Followers

Thursday, November 12, 2020

What is Contempt of Court?

 

Contempt of court: What exactly amounts to it? What is the punishment if guilty? here is what the rule book says - Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.


Remarks, speeches, illustrations and social media comments made by individuals have on several occasions resulted in accusations of being in ‘contempt of court’. These, however, do not always hold and are dismissed by the Attorney General of India, whose prior consent is required for the Supreme Court to initiate criminal contempt action. So what really does the law say about contempt of court? When is one guilty of it?

What is contempt of court?

According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt. Civil contempt means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court. On the other hand, criminal contempt means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which

(i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or

(ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or

(iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.

A contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, or with both, provided that the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of the court.

Source: Indian Express, 11/11/20

Posted by at
Labels:

Social media helps the independent woman find and forge new solidarities

 

Social media tribes can never be substitutes for family or childhood pals. But then, they are not meant to be. They are a different kind of tribe — an additional tribe.


A lot has been said about the screen-addiction of our generation, and how social media is isolating us, “ripping apart” our communities and “tribes”, making us all lonelier. As a feminist, I am inclined to disagree slightly. However true and grave the dangers of social media may be, there is also another side to it.

Loneliness isn’t merely a function of being physically alone, being bodily distanced from people. Loneliness is more often a function of not being able to find people who understand you, people who “speak your language”.

For quite some time now, globalisation and the resulting rush of ideas across the world has meant that we are no longer connected only to our physical tribes. In fact, our generation has seen such great transitions at supersonic speeds that we do not feel connected to our families and communities in the way that the previous generations were.This disconnect is far more pronounced in women than in men—because men are more inclined to follow the traditional line of thought, especially since that school of thought heavily privileges them.

Independent women who have a voice and demand to be heard, who refuse to bow down to the old world order and refuse to fit in with cultural norms of what a woman “ought” to be like — we were even lonelier in our traditional communities, our “tribes”. We have always been “freaks” and “outliers”, never really belonged.

That’s not to say we don’t love or need our families. We still cherish the network of family and community and neighbourhood. But we also need to be understood. And that’s where our traditional communities fall short. Their worldview is so different from ours that we have spent much of our lives in isolation — an emotional isolation.

The isolation of the modern world that is lamented so much has not been brought on by technology alone, but by the churning of ideas, by the distance between the ideas of the present generation and the previous one. A distance that is created by the present generation rebelling against the injustices of the previous ones.

Particularly for individuals who didn’t conform to normative ideas of social acceptance, traditional communities did not provide much support or emotional nourishment.

There is no replacement for the feeling of being heard and understood that one gets in the presence of people who can empathise, and offer advice that enables you to live a life that you want — not necessarily that which society wants.

Through social media, we are able to connect with people who understand us. Yes, social media is also full of predators and fakes — but then, isn’t the real world full of them too?

Social media becomes a hindrance and an isolator only when you begin to use it as a replacement for real-life family and friends, ignoring their physical presence — when you are glued to your device even in the presence of people around you. Social media is not a substitute for physical networks. It is a supplement. At least, that is how it ought to be. So how do we navigate social media in a way that makes us feel less isolated, instead of more? By seeking genuine and meaningful engagements.

Instead of constantly being in battle mode over politics or religion or the newest debate, we need to attempt to genuinely connect with people at a personal level, at the level of ideas and emotions and empathy. Perhaps, some of those online friendships could translate into offline friendships too. There are various support groups cropping up on social media now, for this purpose. To help people find their tribes, who would understand them and help them overcome the perpetual loneliness that is the bane of people whose ideas are vastly different from the physical communities they are a part of.

Social media tribes can never be substitutes for family or childhood pals. But then, they are not meant to be. They are a different kind of tribe — an additional tribe.

In a world that is increasingly becoming a mix of cultures, a mix of identities and a mix of selfhoods, we need a mix of multiple tribes to get through life.

For better or for worse, whether we like it or not, the world has changed. The notion of tribes and communities needs to evolve as well.

Zehra Naqvi 

This article first appeared in the print edition on November 12, 2020 under the title ‘A Digital Sisterhood’. Naqvi is a Delhi-based writer

Source: Indian Express, 12/11/20

Posted by at
Labels:

Legal language in India is filled with jargon

 

Legal language in India is sometimes beyond understanding, often boring. George Orwell may have the solution.


