The Supreme Court has thought it fit to do nothing in relation to the celebrations of fifty years of the country's independence. So also the Supreme Court Bar Association. Consequently there is no introspection as to how and why the apex court stands at a crisis point today when the Chief Justice of India admittedly knows who is the person pressurising the court in the hawala case but will not name him.The individual having dismissed petitions seeking one way or the other the name of the offender known to at least three judges of the court. It is this paradox of legal freedom vs illegal fear that haunts the citizen. It is a second trauma for those alive today after being illegally driven out from their hearth and home in 1947 when legally India was set on freedom through the law called the Indian Independence Act. All our religion is unable to dispel this fear in 1997 against which Tagore, Gandhi, Bose, Vivekananda, Aurobindo and many others fought for the 1947 achievement.In this context it is not surprising that Parliament in its televised celebrations nowhere thought it fit to mention even once the Constitution of India which created it or to reflect on how the judiciary and the executive have shaped the lives of people under this document. The President and the Prime Minister referred to the popular political themes of corruption, children, women and poverty. He did not offer any alternative as to how his own office could be held accountable or made transparent. And of course neither the President nor the Prime Minister thought it fit to even refer to the Supreme Court's silence about the admitted offender in the hawala case that has become a national symbol of the corruption that both talk about.In this judicial and political silence that has become a symbol of national fear, the address of Supreme Court judge Justice M M Punchhi sounds a refreshing note. In his address to the Bar Association of India he spoke of the hope of an India without fear, about the helpless litigant, the lawyer who serves such litigants and a way of making thinking sections of the bar participate in the judiciary.Thinking primarily of the litigant he pointed out the duties of the Bar and the opportunities that such service opens for lawyers. Pointing out the current over commercialisation, monopolisation and non adherence to ethical standards in the legal profession the judge declared that the spirit of service which was the hallmark of the profession has unfortunately be seen receding to a large extent. Calling judicial independence as a privilege of the people he stated that the flow or relief from the courts calls for a lawyer with an objective judgment which can flow only from an ``independent mind.'' For the first time a judge pointed out the assumption that experience gained at the bar fosters independence of mind and the acquisition of necessary skills which go to make a person fit to serve as a judge. It is this independence, the judge pointed out, that enjoins upon a lawyer the duty to dedicate himself to the ideal of public service. Unless lawyers do so they forfeit the claim to be termed as a noble profession in the true sense of the term. The arms that a lawyer wields have to be used as a warrior and not as an assassin, as a peace maker who discourages litigation as an upholder of truth and justice who knowing the law to be X will not lead the court to believe that it is Y.On August 14, 1947 this judge left his home and hearth in Pakistan as an adolescent. He saw many of him family members, killed, maimed and raped before beginning life anew from Ferozepur. He told how his tryst with destiny began in 1947, how freedom did not come through the rule of law but that it needed to be preserved through the rule of law as a service to the helpless. And that this is possible only if the lawyer's lamp of honesty is not dimmed by a mind full of fear. But doesn't that imply a fearless judiciary?
