Justice above all

For Maharashtra’s Sena-BJP government, this packet — 700 pages of the much-awaited report on the 1992-93 riots — has become a virtual letter bomb.

On election eve, if the Sena-BJP tables the report, they are damned, and if they resist pressure from Muslim organisations, human right groups and opposition parties to make it public, they are damned.

For Justice Srikrishna, 56, timing has been his sole trump card. He cannot force any government to either implement his recommendations or make the report public. His only plea so far has been that if the report was not tabled, the efforts of five yearswould be reduced to "an exercise in futility".

While the debate over tabling of the report will no doubt continue, Bellur Narayanswamy Srikrishna has promised that he will resume work on Monday after a short, four-day break. Back to the high court where he worked from the time of his elevation to the bench in 1990 till 1993 when he was asked to take charge of an independent commission after three other high court judges turned down the offer.

With the responsibility came the controversies — right from the commission’s notification in January 1993, when Justices Hosbet Suresh and S.M. Daud launched a parallel inquiry into the riots; subsequently, when the Sena-BJP Government decided to wind up the commission mid-way before bowing to public pressure and relenting.

Each time the judge was firm and unequivocal. He sent a notice to Justices Suresh and Daud to show cause why a criminal complaint should not be filed against them for running a parallel inquiry. The notice was later withdrawn when the Justicessaid in court that they had no intention of undermining the authority of the Srikrishna Commission. But this was not before Srikrishna had lambasted the parallel inquiry as "officious and meddlesome."

In fact, for a man who is unanimously acclaimed by friends, advocates, contemporaries and erstwhile adversaries in court as "gentle and soft-spoken", Srikrishna has dexterously used words to annihilate many in the witness box. During one of the 504 depositions before the commission, he told a top police official: "Your method of investigation turns my stomach." At another occasion he boldly asked Chief Minister Manohar Joshi: "Have you ever used the word landya to describe Muslims?"

If the Justice blithely treads where most exercise caution it’s because he takes his Bhagwad Gita very seriously: Karmanye vadhikaraste, maphaleshu kadachana (you have a right only to work, not to the fruits thereof).

A Sanskrit scholar — he has read the Vedas and the Upanishads — Srikrishna is known to use the timetaken to commute from his Matunga residence to court to often recite shlokas. He even spent his first holiday from the commission in 1993 to go to Kerala to sit for a Sanskrit exam. And he says his abiding faith in Hinduism has helped him probe, impartially, the cause and effects of one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots the nation has ever experienced. In a rare interview, he explained this apparent irony: "Because I am a passionate believer in my own religion that I accept other religions for what they are."

It is this faith in doing the right thing that has characterised his career, first as a lawyer when he followed his father Narayanaswami — himself a renowned labour lawyer in Bombay — into the Labour and Industrial Courts in the city and later on the bench. His sense of fairness came into play during textile industry’s general strike in 1982. In spite of his being an advisor to the millowners’ association, Srikrishna put his foot down when they wanted him to dismiss a large number of employeesfor striking "illegally".

Of course, like all scrupulous men, he has been extremely touchy about his image. Over the past five years, each time doubts have been raised about the efficacy of his commission, Srikrishna has offered to resign. For instance, in August 1996, Amnesty International published a damning report saying that the commission was a cover-up to evade police accountability over human rights abuse and that Srikrishna "allowed lengthy cross-examination over irrelevant points", which was delaying the report. Srikrishna’s immediate reaction was to offer his resignation. Later, when he was persuaded otherwise, his acerbic wit reasserted itself. "I will not tolerate back-seat driving by self-appointed busy-bodies," he said.

Another time, he offered to resign when the Sena-BJP Government tried to expand the commission’s terms of reference to include the events leading up to the bomb blasts of March ’93. This was widely perceived as a move to dilute the commission’s inquiry into theSena-instigated riots. Later, in 1996, when the Government abruptly decided to wind up the commission putatively to prevent rigorous cross-examination of Sena MP Madhukar Sarpotdar, the Justice refused to submit.

But in every moment of adversity, Srikrishna’s guardian angel seemed to step in. The intervention has been not only on the professional front. On March 12, 1993, he had an appointment with an ACP outside Plaza theatre in Dadar. The officer got delayed and a punctual Srikrishna left in disgust. Fifteen minutes later a bomb went off, one of the serial blasts that rocked Mumbai.

For Justice Srikrishna, who has braved threats, coercion, excruciating spondylitis, this was just another professional hazard. No more. No less.