Sunday, September 23, 2007

Arundhati Roy on the Sabharwal affair


She has a hard-hitting article in Outlook about the Sabharwal affair. Her article's so full of sarcasm, scorn, ridicule, and yes, contempt, (check out the picture captions, too!) that it effectively invites 'contempt of court' charges!

Scandals about powerful and well-known people can be, and often are, malicious, motivated and untrue. God knows that judges make mortal enemies—after all, in each case they adjudicate there is a winner and a loser. There's little doubt that Justice Y.K. Sabharwal would have made his fair share of enemies. If I were him, and if I really had nothing to hide, I would actually welcome an investigation. In fact, I would beg the chief justice to set up a commission of inquiry. I would make it a point to go after those who had fabricated evidence against me and made all these outrageous allegations.

What I certainly wouldn't do is to make things worse by writing an ineffective, sappy defence of myself which doesn't address the allegations and doesn't convince anyone (Times of India, September 2, 2007).

The Delhi High Court's intervention -- and its subsequent finding that Mid-Day journalists are guilty of contempt of court -- has received some commentary from V. Venkatesan and T.T. Ram Mohan. Here's a protest letter signed by a group of activists.

1 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Strong article, and much needed. This is clearly a misuse of judicial powers and an attempt at censorship.