The whistleblower

With a single Facebook swoop, the former judge has exposed the malleability of the last government as much as the frailty of our judiciary

Ex-Justice Markandey Katju, the former Supreme Court judge- turned-chairman of the Press Council, is known to be a loose cannon. He voiced support for Sanjay Dutt when the actor was being imprisoned, proposed an entrance test for journalists, called Salman Rushdie a ‘substandard’ writer, and even dismissed 90 per cent of all Indians as idiots.

This time, however, the cannon was anything but loose. The former judge revealed how the highest echelons of the Judiciary had conspired to let a High Court judge retain his position in 2005 despite being accused by an IB report of corruption. His revelations were not just damning of the three Chief Justices who allowed the tainted judge to continue, they also exposed how ineffective the last political regime was. Consider this: the regional party backing the corrupt judge, rumoured to be the DMK, threatens India’s Prime Minister, as he is about to leave for New York, that his government would fall by the time he’s back if the judge’s term is not extended; and the regime, yielding yet again to the pressure of this troublesome ally, interferes with the Judiciary’s independence. In a single stroke, through his Facebook account and blog post, Katju has exposed not just the malpractices of the former government and three of the country’s top judges, but also how susceptible the Judiciary is.

Katju is a fascinating individual. Many have wondered about his possible motivation for suddenly sharing details of an event that occurred about nine years ago. Could it be that Katju, the prolific blogger and Facebook junkie, was reminded of the episode by a twist of circumstance, as he claims, and thought it could make an excellent FB update? In a later post, Katju explains that his memory was jogged by the request of some ‘Tamilians’ that he write about his experiences of the Madras High Court.

There are two types of people on social networking platforms. There are those who are reserved (especially public figures), their comments always measured and carefully thought-out. And then there are those like Katju. One of his Facebook accounts is a ‘like’ page and not a regular profile account—this lets everyone see and comment on what he shares. His posts here include detailed and often dull passages on his experiences at various high courts and how he refused to visit gymkhanas. They are filled with his tales of travel and opinions on subjects that range from current-day issues to music and books. He quotes Urdu poets, puts out exhaustive reading lists for young people, and sometimes headlines his posts as ‘Addresses to the nation’. And he usually responds to most comments, regardless of how bizarre they may be. He answers those who complain of the length of his updates and the late hour of their publishing, even tree-savers asking him to ensure that petitions make use of both sides of the sheets they are printed on (he had retired, he told the latter). He warns commentators of their tone and impertinence, threatens to ban them, and later asks those he has banned to send a message asking to be unbanned.

With his big news-making allegation, will his online approach change? It does not seem so. In a recent Facebook interaction—related to the corruption charges—an individual asked Katju to share his daily schedule (‘we are eagerly waiting to know how your morning start… wat you do whole the day’). Another joined in, sarcastically listing the probable order of Katju’s morning rituals, (‘…and has tea sometimes with Marie biscuit and sometimes with Rusk’). Katju’s reply: ‘How on earth could you know my daily routine so accurately?’ You can never keep a good man down, can you?

judiciaryJustice Markandey KatjuMadras High Court