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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, March 8: Vikas arakhada, yojana, nidesh, aadesh, were just some of the words of the state’s shasakiya bhasa (administrative language) that the division bench of Justice B N Srikrishna and Justice S S Parkar grappled with today while continuing dictation of the judgement in what is popularly being referred to as the Girish Vyas’ case.
The division bench is adjudicating on two petitions filed by Pune journalist Vijay Kumbhar and Nitin Jagtap, a corporator with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), where former chief minister Manohar Joshi has been accused of misusing power to give prime land at Pune reserved for a primary school to his son-in-law, Girish Vyas for his multi storeyed building complex.
“Now tell me, what is the difference between aadeshand nidesh?” he asked as he dictated the details of the crucial letter of October 3, 1996, from the urban development department sent to the Pune municipal commissioner on permission to be given to Vyas Constructions.
He was told by the counsels that the former meant an order’ while the latter meant a direction’, since the UD undersecretary talked of an order’ given to him by the minister of state of UD, Ravindra Mane, to direct’ commissioner Ramanand Jha to accommodate Vyas’ project. Justice Srikrishna remarked, “so while the former is used for somebody junior, the latter is used while addressing it to a senior’.
The bench is scrutinising and dictating its observations on the files that have been placed on record in the case. According to one of the counsels, the detailed translations of the various files regarding the case and the minutes of the meetings are being done to facilitate a possible appeal in the Supreme Court. “The files may not be available for the Supreme Court,” said acounsel for the petitioners. Both the parties, it is believed, are keen on approaching the Supreme Court for an appeal, depending on the judgement.
The dictation that had halted midway on Saturday continued today when a state government employee clarified that it was indeed an error that one of the minutes in the files referred to a meeting of 19 Jan 1996. There was no such meeting on that day. Justice Srikrishna observed that it was on November 19, 1996, when even before the land owner of plot no 110 at Prabhat road, Murudkar could refund the compensation given to him by the PMC, the civic city engineer wrote for withdrawing its appeal in the Bombay High Court, clearing the way for the former to develop his plot.
