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The Judge Unseen But Not Unsung!

Aroon Sharma
Aug 2009

It was the Summer of 1969. The Supreme Court had struck down Mrs Indira Gandhi's attempts to abolish privy purses. The Statesman alone ( if memory serves me right ) front paged the sketches of the learned bench. Its contemporaries published the story without a photo support. Maybe, an odd exception or two did have a mug shot of the Supreme Court. I can't recall. It was a lesson to me.

That the photographs of judges were not to published as a norm, was far outside the curriculum of mass communication course, I was enrolled in. Its faculty had flaunted that it had been upgraded from a 9-month diploma to the country's first 1-year campus degree course affiliated to a University. The results came. I had a rank. My conscience call too came -- give the convocation a miss.

Six years later in 1975, a judgment by Jag Mohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court stupefied India. It unseated Mrs Indira Gandhi on petition of a maverick: Raj Narain. Besides, it debarred her from contesting an election for six years. The Intelligence Bureau had no inkling of it. The judge ( he died in March last ) had given a slip to the sleuths. Internal Emergency followed soon after.

I vowed to met him after he had retired. But like many of my vows, this too met its repose in the bin. Since then, many a heart stopping judgments have gone by. The unseen but not unsung upholders of justice had my awe. The latest judge, paramount in my veneration, is Additional Sessions Judge M. L. Tahaliyani, holding court for Ajmal Kasab under a security umbrella at Mumbai.

As far as I could research, M.L. Tahaliyani is a Sindhi from Gujarat. He had his education and studied law, too, at Nagpur University; was appointed a Metropolitan Magistrate at Bandra in 1987; by 1997 promoted first as Assistant Sessions Judge and later Additional Sessions Judge. He first shot into limelight when he presided over the T-Series King Gulshan Kumar's murder.

I made more inquiries. His court at Arthur Road Jail has no public. Only 50 or more newsman sit through the 6-hour plus proceedings. On his right, farther down sits the Special Public Prosecutor, Ujwal Nikam, to whose right is the witness box. On the judge's left, sits the Defence Lawyer Abbas Kazmi, to whose left is an open dock for the three accused -- the way the judge wanted.

Ajmal Kasab sits on extreme left, closest to the judge, on whom the latter keeps an eye. For, unlike the other two accused Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed, Ajmal Kasab has mood swings. He grins widely at Ujwal Nikam, has cockiest laughs at his observations. The Special Public Prosecutor rates Ajmal Kasab as “very clever” an “an actor”; his “partial”admission of guilt “ploy.”

The dock is a bare 5ft x 3 ft, guarded on four corners by armed policemen. The court room is 15ft x 50 ft. The judge's White upholstered seat stands out. His desk has a laptop, a microphone and a step below, sits the court stenographer with a computer. Beyond this are 20 chairs for the battery of lawyers. The accused sit on bench with no backrest. The witness box has a microphone.

The Judge often admonishes Ajmal Kasab. And he acquiesces. He is a polyglot ; often speaks to Ajmal Kasab in Urdu. Proficient M.L. Tahaliyani is, in national and international affairs, keeps abreast of news at night. His schedule is meticulous, he disposes of an issue quickly unmindful of the lament of defence lawyers that he is “very harsh” and that there's no time to “study papers.”

The judge, I am told, takes time off for gardening and carpentry, even prescribing medicines for his staff when minor ailments afflict them. Once, when Ajmal Kasab complained of vomiting and indigestion and wanted to go back to his cell, M.L. Tahaliyani turned terse: “Baith jao, sabko hota hai !”. The short statured, chubby faced, Ajmal Kasab blushed. The court was in splits.

Ajmal Kasab's second confession ( the first was in pre-trial in mid-February, under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R.V. Sawant Waghule ), has only been taken “on record' by M.L.Tahaliyani. In all his judicial wisdom, he remarked that “its evidential value cannot be weighed at this moment” but only at the appropriate time.

Was Ajmal Kasab's Confession II timed for Hillary Clinton's ears ? The conjecture has since swung within me ? But, being in Mumbai, she heard it. Wisened by the 9/11 and 26/11, the US Secretary of State, whose preferential empathy was to lodge in 'The Taj Mahal', minced no words to a Pakistani reporter of 'The Nation': “He ( Ajmal ) was a young man without much purpose in life…

“….He was in a job he did not find satisfying.…and he was susceptible to the blandishment of terrorist organisation. This will make you feel strong and powerful, this will give you a purpose in your life…He brought into that ( logic ) and joined this group…But there's a better way….We have to make sure people get good education….that people do have jobs.”

The American mother's homily on an errant son be read out to his mother in Pakistan. And to mothers with errant sons elsewhere !!

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