UnderThe world: Lesser the better

During a cocktail function on-board the French navy warship FS Dupleix,an officer with the Indian Navy while getting himself a drink decided to strike up a conversation with three women. With a casual smile,he chatted up the women as they introduced themselves. When the third,a journalist,introduced herself,the commander’s face went sore. “I have been given very specific orders that I can only speak to journalists when I am sober and right now I am drunk!” said the commander,squirming to navigate an escape route.

Congress of corporators

Samajwadi Party corporator Yakub Memon divided the BMC house on Thursday during a prolonged discussion on the city’s dengue problem. When it was his turn to speak,Memon took a dig at another political party saying,“We are discussing the dengue issue but more dangerous than dengue is the Congress machchar.” When an uproar ensued,Memon persisted.

“The dengue problem has been biting us since the last five years but the Congress has been biting us since last 100 years,” he thundered. When the mayor called the commotion to order and requested Memon to focus on the issue and not the Congress party,he replied,“I did not say Congress party,I only said Congress.”

Conspiracy theory

Legal disputes involving property are usually tedious and technical in nature. But one such litigant recently decided to take matters to a ‘lower’ level. He claimed the existence of an “underground parallel government” (UPG),which was conspiring against him with respect to a dispute regarding a property in Dombivali. He even informed the court that he had been “investigating on such underground criminal activities for 50 years”.

He wanted the UPG to be investigated by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad. Such was the confidence that his petition reads,“this case will be a guideline to feature (future) generations.” The court,while rejecting his petition,expressed a word of gratitude for a lawyer appointed as amicus curiae who tried,in vain,to make sense out of his radical idea.

A new barrier

Language is turning to be a ‘rail block’ at Mantralaya meetings with officials from New Delhi Railway Board and executives from World Bank finding it difficult to comprehend the local language. With the state officials shifting to Marathi in the middle of the meeting,it is alleged many railway projects are facing a new obstacle — the language barrier.

“Even the current Chief Minister has sent instructions to stick to English or retain a translator in such meetings for the benefit of foreign delegates and other state officials. It is still to be implemented,” says an officer.

Official makeover

IPS officers in Maharashtra are known to take great pains to portray the ‘right’ image amongst their peers and outsiders. Besides ‘power dressing’,one way of doing this is to have a swanky office where the officer can hold fort. IPS officers go to great lengths renovating their office spaces. In fact,following a transfer being announced,seldom do IPS officers take charge of a new post until they make major interior modifications to the offices — whether there is any real need to make such changes is irrelevant in such cases. Some officers have become known for their penchant for doing up offices tastefully. One such senior Maharashtra police officer recently started sitting in his new office,almost two months after his new posting was announced.

Reality Bites

Actor Sunny Deol,who immortalised the words “tareekh pe tareekh” as a feisty lawyer fed up with adjournments in court in the 1993 hit Damini,won awards for his performance. However,a city-based lawyer who had a similar outburst in the Bombay High Court recently was awarded a four-month jail sentence after he was held guilty of contempt of court.

The lawyer,as per the court’s record,had disrupted the proceedings of another case because,he claimed,that the judge refused to hear his client’s case allegedly pending for 15 years.

After the judge issued a show cause notice to him,he admitted that he had said,“Are we dogs? Don’t treat us like animals. Are we running water (sic) in our nerves and others blood? Are we going to get justice in this life or not? Only (actor) Salman Khan’s case gets quick disposal.”

The court held that this was “unbecoming” of a lawyer and he had lowered the “authority,majesty and dignity” of the court. Along with the simple imprisonment sentence,the court also restrained the lawyer from practising in any court in the state until he had served his sentence.