Unbudgeted benefit

Freedom fighters all

BJP leader Arun Jaitley jokes that 8216;8216;Delhi is a city of freedom fighters. They fight for what is free.8217;8217; Jaitley should know. As president of the Delhi District Cricket Association DDCA, he is deluged by requests for free passes before every major cricket match. The Capital8217;s VIPs and wannabe VIPs believe in the freebee culture and balk at paying for a ticket, even if they can well afford it. Out of the 40,000 odd seats in the newly constructed Kotla stadium, only half are for sale. And only 17,500 of the 20,000 tickets during the recent England-India one-day match at the stadium were sold.

Jaitley receives hundreds of similarly worded letters on behalf of ministers, senior secretaries, judges, commission members, politicians and MPs, demanding not requesting VIP passes with car passes for family members and guests before a match. It turns out that in several cases the bosses are not even aware that their PAs and secretaries are dispatching letters on their behalf. This time Jaitley ordered his office not to entertain requests for passes on the basis of letters. Those who wanted passes had to speak personally to him. The number of requests dropped by 70 per cent.

Headless, but still alive

The National Advisory Council NAC has wasted no time updating its website. The post of chairperson is listed as vacant. Since there is no provision for a deputy chairperson in the NAC, there is no one to officiate after Sonia Gandhi8217;s resignation. Members feel that they can still meet informally and send a copy of their discussions to Sonia. The NAC will remain headless for a while as the Congress is unlikely to appoint anyone in Sonia8217;s place.

The concept of an NAC to monitor the government8217;s implementation of the Common Minimum Programme was the brainchild of Jairam Ramesh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Sitaram Yechuri. It was felt that the council would provide a suitable slot for Sonia, who had declined the prime ministership. The NAC was constituted not by an Act of Parliament or through a presidential notification, but simply by virtue of a Cabinet decision. The chairperson has the status of a cabinet minister. The council, which is located at 2, Motilal Nehru Marg, a short distance from Sonia8217;s residence, is not subject to scrutiny by CAG and draws its funds directly from the PMO. In the haste to set it up in 2004, the Law Ministry appears not to have applied its mind about the legal complications in setting up the body.

Pak wants MEA advice

Pakistan8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is envious of the MEA for successfully house-training correspondents covering the ministry. Briefings by the MEA spokesperson are almost like dictation classes; the scribes take down notes without any irreverent questions. There is a reason for such model behaviour. A correspondent blacklisted by the MEA is struck off the invitation list for foreign trips and banquets and is not called for crucial background briefings.

Recently, the MEA held a five-day workshop for the media on how to cover foreign relations. Two dozen journalists, including some from the foreign media, attended the sessions, which included lectures by retired and serving diplomats as well as talks on terrorism and protocol over five-star lunches and dinners.

In contrast, Pakistan8217;s Foreign Minister Khursheed M Kasuri was roundly lambasted by the Pakistan press during US President George Bush8217;s visit to Lahore. Angry Pakistani correspondents accused the Musharraf government of selling out to the Americans and burying the Kashmir issue. Rattled by the belligerent tone and lectures on how to run Pakistan8217;s foreign policy, the usually calm and suave Kasuri lost his shirt with an American correspondent at the press briefing, who quizzed him as to whether Pakistan was protecting the Al-Qaeda. 8216;8216;You Americans are always pasting us in the media,8217;8217; Kasuri snapped and refused to answer the query.

India8217;s Dreyfus case drags on

The courts have expressed their anguish over the phenomenon of hostile witnesses, which often leads to miscarriage of justice, as in the Jessica Lal and Best Bakery cases. Ironically, in the Samba spy case, it is the other way around. The Supreme Court refused to take into account the testimony of a key witness, who voluntarily confessed that he had earlier given false evidence.

Sarwan Das, a former gunner, confessed before a Mumbai magistrate in October 2001 that he had falsely implicated innocent men in 1978 in the Samba spy case at the behest of senior military intelligence personnel, who were callously trying to better their own service records by claiming to have busted a mythical Pakistani spy ring. The Mumbai magistrate ordered the gunner8217;s confession be delivered before the Supreme Court, as by then the government had appealed to the apex court against the Delhi High Court Division Bench judgment exonerating the men in December 2000. Nevertheless, Das8217;s evidence was not included in the documentation before the Supreme Court. Thanks to the complexities of our legal system, what should have been an open and shut case, drags on nearly three decades later, and the agony of innocent men falsely accused continues.