard & Listen
More Than You Talk; #3Let The Women
Come To You (Animal Instinct 101); and
#4Dont Be Caught With the Wrong
Supplements.
The content is tailored for men who want
to be stronger, feel more energetic and better
about themselves as well as turn the heads of
women and other men. That, of course, is
a far larger portion of the male population
than the number of athletes dreaming of
Olympic gold.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
(Right) Muscular
Development
magazine is replete
with information and
guidance on steroid
usage
The content of
muscle
magazines is
tailored for men
who want to be
stronger, feel
more energetic
and better about
themselves as
well as turn the
heads of
women and
other men.
80
October 31, 2015
how to advice on dissolving steroids for

injection, or how long particular dosages will
be effective, and how to limit the possibility
of liver damage. Much of the magazine is
filled with advertisements for dietary supplements that are clearly attempting to evoke
steroid use.
An advertisement for a website called
legalsteroids.com shows products using nicknames of traditional steroidsD-Bol and
Winni-V (Dianabol and Winstrol)but
with slightly altered chemical formulas from
the familiar substances.
Somatropin is a pharmaceutical name for
human growth hormone; legalsteroids.com
will sell you what it calls Somatroph HC. I
asked an online customer service representative of the website how the company could
make legal steroids and he said: weve been
able to take the effective parts of the illegal
steroids and make it legal. Ive asked a company spokeswoman how, exactly, this is done
but have not heard back.
It remains unclear whats in these sorts of
products. Some supplements may actually be
designer steroids. Supplement makers want
their products to work, and the industry is
lightly regulated, so steroids have been known
to show up in over-the-counter products.
The ads often depict muscle-bound men,
t is also a market segment that is destined

to grow as the Baby Boomers age. The
number of men in their 40s who got prescriptions for testosterone more than quadrupled between 2001 and 2011, according to
data published by the Journal of the
American Medical Association. And guess
whats often cheaper and easier to get than
prescribed, pharmaceutical grade testosterone? Chemical analogs of testosterone
thats what steroids are that someone sells
on the black market or markets as a dietary
supplement. In the course of my reporting on
this subject, Ive bought both testosterone
and illicit steroids sold as supplements. The
latter was quicker and cheaper to get.
Law enforcement agents and steroid peddlers Ive spoken to over the years say theres
no end in sight to the burgeoning market for
steroids. There is loads of money to be made,
legal risks are minimalsteroids arent exactly DEAs top priorityand theres no shortage
of people who want to look like the statuesque
models they see in the magazines. IL
David Epstein covers energy and

environment issues as well as sports science.
Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a senior
writer at Sports Illustrated.
Courtesy ProPublica
1. To big-note.
A: To overspend
B: To boast
C: To donate
D: To bribe
2. With-it.
A: Fashionable
B: Staying as paying
guest
C: Free
D. Brotherly
3. Have the hots for.
A: Be sexually aroused by
B: Have skills for
C: Have respect for
D: Have ambition for
4. Loop-the-loop.
A: Spiral staircase
B: Kids game
C: German lock
D: Soup
5. Somniloquist is one
who.
A: walks in sleep
B: talks in sleep
C: cries in sleep
D: doesnt get enough
sleep
6. Its monkeys outside.
A: A huge crowd outside
B: Very cold outside
C: A traffic snarl outside
D: Boss is waiting outside
7. Get stuffed!
A: Do your homework!
B: Get ready!
Have fun with English.

