Supreme Court : Justice Kannan's blog

Justice K.Kannan of the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently shot into limelight for voluntarily disclosing his assets to the public though he also opined that demanding voluntary disclosure from judges is fraught with risk to independence of judiciary.

His blog is atypical of a judge. He expresses his views on various judgements, mostly in agreement. Recently he posted his views on a judgement from the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the right of a mentally retarded person to carry a child to term.The person was a serial victim of bestial behaviour of people. The High Court had decided that the victim did not have an inviolable right to deliver the baby in view of various disturbing circumstances. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the decision and said the victim cannot be forced to terminate the pregnancy.

I commented on the views expressed by Justice Kannan as follows:

" Your succinct reasoning reminds us that the Supreme Court is not supreme because it is infallible, but it is infallible because it is supreme". This is a quote from an American judge. I thought that this comment was innocuous, meaningful at best and irrelevant at worst. However, the comment was deleted by Justice Kannan.

I wonder what could be the reason for deletion. Perhaps judges do not want to be seen as even remotely enabling people to express even tangentially hurtful views on the majesty of the Supreme Court, however truthful they are.

Banning books

Do governments have a right to proscribe books? This has become a matter of topical interest after the Gujarat state government banned Mr.Jaswant Singh's book on Mr.Jinnah. There obviously are ulterior motives in this instant case. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to study the legitimacy of such bans.
Freedom of expression is a sacred right. At the same time, nobody has the right to indulge in defamation. What is libellous is a matter of fact and sometimes difficult to judge. It ill behoves any government to take advantage of this judgemental dilemma and sinisterly silence an inconvenient view-point. In the present case, the Gujarat government has not covered itself with glory.

Corporate Governance : Absentee director etc.

Annual General Meeting of Indbank Merchant Banking Services Ltd was held today (19th August). Chairman of the company, Mr. Anup Sankar Bhattacharya , in his address said, "Your company has complied with the requirements prescribed with respect to code of corporate governance as per clause 49 of the Listing Agreement". This is in stark contrast to what is mentioned in the Certificate on Corporate Governance issued by the auditors in the Annual Report which remarks, "In the Audit Committee meetings held on 16.04.08, 29.07.08, 21.10.08 only one independent director has attended the meeting contrary to clause 49 II (B) stipulation of minimum two independent directors' attendance ".

Needless to say, Mr.M K Narayanan was reelected as a director !

Crisis and ethics

One student at IIM, Ahmedabad was stricken with swine flu. She took off to Delhi where her father is a doctor. In the process, how many people would have been infected is anybody's guess. The role of the institute is not known.
Is it correct on the part of the student to have travelled while being a carrier of the scary flu? When the person becomes hopefully a CEO, would her behaviour not be the same? It is indeed difficult to be ethical in a crisis, but that is when ethics is needed most.

Detention of Shah Rukh Khan

SRK was detained (?) at Newark airport for 2 (?) hours. Was he detained or was he only frisked? Was it over a period of two hours or a much lesser duration? Is it also true that he was not allowed to make telephone calls?

SRK figured in the list of 50 most influential persons in the world published by Newsweek sometime last year. Assuming that the airport immigration officials were unaware of SRK's identity (which is quite possible), they could have easily verified through Google search or any other method they were comfortable with. Is it possible that SRK did not suggest anything like this?

SRK was in America ,inter alia, in connection with his soon-to-be released movie "My name is Khan" where he acts as a Muslim who is not a terrorist. There are cynics (?) who claim that the "detention" was arranged by 20th Century Fox as a trailer.

If he was detained only because his surname is 'Khan' and the immigration officials made no sensible attempts to satisfy themselves about SRK despite his attempts to prove his identity, the episode can only be termed as religious prejudice masquerading as 'security consciousness'.

Combating flu

Flu is a seasonal ritual. It gets christened differently each time. Thus we have bird flu, swine flu, Spanish flu etc. Diseases cannot be eradicated totally. However, impact of the disease can be managed both at societal level and individual level.

China says that though many have contracted swine flu, there was no death due to swine flu there. Is it possible? Given the state of authoritarianism, anything is possible in China. They doctor statistics as much as they doctor people. At the same time it is possible that China did indeed handle the swine flu threat exceptionally well.

What is happening in India is a matter of deep concern. People's hygiene levels and doctors' diagnostic capacity are crucial determinants of impact of flu. Sadly it is not uncommon to witness patients coughing on one another's face in a nursing home in the presence of medical professionals who blissfully turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is happening.

Personal hygiene with a concrete set of dos and don'ts should be taught at primary school levels. It is a mockery of our educational system if we need the outbreak of a pandemic in order to teach people how to cough and where to spit. Government should carry out educative campaigns wherever people gather to enable them to imbibe good hygiene.

Many doctors seem to have lost basic diagnostic skills. Instances are aplenty of prescription of antibiotics for viral cold and fever and of irrelevant antibiotics for bacterial infections. Diagnosis is poor and prescription is poorer. I wonder who can solve this problem.

Absentee Director

Going through the annual report of Indbank Merchant Banking Services Ltd for the year 2008-09, one is surprised to find that one of the directors, Mr. M.K.Narayanan did not attend any of the four Board meetings held during the year. He is also a member of the Audit Committee. He could not attend any of its meetings also. The annual report says, " Shri M.K.Narayanan is the National Security Advisor, Government of India. He has vast experience and has been associated with the company since 1994."
I looked for the earlier annual reports. I could lay my hands on 2006-07 report only. During that year also, he was a director and a member of the audit committee. His attendance record was the same. The two reports also mention that he did not attend the earlier AGM of shareholders.
He is likely to be re-elected to the Board in the AGM to be held on 19th inst.
No doubt, the person is eminent. His work in Delhi is of national importance. But can he spare time for a small company and be a member of the audit committee? Auditor's certificate on corporate governance for the year 2008-09 says, inter alia, " In the audit committee meetings held on 16.04.08, 29.07.08 and 21.10.08 only one independent director has attended the meeting contrary to Clause 49 II (B) stipulation of minimum two independent directors' attendance."
Whither corporate governance?