FROM THE DESK OF THE CHAIRMAN

BIZSOLINDIA SERVICES PVT LTD

Wish You All A Happy Diwali Prosperous New Year.

The statue of Lady Justice, often found outside courthouses and law libraries in India represents the core principles of justice - fairness, impartiality and moral integrity. Lady Justice is typically depicted as a blindfolded woman holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other, each symbolising critical aspects of justice.? One of the last acts of D Y Chandrachud, the Chief Justice India before he would remit office in a few days was to give a deferential farewell to this statue that had come to symbolise the justice system in India.? Lady Justice as she is known, is an allegorical personification of the moral force in our judicial systems.? She is blindfolded in order to represent her virtue of delivering justice without bias or favouritism.? The scale held by her in one hand represents weighing of evidence and arguments presented in her courtroom.? The sword in her other hand represents the authority of the law and the swift execution of justice.? The female form represents wisdom, moral integrity and compassion – essential qualities of those dispensing justice. In the Indian context Lady Justice embodies the Constitutional values of equality and rule of law underscoring the judicial system’s role in upholding the rights of all individuals.? None of these underlying principles based on which our Constitution is built has changed or likely to change, ever. However, the present depiction of the statute based on how our judicial systems have been working had, of course, become butt of jokes for good reason.? For instance, the blindfold has come to represent the anguish of litigants because of the interminable delays to get justice from courts. For an economically challenged litigant fighting in the courts, the blindfold of Lady Justice can only be a display of insensitivity towards her plight to get justice. ?The majesty of the court and the authority it commands looks meaningless to him based on his own lived in experience.? Wisdom and compassion that the Lady Justice is supposed to represent is nothing more than mere symbolism when the litigant learns about the plight of women in India.? The Chief Justice’s gesture of redesigning the costume of the statue has unwittingly opened raw wounds – always felt; seldom expressed. Though there is nothing wrong in symbolisms, there is a crying need to go to the root cause that causes inordinate delays in delivering justice. Here the blindfold used by Lady Justice looks insincere and insensitive. Now that is gone. Wait a minute.? Do we keep on draping the Lady or change her attire for all times to come? In a couple of years people would start demanding that Lady’s attire needs a change. Be prepared to offer the Lady a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. ??It is reported that that Justice Chandrachud believes that India should move forward from the British legacy.? How is that possible your honour as long as the law of the land is codified in English?? Even after the enactment of Nyaya Sanhita the problem continues, but in a different form.? That is for another day.

There are occasions when you feel that the blindfold of Lady Justice is actually an impediment in dispensing justice. Sample this.? GN Saibaba, was a professor at Delhi University when he was arrested on charges of hobnobbing with terrorists.? No petty crime this.? Saibaba was a wheelchair bound disabled (90%) prisoner.? He was acquitted by the Bombay High Court as he was found innocent, eventually. Unfortunately, he could not enjoy (or was denied) a normal life and freedom as he died a few days back.? He was all of 57 years.? Was it his bad luck or because of the failure of our legal system?? Going by the reports in the media and the presence of a wheelchair with him all the time it is a certainty that he was done to death by our legal system itself.? Considering the extent of disabilities that he had (90%), a bail would have been his, just for the asking. ??Saibaba was jailed and sentenced to life imprisonment under the dreaded Unlawful Activities Prevention Act on charges of his affiliation with the Maoist party and his alleged role in terrorist activities. After his arrest in 2014 he remained in jail for about eight years. In 2022, a Bench of the Bombay High Court found that the basis on which the allegations were made on Saibaba was too hollow to prosecute him. The basis of the allegation was the recovery of documents by the police from his house. With the help of these documents, the police sought to prove that Saibaba was associated with the Maoists, and he played a role in its terrorist actions.? The court felt considering this allegation and this evidence, it was sufficient to sentence him to life imprisonment. After Saibaba had spent more than six years in jail, the Bombay High Court found that the entire process of recovery of evidence was flawed, and no punishment could be given on that basis. The court felt it strange that neither Saibaba nor any other educated person was present at the time of the seizure. The police made an illiterate person a witness and prepared the Panchnama. The court said that this cannot be considered as evidence to keep the case going and that such serious allegations cannot be made through such a weak procedure.? The story did not end there.? The Bombay Court had corrected the injustice of the lower court but the same day the Supreme Court rushed to the higher court to stay that order. This was extraordinary. The freedom that Saibaba had got was immediately taken away by the Supreme Court. Several months later the Supreme Court asked another Bench of the Bombay High Court to review the decision. That Bench not only found the process of investigation and evidence collection to be wrong but dismissed the case on merits. It made it possible for Saibaba to come out of Nagpur jail on 7 March 2024.? In short, he became a victim of our judiciary’s systemic violence. Could there be a more heinous than putting a disabled person through such a gruelling experience? Even in the jail the disabled Saibaba was denied the basic humanitarian consideration to get a bail just on merits.? If only our Lady Justice could have observed what poor Saibaba on a wheelchair went through, he would have got bail on humanitarian considerations.?