Get the right answers.
Play better scrabble.
By Mahesh Trivedi
C: Get lost!
D: Get the money!
8. Fear of depths.
A: Vallophobia
B: Bathophobia
C: Hypophobia
D: Daleophobia
9. Natures garb.
A: Sunshine
B: Nudity
C: Bathwater
D: Innerwear
10. One pair is wrong.
A: Bed and board
B: Ready and correct
C: Wax and wane
D: Bubble and rubble
11. Pearl anniversary is
completion of .
A: 15 years
B: 30 years
C: 40 years
D: 60 years
12. Humongous.
A: No such word
B: Kind
C: Humane
D: Huge
13. Hung up.
A: Dead
B: Retired
C: Worried
D: Drunk
14. Name fitting ones
occupation.
A: Pseudonym
B: Aptronym
C: Eponym
D: Oronym
15. Short end of the stick.
A: Severe punishment
B: Inferior post
C: Bad deal
D: Advantage
16. Close but no cigar.
A: Near miss
B: Ring ceremony
C: Man of principles
D: Divorce
17. Crummy.
A: Dirty
B: Crumpled
C: Fresh
D: Despicable
18. Hot to trot.
A. Popular
B. Expensive
C. Ill-tempered
D. Ready
19. High-wire act.
A: Suicide
B: Risky task
C: Death penalty
D: Disappearing act
20. Say uncle.
A: Respect
B: Give up
C: Repent
D: Say sorry
ANSWERS
1. To boast
2. Fashionable
3. Be sexually aroused by
4. Soup
5. Talks in sleep
6. Very cold outside
7. Get lost!
8. Bathophobia
9. Nudity
10. Bubble and rubble
11. 30 years
12. Huge
13. Worried
14. Aptronym
15. Bad deal
16. Near miss
17. Dirty
18. Ready
19. Risky task
20. Give up
Y
L
D
R
WO ISE
SCORES
0 to 7 correctYou
need to do this more
often.
8 to 12 correctGood,
get the scrabble
board out.
Above 12Bravo!
Keep it up!
textdoctor2@gmail.com
81
PEOPLE / Children & War
TRACKED YOU
Hungarian
policemen reach
out to a family of
migrants with a
baby as they try to
run away in a
railway station in
Bicske, Hungary
I TRIPPED
Police prevent migrants,
mainly Syrians, from
escaping from under a
fence to board a train near
Gevgelija, Macedonia.
These trains will take them
to Hungary
DIGGING
IN
A famished
refugee
boy at a
border
point in
Hungary
MISS SUNSHINE
A girl runs near damaged buildings in Jobar, a
suburb in Damascus, Syria
OVERCOME BY GRIEF
Relatives of a Palestinian woman, Riham Dawabsheh,
mourn during her funeral at Duma village in the West Bank
city of Nablus. She was killed in an arson attack
Compiled by Kh Manglembi Devi

Photos: UNI
RNI No. UPENG/2007/25763
Postal Regd. No. UP/GBD-197/2014-16

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RAMESH MENON:

CORRUPTION BEHIND THE BARS

October 31, 2015

STORIES THAT COUNT

In-depth analysis of the

3-year law degrees? 46

Ram Rahim Singh

LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

THE COW CRISIS

tional norms and the rule of law in our everyday lives.

LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

as thousands of trisul-wielding sadhus broke

as the matter been resolved? What

October 31, 2015

Directive Principles of State Policy.

hat did the father of the nation,

The assumption of the Hindus that India

TO EACH HIS OWN

hief Justice Das termed beef as the

LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

In the reign of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of

October 31, 2015

n 2008, an extremely important judgment

state and the supreme duty of all Indians to

tremendous diversity and this is due to large

LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Template for peace

These days unfortunately some people

October 31, 2015

it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our

mentioned by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru in The

In April 1979, Vinoba Bhave proceeded with a

LEAD/ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

October 31, 2015

of mourning for the Muslims. On hearing this,

structible. Though the country and the people

The comparatively low prices of beef and

It will be an act of reprehensible ingratitude to

aving listened to Judge Katjus wisdom, suppose we should go ahead, as

OCTOBER 31, 2015

Till the Holy Cows Come Home

Published by Prof Baldev Raj Gupta on behalf of E N Communications Pvt Ltd

OWNED BY E. N. COMMUNICATIONS PVT. LTD.

October 31, 2015

Abolish three-year law degrees

Students of IIT Madras have developed an algorithm that can help

The great, great

VIPIN PUBBY probes the

Latest raids of undercover steroid labs suggest that the market

AAI can mobilize funds

RAMESH MENON talks to RK Srivastava, chairman, Airports

Prof Tahir Mahmod, former member of the Law Commission of

INDIA LEGAL October 31, 2015

October 31, 2015

My grandson wears a mask. He

When a poor man says

I feel somewhat dissatisfied

As BJP workers, we need

A person like Owaisi was allowed to come