Supreme Court of India

We can divide the Supreme Court history into 3 periods. The first was when the judges had good grasp of both law and English (Justice Patanjali Sastry and others). The second crop of judges were adept in English and not so in law (Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer). The present is amateurish in both. 

Chief Justice S.A.Bobde has commented "there is no let-down in crimes against women." This conveys the opposite of what he wants to say. He meant let-up and goofed up with let-down. Let-down means disappointment!

Supreme Court and Chidambaram's bail

Reading the 36 page judgement of the Supreme Court reversing the Delhi High Court decision and granting bail to P.Chidambaram, one gets the impression that one's faith in the judicial process is neither sustained nor restored.

The Supreme Court substantially agrees with the High Court, but cleverly and perhaps cunningly arrives at the contrary decision. The apex court accepts that economic offences are a class apart. It is therefore the case that the tripod test (flight risk, tampering with documentary evidence and influencing the witnesses) is not the only consideration to decide on bail applications. Yet it is also held that bail is the rule and jail the exception.

The sealed cover may contain the reasons why bail is not called for. But then, bail is the rule. The accused is 74 years old. He had to consume antibiotics in jail! Is PC the only pre-trial prisoner satisfying these conditions? The court could have used this opportunity to enquire how many such prisoners were there in Tihar jail itself. Does the court care for equality before the law?

The court accepts that the gravity of alleged offence is a relevant consideration. There is a rider there also. The maximum period of prison sentence for his alleged offence is ONLY 7 years and so bail is the norm.

Tushar Mehta had made it clear to the court that the charge sheet is not yet exhaustive and that further investigation is necessary in the interest of justice. Witnesses had confirmed that they had come under pressure from the accused and his family. All these matter little to the court because the accused is 74 years old and has lost weight while in prison. If these are accepted as exculpatory reasons for lenience in grant of bail, the prisons will become almost empty.

Ayodhya verdict

Ayodhya is an antonym for war. The name is associated meaningfully with the likes of Ram who was averse to waging a war ; Ayodhya can have no attributes of a person, a descendant of Genghis Khan,  who waged multiple wars to gain territory and commit unspeakable atrocities.

It is unfortunate that Indians are known for their xenophilia. Evils emanating from this tendency were highlighted by George Washington in his famous 'Farewell Address': (tedious but worth reading):

"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."

It is not surprising, therefore, that criticisms abound about the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in the Ayodhya case. Archaeological Society of India had firmly concluded that the Masjid was built on the ruins of a non-Muslim construction. This was typical of the acts of a murderous marauder. Clamour for imparting a higher legal title to a merciless invader indulging in lawless adventure than to wronged and helpless locals is a typical manifestation of spineless xenophilia.

Come clean on NEET

The Madras High Court has made some spectacular observations in a NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) - related case. These observations are perhaps born out of genuine concern for the poor students. But apparent failure on the part of honourable judges (N.Kirubakaran and P.Velmurugan) to ask relevant questions seems to have misled them.

In Tamil Nadu, a preponderant majority of successful students in NEET has gone through private coaching which costs around Rs.5 lac. This isolated statistic has made the judges observe that NEET is anti-poor. Is this the case in other states also?

There is widespread resistance (fuelled by donation-greedy medical colleges promoted by political leaders) to NEET only in Tamil Nadu. It is not possible that other states are not concerned about the prospects of poor students. Students in other states are able to clear the NEET exam even without additional coaching because the educational standards in their state schools are good enough to enable their students to get through NEET.

So the answer to the problem faced exclusively by poor students in Tamil Nadu lies in improvement in the standards of school education. Instead, if we do away with NEET, we will only throw the baby with the bathwater. The court's gratuitous question "Why can't the Centre cancel NEET like other systems implemented by the Congress-DMK regime?" unnecessarily paints the issue in political colour.

Tamil Nadu should stop treating the students as dumb folks who need to be protected from knowledge and start respecting them as eager minds which have a welcome hunger for relevant knowledge.

Artificial Intelligence on steroids

Google recently announced that they have designed a quantum computer that processes in just 200 seconds what the most efficient computer that exists today will take 1,000 years to process. ‘Quantum Supremacy’ has arrived!

It has been speculated for quite sometime now that the Moore’s Law which states that the speed and capability of computers can be expected to double every two years, is becoming outdated because the limits of computational ability are approaching. The advent of quantum computer has obsolesced the Law in an unexpected way!

John McCarthy who coined the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) defined it as the science and engineering of making an intelligent machine. The question therefore arises as to what is intelligence. Intelligence may be classified or taxonomised in two different ways. The macro taxonomy as defined by psychologists Raymond Cattell and John Horn is crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence is accumulation and retention of knowledge. It comes out of experience and memory. Fluid intelligence is the ability to think, connect the dots and come to decisions. Both are important in order to succeed in life. Therefore AI also is supposed to incorporate both.

