Record delay irks former justices no end

When, the Babri mosque came crashing down on December 6, 1992 (it was a Sunday), the then chief justice of India, MN Venkatachaliah held a hearing at midnight at his house on charges of contempt of court by the UP government for failing to protect the mosque.

Today, he says the long delay in the submission of the inquiry report shows “a complete collapse” of every democratic institution in the country. Venkatachaliah had issued contempt notice to the UP government and the Centre for not protecting the disputed structure and defying the undertaking they had given that the disputed mosque would be protected at any cost.

In an interview to DNA, Justice Venkatachaliah, 80, is unwilling to comment on the over 16 years (a dubious record) taken by former Justice MS Liberhan in completing the inquiry but warns “all such delays are bound to generate chain reactions”.

“When 30 per cent of people have lost faith in the state and all the democratic institutions have collapsed, it’s bound to happen,” he said.

Another former chief justice of India, VN Khare, said, “Commissions of inquiry should be scrapped. They are giving the judicial process a bad name.” Justice Khare’s predecessor, JS Verma, says judicial inquiries are valid only if the reports are submitted within a timeframe. Since Independence, more than a 100 such commissions have set up but very few have served the purpose.

That is exactly the point made by the Justices Thakkar-Natarajan Commission, set up in 1987 to investigate the Fairfax deal. The commission’s joint report said the Commission of Inquiry Act was “ineffective and toothless”.

But the government chose not to amend the act to make it worthwhile or to ensure that public money is not wasted on such exercises.