The experiences bestowed by Kanchi-Mahaswami — Part 42 : Whiplash given by the court
https://www.thuglak.com/thuglak/main.php?x=curissue/ninaithu_paarkiraen_18_08_2021.php
Author : Sri S.Gurumurthy
Translator : C.Rangarajan
Though the judgment came in our favor, our troubles continued in the form of Jagmohan. He filed a review petition and was hellbent on getting a verdict in his favor. He was further supported by the center. Their ways of operation in the case were totally strange. Their respective lawyers stooped down to the lowest level. They refuted their defense and went back on all the promises given in the court. They somersaulted and disowned their arguments & promises.
It was not mentioned to the judges directly but through their junior lawyers. Their juniors gave the letters disowning their senior lawyers’ argument and indirectly blamed the bench for recording them too. Based on such false allegations, Jagmohan filed his review petition to set right the blatant errors. Again, their baseless lies were blown into pieces, condemned by the Judges, and their review petition was dismissed. Let me share that interesting but sad episode in the annals of the courts.
Arguments placed & Promises made
The final judgment had four salient features:
- Jagmohan’s vendetta was instrumental in the demolition of the building & land grabbing. Therefore, legally those acts are not admissible
- Jagmohan does not have the right to represent the center & land administration department
- If any construction has violated the approved plan then a penalty should be levied on them and regularize further
- If there is a due to the land administration department from the Express group then the Government can file a case for the recovery
The judgment was backed up solidly with documents, evidence, and other details.
L.N.Sinha, who was representing the government stated the following in his affidavit:
- The central government has the ownership over the disputed land and not Jagmohan
- Therefore, he does not have the right to take any action
- The central government rejects his affidavit
- Jagmohan cannot usurp the powers of the government
- The central government has decided to form a body to forgive and dismiss the cases like the present one
- I advised the government to form the body
- Jagmohan earlier notice to grab the land is legally not tenable
The court has recorded his arguments and the promises. Similarly, M.C.Bhandari, the lawyer for Delhi corporation mentioned in his affidavit, “The express building has been constructed to accommodate the printing presses. If there was any violation and need to be regularized then they can give a request along with a fee”. This was also recorded by the court. Based on those promises, the court had decreed to regularize the violations after accepting a fee.
Reversal by the lawyer, Court’s condemn
The court’s judgment was given on 07-Oct-1985. On 12-Oct-1985, while appearing in the review petition case, L.N.Sinha backtracked on his earlier affidavit that was recorded by the court. His junior wrote to the three judges about the reversal. On the next day, Bhandari wrote on the same lines to his junior. Both the letters were given to Jagmohan. Based on that, he filed for review of the judgment.
The three judges, A.B.Sen, E.S.Venkataramayya, R.B.Misra were surprised and saddened by this kind of low behavior. “ It is saddening to see the rejection of their arguments by the two senior lawyers. They were adopting crooked tactics. Instead of filing an affidavit and subject themselves to cross-examination by the Judges, they sent the message through their juniors. The juniors had submitted the letter to Jagmohan, who was not their client. They also gave it to the press and campaigned against the court. The court was embarrassed and we condemn such atrocious behavior.
The senior lawyers are not only representing their clients and are also the officers of this court. They behaved very cheaply and spoiled the court’s respect and tradition. We are saddened. In our judgment, we had mentioned their defense and all are captured in the minutes of the court proceedings. They made their arguments on 14–15th Sep 1983. We are ordering the court’s registrar to preserve those records”. Then, they dismissed the review petition. It left an indelible print on the legal career of those two senior lawyers.
Why did the senior lawyers backtrack?
Everyone knows that Jagmohan is closer to Sanjay and took action against the Express group. Unfortunately, after the commencement of the case, Sanjay died in an airplane accident. Both Indira and the government were jolted. It also changed the political direction of the country. An astrologer predicted this and informed us on the previous day.
After Sanjay’s death, Indira, the totalitarian got weakened. Around that time, the Punjab problem erupted. Express group supported the actions of the government to tackle the Punjab problem. On that matter, Goenka was in personal touch with Indira. Maybe, due to that, both the senior lawyers had to backtrack and did not support Jagmohan. The arguments were completed in 1983 and the judgment came in 1985. In between, Indira was killed in 1984. Rajeev Gandhi became the PM. Jagmohan became closer to him and applied pressure on the senior lawyers, again. It brought a bad name to the government of the day.
Compare these two — Parasaran withdrew from the case since he could not see any merit in the case; Whereas, Sinha had resorted to a lowly behavior.
Postscript:
It was at the end of May or the beginning of June in 1980. BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi along with Nanaji Deshmukh (who had moved out of the politics) had come to meet Goenka. I was also there. Joshi said, “ My astrologer has predicted an earth-shaking event”. Joshi had deep faith in astrology and was wearing multiple stones in his hands. After they had left, Goenka dismissed Joshi and his prediction. Then Sanjay’s death had happened and it shook the country. I still remember all those events. After a year, Arun Shourie wrote an essay — The Second Coincidence. Here is the synopsis of the essay.
“I still remember the chain of events that had started in the morning of 21st June 1980. Kishori Lal, former Janata MP had invited me to his house for lunch. Janata party leader, Chandrasekhar wanted to meet me. But, he could not make it. We rescheduled the meeting for the next day night. Chandrasekhar came late for the meeting. He had asked me to prepare a note on the state & mood of the Nation. I replied that many things can be done to salvage the nation but no point in talking to the politicians. Chandrasekhar agreed to that and asked me whether I know M.M.Joshi.
Joshi was BJP’s general secretary and ex-MP. Chandrasekhar continued, “ His astrologer has predicted something. Tomorrow morning, something eerie is going to happen. We will not be able to digest that event”. I ridiculed that prediction. Chandrasekhar had firm faith in astrology and told me to have faith too. I went home very late at 11 pm. My mother was waiting for me and quizzed about my meeting with Chandrasekhar. I shared all the details. In a few hours that catastrophic event was going to happen. All that seeped into my mind.
After 3–4 days, I wrote an essay on the events that had happed on 22nd June and titled it as ‘Death as Arbiter”. My friend read that and told me to remove the objectionable para that may create suspicion in the minds of the people about our role — mine, Chandrasekhar, Joshi, RSS, and others.
Till then, I had never met Joshi. After some time, I met him and asked about his meeting with Chandrasekhar. Joshi had also confirmed it. Shourie concluded by saying that he never met the astrologer.
