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In the preface you say that you wouldn't
sue anybody because it'd probably take 30 years to get justice.
Do you feel pessimistic about the judiciary after decades
of being part of it?
I don't think it is a pessimistic view. Justice has to be
speeded up. If not, people will lose faith. If you have filed
a divorce case and it's going to take 20 years, you will start
losing faith in the judiciary. I've never sued anybody because
it'll take 30 years to get anything. That's the reality. I'm
not despondent. I think justice is being dispensed well. It's
the odd case or the odd judge who is bad or the odd judge
who is corrupt. Basically, justice is dispensed well - it's
only dispensed too late. But, justice delayed is justice denied.
You also felt frustrated at not being
able to save a man from the gallows while defending him in
Patna. What is your view on the death penalty today?
I'm not in favour of the death penalty. I feel death penalty
is not the answer to the evils of the society. It's not a
system of retribution, it has to be a reforming system. Today,
if you want to give a death sentence, you've to explain why
you are giving a death sentence because the Supreme Court
has decided that death penalty can be given only in the rarest
of rare cases. So to some extent, the emphasis or the balance
has been changed, but the law hasn't been amended so that
death penalty is abolished. Many countries have done so.
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At the end of the Rajan Pillai death
inquiry, his widow Nina Pillai wrote to you a letter apologising
to you for her conduct during the course of inquiry and said
she wanted to meet you. Did you meet her?
No, I didn't want to meet her. My sympathies were with her
as a woman for what she went through. But, that was it.
You apparently recommended improvement
in the jail conditions in your report on the death?
Yes, but the government didn't accept a single suggestion.
I had suggested that the prisoners who were under trial should
be allowed to get the medical treatment of their choice (outside
the jail) if they can afford to pay. If they were on bail,
they could have availed of any medical facility they wanted.
This is in the prison rules of other countries. I think it
was an important suggestion. Till you are convicted, you are
not a criminal.
You and Vikram Seth signed a front-page
newspaper ad condemning the demolition of Babri Masjid immediately
after. Was there any resistance in the family before you signed
it?
My brother was very much against it. He said 'you are two
members of one family on a list of 20. It would look like
we are the instigators of the whole thing and people will
come after us'. But Vikram and I said that there were times
when you had to show some courage even if you were persecuted.
It's too important a matter. It's the fabric of the Indian
society which was at stake. This is a society which is so
rich because there are so many religions, so many cultures,
that's the beauty of India. I can't tell you how sad and unhappy
I was at that time. Vikram also felt equally strong about
it. If you read his book The Suitable Boy, the way he has
written about a construction, it is as if he knew what was
going to happen.
Now that you have written a book,
people are saying they know where Vikram Seth's talents come
from. Have you written before, like poems, for instance?
I didn't write much poetry, I only wrote judgments. But I
was very fond of poetry and I used to read aloud to Vikram
when he was a child. I loved literature, I loved poetry. I
did my graduation in English Literature. My parents also used
to read aloud to us. We had that habit, sitting down in the
evening with children, reading books discussing things.
There should be an intellectual kind of talk in the home also,
not just love and affection. May be Vikram got his love for
literature and language from me.
You also say that you were against
POTA and didn't see how it was necessary at all. What was
your experience as a member of the 15th Law Commission which
was to give its recommendations on POTA to the government?
I am a human rights person. To me to suggest that there should
a TADA or a POTA, was too much. So I decided I would disassociate
myself from it. I didn't want to be part of it. Then I thought,
if I backed out they would put some very strong points in
it. So better to be there and try to make sure that the Draconian
provisions are not there.
I also insisted we should have at least three seminars before
we do it. The government was anxious that we should give the
report quickly. I talked to Dr Jeevan Reddy (chairperson of
the Commission) and I insisted that we must not release it
that quickly. So there were two to three seminars. I was pushing
Dr Reddy a lot.
Eventually the government brought out the law. Some points
were taken from our
report, some were their own.
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