The micro taxonomy is elucidated by Howard Gardner. He contends that intelligence is of nine different types. These are spatial, kinesthetic, naturalist, quantitative, existential, linguistic, musical, inter-personal and intra-personal. These intelligences are exhibited illustratively by pilots, dancers, botanists, engineers, spiritualists, orators / writers, singers, leaders and psychologists respectively.

It is not possible for a human being to be adept in all nine types of intelligence. However, it is theoretically possible to design artificial entities which will exhibit all of these.

Artificial intelligence of a computer is categorized as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) depending on the variety of tasks the computer can perform. ANI is the limited capacity to perform only one kind of task. AGI involves the ability to perform any task that a human being can do. ASI transcends the limitations of human intelligence and is the ability to do what humans cannot.

AI can work 24 hours a day unlike the human intelligence. AI can execute hazardous and boring jobs without complaining. It can consistently perform activities flawlessly, a far cry from what a human can do. On top of all this, AI does not have a bias of its own. Contrarily, an unbiased human being is perhaps an oxymoron.

The Infosys drama

The whistle has been blown once again in Infosys. It is alleged with recorded evidence that the CEO Salil Parekh and CFO Nilanjan Roy care two hoots for accounting niceties and they have been exhorting the Finance team to play ball. The whistle-blowers claim that the CEO has told the Finance team, "No one in the board understands accounting principles, they are happy as long as the share price is up. Those two Madrasis (Sundaram and Prahlad) and Diva (Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw) make silly points, you just nod and ignore them."

If the CEO has really said what is ascribed to him, he has no right to continue in the company. If the CEO has no respect for the board, either the CEO or the board needs to quit right away. It is easier for the company if one person departs. The term 'Madrasi' has multiple meanings. Originally it referred to a person from Madras Presidency which was a substantial part of southern India. Later on, the word started representing anyone from the Madras state (now called TamilNadu). There was a time when the north Indians would refer to anyone uncomfortable with Hindi as a Madrasi. Now that most people from the south are proficient in Hindi, this epithet has lost its linguistic meaning.

The sense in which Salil Parekh has used the term perhaps is that any person who asks an inconvenient or trivial question is a Madrasi.  Prahlad, a relative of N.R.Narayana Murthy is probably not a Madrasi since he could be from Karnataka. Since the CEO is averse to Mr.Prahlad, he may also be spoiling his relations with NRN which means that Parekh's departure is only a matter of time.

Mr.Seshasayee, a former Chair of the board, must be enjoying the fun now. He was overthrown unjustly or so it appears in retrospect. It is time for the present Chairman, Nandan Nilekani to take tough decisions. He has to explain why the board has apparently been quiet for almost a month since the whistle was blown. The audit committee has belatedly retained Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co. to investigate the matter. A predictable but costly trick to buy time.

The drama taking place in a company whose promoters are justifiably known for better corporate governance is a cruel joke on the shareholders. The company's share has lost 14% of its value in the market since the news became public. Who or what is to be blamed for this? The CEO's urge to 'perform' by hook or crook or the market's expectation of sustained growth or the board's incapacity to assess how the company was faring or the 'Madrasis' ' penchant for questioning?

N.Ram's blitzkrieg

Ram has launched a blitzkrieg to retrieve P.Chidambaram from the ignominy of incarceration. A lengthy leader in The Hindu , an article in the same newspaper questioning the legality of custodial  interrogation and Ram's retweet of Kart Chidambaram's "4 Raids, 25 Summons and Custody has yielded results!" (sic) are the day's loyalty fee to PC.

Let us deal with the main arguments one by one. 1) Why pre-trial imprisonment? Is it not punishment before judgement? There are thousands of pre-trial and under-trial prisoners in India. This has not been held unlawful by the courts. PC brought pre-trial imprisonment upon himself by his execrable conduct in responding to the investigative agencies. The Hindu which did not feel the necessity for condemning arbitrary arrests and torture of innocents during the Emergency is now pleading for freedom of an allegedly corrupt former minister because he happens to be Ram's friend. When Kanimozhi and A.Raja were lodged in Tihar jail pending court hearings in the 2G case, PC found nothing wrong in the law taking its own course. (Of course, The Hindu was not in favour of their arrest also.)

2) "Custodial interrogation should be disallowed because one should not be forced to incriminate oneself." This argument is acceptable in the case of common people against whom 'third-degree methods' are possibly adopted during such interrogations. Investigative agencies dare not apply such methods where a person as well-connected as PC is involved.

3) "So many raids, so many summons and yet what has been found?" This is exactly the problem with the alleged offenders whose loyal contacts cultivated over time in many places brief them on confidential information on raids. Chidambarams are intelligent enough to throw the investigators off the scent and then ask "what have you found?" The perverted smartness of PC leaves the CBI and ED with no choice but to seek extended incarceration and custodial interrogation of the accused.

4) It is disappointing that PC is treated differently from other prisoners. How many prisoners are permitted to avail of home-made food? How many of them are allowed to meet their relatives on a daily basis?