Delhi underground

Judicious decision
A senior magistrate at the Patiala House Courts did not mince words when he said the entire judicial system is “rotten”. “There is no delivery of justice by the judiciary. I sit here not to dispense justice,but to enforce the law,” the judge was heard saying. To illustrate his point,the judge recalled the case of “a poor farmer from Andhra Pradesh who was on a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar to protest the rise in seed prices. The man was weak due to starvation when he was brought before me by the police. They had charged him of suicide attempt”. The judge says he may quit the job soon to do some “real social work”.

Still smarting
The furore surrounding the government nod to a month-long parole to Jessica Lal murder accused Manu Sharma still haunts Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. During the annual officers’ meet held last week at the Delhi Secretariat,Dikshit specifically mentioned the case in her address,saying she was surprised at the allegations of “class bias” in granting parole to Sharma. Though the matter seems to have settled down for time being,Delhi Home Secretary G S Patnaik found himself showered with praise during the meet for “handling” the issue with “great tact and poise”.

Rewind to happier times
A top bureaucrat in the Delhi government was amazed to see BJP’s Arun Jaitley— known for his articulate,adversarial style — and Congress MP Ajay Makan,sitting happily on the same dais at a recent event. That the two were so amiable can be attributed to the nature of the event: both Makan and Jaitley are from the same school — St Xaviers on Rajpur Road — and both were recently awarded for excellence. Reason enough to forget party lines,remember happy school days and smile.

Testing,testing
A senior police officer recently pulled a fast one on his officers by making a PCR call as a common man. He complained of a snatching incident to ‘test’ the reaction time of the constables and officers posted with the PCR van. To his surprise,the staff arrived within seven minutes and the suspicious cops also interrogated the officer,posing as a resident of the area,as they had never seen him in the neighbourhood. Later,the senior officer revealed his identity but also left a word of advice: Be more prompt about filing an FIR and less “rough” with the complainant.

Wait and watch
A recent PCR call about a feud between a biker and a car driver highlighted certain interesting aspects about the way Delhi Police,with its slogan ‘with you for you always’,works. The woman officer who received the call first asked the caller about the police station under whose jurisdiction the spot fell. It took around 10 minutes before the jurisdiction of the police station could be established. Then the wait for the PCR van began,which arrived after 20 minutes. A preliminary entry was made and the concerned police officers of the IP Estate were informed. Subsequently,started another round of wait and the police officials arrived on a bike after 35 minutes. Tired of waiting for around an hour,both the parties decided to strike a compromise. In fact,a few people in the crowd suggested that the delay was intentional because the policemen knew the matter would settle down if they took sufficiently long to arrive.

Playing safe
Even as Manoj Kumar Agarwal,commissioner (Land Disposal),DDA,was last week accused by the CBI of having vastly disproportionate assets,the civic authority completely clamped up on the case and distanced itself from Agarwal. Denying that his disproportionate assets were in any way linked to his activities at the DDA — Agarwal has been working with the DDA since 2004 — the authority sent out a message that since he was an IAS officer,he will serve a temporary tenure with the DDA. Sources,however,confirmed that the civic authority’s vigilance team is looking into the case to check if Agarwal’s activities at the DDA,in any way,lent to his amassing of cash.

Law checks lawyer
A lawyer,who had filed a consumer case with a forum,was recently reprimanded by the State Consumer Commission. The lawyer approached the forum after a retail shop sold him a tube of mosquito repellent ‘Odomos,’ which had crossed the date of expiry. While the forum asked the store to pay Rs 1,000 in compensation apart from a reimbursement of Rs 15,the price of the tube,the lawyer was dissatisfied. He then approached the State Consumer Commission,which took strong exception to his plea. The Commission flatly told him that being a lawyer he not only had the privileges but also a duty of not getting involved in frivolous litigation.

Degree of truth
The ongoing controversies surrounding St Stephen’s College became the topic of discussion at a recent meeting of Delhi University teachers. The general consensus was that the issue was irrelevant and that there were other immediate concerns that needed attention. However,there was a lively debate on the nature of Principal Valson Thampu’s PhD degree. DU faculty members speculated on the nature of the doctoral degree on Theology offered by an Agricultural University,that too,in nearly six months with no real evidence of prior research. It was then that someone even came up with a name for Thampu’s degree — a Tatkal Degree.