The One who Arrests Bears its Expenses
Published on: 22 March 2021, 04:25 am
If it is impossible to do justice, courts should at least try to empathise and ameliorate hardships. An incident that occurred in Justice DM Chandrashekhar's court illustrates this principle, writes JUSTICE YATINDRA SINGH, former Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court.
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IN Soar Rather than Sulk, I wrote about how law and justice are not the same things. One should try to do justice, soar with the law rather than sulk with it. But often, law or circumstances are such that it is not possible. In that case, one should try to empathise and remove hardships. I witnessed this in the court of Justice DM Chandrashekhar, but before I tell you about it, here is his brief biographical sketch.
Justice Chandrashekhar was born on 26 September 1920. He was initially schooled in Bangalore [now Bengaluru], completed his graduation in 1940, and got a law degree in 1942 from Mumbai. He then received a Masters in Economics in 1944 from the Benaras Hindu University, where he stood first.
Initially, he joined government service but resigned in 1946 to practice law. He started in Bengaluru. He was appointed judge of the Mysore [now Karnataka] High Court on 20 September 1963.
When an internal Emergency was proclaimed on 25 June 1975, he was a senior judge of the Karnataka High Court.
OPPOSITION LEADERS ARRESTED
Top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, had gone to Bengaluru for a parliamentary committee meeting. As soon as the Emergency was declared, they were arrested. They filed a Habeas Corpus petition before the Karnataka High Court. The government wanted to avoid the Karnataka High Court for its strong attitude. It adopted a novel procedure to make their petitions infructuous but did not succeed.
The leaders were released and rearrested, and except Vajpayee (he had been operated upon and the doctor refused permission), all were taken to prison in Rohtak, Haryana. Therefore, their Habeas Corpus petition became infructuous. Once again, they filed a Habeas Corpus petition in the Karnataka High Court. This time, a bench presided by Justice Chandrashekhar passed bold orders which were not to the liking of the then government.