Ratan Tata would have been pleasantly surprised to see the kind of heartfelt sentiments from across all sections of the society when he passed away.? He died at 86. There was something about him that touched an average Indian across the country. He being the scion of the famed House of Tatas was only one part of this story. When he was handpicked by the group’s patriarch to succeed him, many had this one question upper most in their mind – who is this Tata? Very few knew about him and few had even heard of him to be fit enough to be considered as JRD’s possible successor.?? When Tata was 10, his parents separated, and he was subsequently raised and adopted by Navajbai Tata, his grandmother. Ratan Tata had taken a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Cornel University.? He achieved initial success by turning the subsidiary National Radio and Electronics (NELCO) around only to see it collapse during an economic slowdown. In 1991 JRD Tata stepped down as Chairman of Tata Sons, naming him as his successor. One of his priorities then was to establish his own legitimacy as natural leader of other Tata companies that had entrenched leaders with formidable reputations and long association with the group. This led to predictable corporate fights in Tata group.? In the end, he succeeded in replacing big names like Rusi Modi, Sumant Mulgaonkar, Darbari Seth, Nani Palkhiwala, etc. The mettle of Ratan came to be tested in these tussles that ended with the departure of all the old guards, however venerable they were in the industry circles.? Under his leadership overlapping operations between subsidiaries were streamlined into company-wide operations. The rest is history with the name of Ratan Tata firmly stamped on it.? Some of his successes and failures need to be written in his epithet to be fair.? The much-publicised people’s car Nano was one of his spectacular failures.? Another failure on his part was in the process of his selection of his successor.? Cyrus Mistry being a shareholder of Tata Sons was part of the committee to select his successor.? As it turned out, he found himself to be suitable as Ratan Tata’s successor. That ended up in a messy separation between the Tata and the Mistry families.? Ratan Tata was not merely an industrialist.? He became more famous for the philanthropic initiatives. In fact, after the Bombay blast he became a national hero the like of which this nation had never seen before in the industry circle.? Writing obituaries is difficult.? For a man like Ratan Tata with his achievements and his philanthropic projects, you feel guilty that you have not written enough. Anyone who writes a eulogy in his honour is bound to feel that way. That is Ratan Tata’s greatness.? For all that you know, right now he must be in conversation with his God on what He has to do more for the country called India.? May his soul rest in blissful glory in the knowledge that he is undoubtedly the most celebrated industrial icon of modern India.

By the time this issue reaches you, the US will have a new President.? With this, the world is all set to pivot decisively.? The ‘prediction industry’ in the US is currently the most nervous. ?For good reasons.? What follows here is from an opinion piece written by Fareed Zakaria analysing the profile of his country’s electorate as published in the Washington Post. “It used to be relatively easy to predict a person’s voting pattern based on?economics. The rich and upper middle class voted right, the poor and working class voted left. Race was another durable factor after the civil rights movement. White people disproportionately voted for Republicans; people of color largely voted Democratic. But today, there seems to be a more prominent divide than race:?Americans with college degrees?appear far more likely to vote for Harris and blue-collar?working-class voters?have become the new base of the Republican Party.? The great divide in America today is not economic but social, and its primary marker is college education. The other strong predictors of a person’s voting behaviour are gender, geography and religion. So, the new party bases in America are an educated, urban, secular and female left and a less-educated, rural, religious and male right.? These new divisions are even overwhelming that deepest of divides: race and ethnicity. More and more Black and Hispanic men are finding themselves comfortable with the Republican Party — and it’s especially pronounced with young people”. Zakaria feels this new cultural landscape will redefine American politics for decades to come irrespective of who wins the coming elections.

It has become a routine for Tamil actors to play multiple roles in real life.? So is the case with the latest entrant – Vijay. Every step they take even during their acting careers is predicated on this premise.? They make their money and fame like all actors from the box office. In Tamil Nadu we have a litany of such stars, both successful and not so successful. Consequently, actors from the Tamil cinema world craft their careers and fashion their dialogues keeping this in mind. The last box office hit of Vijay was a film titled “Greatest of All Times” – GOAT for short. ?A dialogue in this film packs a punch whenever he mouths lines like “a lion is always a lion”. If you find it presumptuous, remember that something more important is on its way.? After having established himself as a super star in Tamil movies Vijay is all set for the big stage.? Today Tamil Nadu politics have no big names.? People like Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi, MGR have all gone leaving no credible heirs apparent.? Stalin, Karunanidhi’s son is a pale shadow of himself having to battle some unknown health issues.? In the AIADMK ranks there is no one with charisma to lead the party. Both super stars Kamala Hasan and Rajnikant have burnt their figures while trying to enter politics on the strength of the success for their film careers.? The former’s entry in politics proved to be a disaster and the latter’s attempt at making a mark in politics proved to be tentative at best despite his star power.? Presently the stage is vacant, and Vijay has taken the plunge.? Going by precedents, a political career is a natural second innings for a film star.? The reasons are obvious.? In the case of Vijay who is 50, his entry now would be better timed than other film stars of yore.? He called for a public meeting last week that is estimated to have been attended by not less than three lakhs people. Even if they all may not be voting for Vijay, there is no doubt that a new star has arrived.? The actor took that occasion to familiarise the audience with his vision and his proposed actions.? First of all, based on his speech delivered at this rally, it is clear that he is starting on a right note – he is not going to be burdened by any ideology. He is planning build a “big tent” where everyone is welcome. Vijay has christened his party Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK). In this, ‘Vetri’ stands for victory. The word ‘Vijay’ means victory! The first Chapter of the picture is complete. Melodramatic times are ahead for Tamil fans and politicians.

Thank you.

Venkat R Venkitachalam

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