Parliamentary Crisis and Judicial Silver-lining

For a week now the monsoon session of Parliament has been stalled by the principal Opposition party, the BJP, which is demanding in both the Houses that the PM should own up his moral responsibility for ‘Coalgate’ and tender his resignation before it allows the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to function. This appears to be an over-reaction to the CAG report on the coal scam and there is much strength in the argument that by resorting to such tactics the party is, consciously or unwittingly, expressing its no-confidence in parliamentary debates thereby undermining parliamentary democracy itself. Urging her partymen to uncompro-misingly fight such tactics, Congress President Sonia Gandhi openly declared at the CPP meeting on August 28 that the “proper forum for (debate) is an active and involved Parliament, not one that is held to ransom by blackmail which has become the bread and butter of the BJP†.

Is it a case of pot calling the kettle black? As The Indian Express recalls, it was the “Congress, always a sullen Opposition, (that) founded this technique†. In its words,

When the NDA was in power, the Congress refused to engage in Parliament over accusations that then-Defence Minister George Fernandes was involved in a coffin procurement scandal. They made a similar scene over the Tehelka tapes.

However, what is undeniable is that “it is the BJP that has truly perfected the tactic of oppo-sition-by-obstruction, by shunning parlia-mentary debate and making vague calls for ‘accountability’†. To quote the same daily,
In 2010, after the 2G scam broke, the BJP’s insistence on a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the matter rather than the Public Accounts Committee, and the government’s resistance to the idea, effectively ensured that two parliamentary sessions were non-starters. Critical legislation was put on ice, and debate was replaced with shallow point-scoring in television studios. Now, the monsoon session appears set to go the same way, with the BJP and the Congress only hardening their positions.

Nevertheless, while criticising the BJP on this score, one cannot be blind to the enormity of the charges levelled by the CAG exposing ‘Coalgate’. The CAG report of August 17, 2012 pointed out that the government’s move to allocate coal blocks free (without auction) to major industrial houses led to gains for them estimating Rs 1.86 lakh crore (more than the loss incurred by the exchequer in the 2G spectrum scam) based as the figure is on the price of the entire quantity of coal that can be mined from these blocks over their lifetime. In fact the benefits garnered by these private entities could add up to a whopping Rs 3.8 lakh crores.

Faced with continuous and concerted attacks on him from the side of the Opposition in general and the BJP in particular, the PM finally broke his silence in the matter. On August 27 he came out with a statement, which he read out both in Parliament (amid the BJP members’ protests) and outside, saying that as the Minister of coal he took “full responsibility†for his Ministry’s decision on the issue. He explained these decisions at length but simultaneously asserted that the “CAG’s findings are flawed on multiple counts... its observations are clearly disputable†. It is this sharp criticism of the CAG which has invited strong reactions from both the BJP and non-BJP Opposition charging Dr Manmohan Singh with attacking a consti-tutional authority that was impermissible.

As the deadlock in Parliament continues, the non-BJP non-Congress parties—the SP, CPI, CPM, TDP—have decided to hold a dharna in front of the main gate of Parliament House for the smooth functioning of both the Houses so that the members get an opportunity to corner the government and put the PM on the mat in the course of a comprehensive debate on ‘Coalgate’. The BJP, however, is sticking to its position. It says the government is only interested in a debate on the issue—it does not want to take concrete action to ensure that corruption of this scale does not recur. Whatever one’s opinion of the BJP’s methods adopted in disrupting parliamentary proceedings and thus engineering a crisis in Parliament’s functioning, such an observation does carry some weight given the UPA-II dispensation’s studied inaction on the subject of mega-scale corruption.

In the midst of the logjam in Parliament, two judgments—one by the Apex Court and the other by a special court in Ahmedabad—yesterday (August 29) have left a deep impress on our polity. Characterising the November 26, 2008 terror strikes in Mumbai as an attack on India and Indians deserving the rarest of rare punishment, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence awarded to Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab. A two-judge Bench pointed out that the LeT attacker, who was apprehended by the Indian security forces during the outrage on the country’s financial capital, had shown no remorse after his arrest, and in fact regarded himself as a “hero and patriotic Pakistani at war†; having killed his targets without the slightest tinge of conscience, Kasab, the Bench felt, merited only the gallows as “punishment†for his acts with the “alter-native option of life sentence... unquestionably excluded in this case†.

The other judgment came as a major blow to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi about 100 days prior to the State Assembly elections: the special court in Ahmedabad convicted a former Minister of the State Government (Dr Maya Kodnani) in the biggest post-Godhra massacre during the Gujarat carnage more than 10 years ago—some 97 people (all Muslims), among whom 36 happened to be children and 35 women, were killed by rioters at Naroda Patiya on February 28, 2002. Additional Principal Judge Jyotsna Yagnik held 32 persons guilty in the crime; besides BJP MLA Kodnani, the list of those convicted included Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi—they were all accused of murder, criminal conspiracy, rioting, arson, attempt to murder, unlawful assembly, insulting religious sentiments by targeting religious places and fanning communal hatred. The court also convicted three persons of gang rape: this is the second post-Godhra case wherein rape charges have been proved, the first being the Bilkis Bano case.

The significance of this judgment was brought into focus by social activist Teesta Setalvad who had tirelessly stood by the victims’ relatives and helped them in every possible way to secure justice. According to her, “this is the first time (in 10 years) that some judgment has implicated the political class. Truth has won.â€

The BJP leaders have been tongue-tied by this verdict. The Gujarat Government spokesman claimed that Kodnani was not a Minister when the incident took place, and hence the State Government was not involved in whatever happened at that place on that day. But the fact is that even after the incident, wherein Kodnani’s role was undisputed, CM Narendra Modi deemed it fit to make her a Minister; that in itself was sufficient to prove her deep association with the State BJP leadership and Gujarat Government whose alleged complicity in masterminding the carnage is by now widely acknowledged. Given the gruesome nature of the crimes committed—there is this harrowing account of a nine-month pregnant woman, Kausar Bano, having been raped, her stomach slit open, the foetus pulled out and she set on fire—the Special Public Prosecutor has aptly argued for death penalty or life imprisonment for all the 32 convicted, insisting that they “can’t be pardoned for such crimes†.

There is no gainsaying that this judgment has heavily dented Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions. This judicial silver-lining is the most noteworthy positive feature of the national scene today dominated as it is by the ongoing crisis in Parliament that shows no signs of any resolution.

August 30 S.C.