By

B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

Mr.Yadiyurappa, the CM of Karnataka is a beleagured man. He is cornered by his own partymen, who have unbelievably huge monetary resources at their disposal. This is the price he has to pay for making pact with the Devil. BJP's electoral campaign was marked with flow of money to buy votes. A party and a leader who has adopted such cynical attitude towards voters and democratic process is paying the price for ignoring the strength that comes to politician with mass-base. Mr.Yadiyurappa chose to substitute his popular strength with money strength of the Reddys and is now their hostage.

It would seem that Mr.Yadiyurappa is like a monkey with the paw in the bottle. If he refuses to yield, his government will be brought down by the sixty plus MLAs who are now in the camp of Reddys.

But, people like the Reddy gang are cowards. They are mainly manipulators. They cannot directly take the responsibility of running a State. When someone is responsible for running the State, these Reddys will be busy doing what they are best at doing - augment their business interests at the cost of development in the State. That is a key difference between Mr.Yadiyurappa and the Reddys. While Mr.Yadiyurappa is a politician with some business interests, the Reddys are mainly businessmen with political interest to support their business. In the final analysis, a politician like Mr.Yadiyurappa will do something for the State and the People. But, the Reddys will do nothing for the people. They will throw crumbs at people, be they draught affected or flood affected. Their main focus will be to augment their already bloated coffers.

It is hardly surprising that these people do not want to oust Mr.Yadiyurappa. It serves their best interests when there is a ready and willing scape goat like him, as they grab more interesting and useful ministries like forest, mining, and the like. Yielding to their demands will be tantamount to licensing them to loot the State's resources. Under the circumstances, it is better that the BJP government resigns and lets others form a new government, or seek fresh mandate, than remain hostage of the Businessmen who have no interest either in the welfare of the State or the people.

Karnataka seems to be passing form the hands of Politicians to that of Businessmen, who can exploit the State's resources on a far larger scale than any clique of crooked politicians and bureaucrats can do. If the Reddy gang does not see exit from politics, Karnataka will be on the way to becoming another Jharkhand or Bihar, a State run by the exploitors.

Corruption seems to have reached all time high under the BJP regime. Almost nothing gets done in the State Government offices without spilling money. But, Mr.Yadiyurappa's government is oblivious of such perilious situation.

This State has not seen a Speaker like Mr.Jagadish Shettar. Instead of remaining non-paritsan, he is in the thick of dissident politics of BJP and wants his minions in the ministry so that these people can be permanent thorn on the side of Mr.Yadiyurappa.

Mr.Yadiyurappa's liabilities are not V.P.Baligar, or Shobha Karadnjlaje, but his ambition to hang on to power at any cost, even at the cost of facing daily humiliation for the next three years.

By

B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

Today's newspapers report that after the Supreme Court collegium meeting yesterday, no decision was taken. It simply means that the Supreme Court will not do anything to drop the name of CJ Dhinakaran from the approved list of Five Supreme Court judges. Now, presumably, it is left to the Exeuctive, i.e., the Prime Minister to decide on the issue and recommend to the President to return the name to the Collegium of Judges.

But, will the Executive, i.e., the Prime Minister do this? As it is, the Judiciary is a holy cow, even if it were smeared by dung and all. So far, the Executive has initiated no action against judges, even when the CJI himself has recommended action. Example Justice Soumitra Sen's case of impeachment motion. Hardly anything has happened until this day, except submission of memorandum to the Speaker of Lok Sabha, though the CJI's recommendation is nearly a year old.

Now, if the Prime Minister refrains from acting and recommends to the president not to appoint CJ Dhinakaran, he will become the judge of the Supreme Court. If this were to happen, who can really stop a judge alleged of being corrupt, from discharging his judicial functions. Only the Bar can do so by boycotting the tainted judge's court.

But, it seems that the Bar itself is becoming a divided house in this matter. The day before yesterday, Mr.Shanti Bhushan, in his stridency against Corrupt Judge becoming the judge of Supreme Court uttered that the CJI being a Dalit, was going soft on CJ Dhinakaran's issue as the latter was also a Dalit.

Now, this has caught attention of a section of advocates, especially in Bangalore, with a backward community senior counsel opining that the statement of Mr.Shanti Bhushan amounts to "atrocity" under the Schedule Castes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act! Either the careless words from Mr.Shanti Bhushan, or the opportunism of casteist advocates will ultimately enable CJ Dhinakaran to become a Judge of the Supreme Court.

It would seem that the reputation of the Judiciary in India has touched the nadir. Or is there any more place to go down?