Subhash Vijayran (a lawyer) has recently filed a PIL in Supreme Court (Subhash Vijayran vs Union of India). He wants the legislature and executive to use plain English in drafting laws, the Bar Council to introduce plain English in law curricula and the Supreme Court to only allow concise and precise pleadings. He begins the synopsis to the writ petition in the following way. “The writing of most lawyers is: (1) wordy, (2) unclear, (3) pompous and (4) dull. We use eight words to say what can be said in two. We use arcane phrases to express commonplace ideas.” Reacting to the plea, the Supreme Court has asked the Ministry of Law and Justice and Bar Council to respond. Everyone will empathise with Vijayran. But he avoided mentioning the judiciary, though lawyers do turn judges sometimes.

A landlord was trying to evict a tenant. In this suit, in 2016, the Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled: “Even if assumingly no efficacious evidence nor any evidence of cogent worth may stand adduced qua the defendants raising any obstruction upon the suit land yet the decree of permanent prohibitory injunction dehors any obstructive act done by the defendants during the pendency of the suit before the learned trial Court or during the pendency of the appeal before the first appellate Court also dehors no scribed relief in consonance therewith standings prayed for by the plaintiffs would not estop this court to permit the executing court to carry the mandate of the conclusively recorded decree of permanent prohibitory injunction pronounced qua the plaintiffs, conspicuously when thereupon the mandate of the conclusively recorded decree pronounced qua the suit land would beget consummation besides would obviate its frustration.” Alternatively, “For facilitating its consummation, though the learned executing Court stood enjoined to pronounce an appropriate order, contrarily it by relegating the impact of the aforesaid germane factum probandum comprised in the enforceable executable conclusive decree, has inaptly dismissed the execution petition.” The entire judgment is like this and I can quote paragraph after paragraph on what is nothing but gibberish.

Such an offensive statement might expose me to Contempt of Courts Act of 1971, since anyone who “scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court” is culpable. But I am protected because when the aggrieved landlord appealed before Supreme Court, two judges of the Supreme Court said, “It is not possible to comprehend the contents of the impugned order passed by the High Court.” The Himachal High Court judgment is not an outlier. Here is another judgment from the Supreme Court (Subramanian Swamy vs Union of India). “This batch of writ petitions preferred under Article 32 of the Constitution of India exposits cavil in its quintessential conceptuality and percipient discord between venerated and exalted right of freedom of speech and expression of an individual, exploring manifold and multi-layered, limitless, unbounded and unfettered spectrums, and the controls, restrictions and constrictions, under the assumed power of ‘reasonableness’ ingrained in the statutory provisions relating to criminal law to reviver and uphold one’s reputation.” I didn’t understand what this means. The next sentence, which I did understand, had only 227 words. I wonder what Lord Denning, or any copy editor, would have made of these.When asking the Ministry of Law and Justice and Bar Council to respond, the Chief Justice of India referred to Anthony Burgess’s book (1964) Language Made Plain. There are a host of books on plain English — Martin Cutts, Ernest Gowers, Fern Rook, Joseph Williams, Richard Wydick — apart from to-do kits. My favourite happens to be George Orwell’s 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, which was primarily directed against the Soviet Union. “As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house… A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.” Prima facie, inter alia, ipso facto, ab initio and ad hoc, it seems to me that court judgments also display actus reus and mens rea. Much before Plain English books, George Orwell set out six principles. “(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.” Copy editors routinely use these principles, but not the judiciary.

If you like an indigenous template, the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy produced a manual on plain language drafting in 2017. Why are judgments so verbose? George Orwell was perceptive. “When you are composing in a hurry — when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinised style.” Typically, judges don’t write judgments. They dictate them. No one writes like that, even with a keyboard. This is Isaac Pitman’s legacy. I mean legatum.

Bibek Debroy


This article first appeared in the print edition on November 12, 2020 under the title ‘The plain truth’. The writer is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Views are personal

Source: Indian Express, 12/11/20

Posted by at
Labels:

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Quote of the Day November 10, 2020

 “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

‐ Dolly Parton

“मेरा दृष्टिकोण तो यह है कि आप इंद्रधनुष चाहते हैं तो आपको वर्षा सहन करनी ही होगी।”

‐ डॉली पार्टन

Posted by at
Labels:

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 55, Issue No. 45, 07 Nov, 2020

Posted by at
Labels:

How different are the brains of birds from those of mammals?

 Ravens recognise themselves in a mirror, and these birds are known to even plan for the future. Studies have shown that pigeons can be taught to recognise English words and can learn spellings.

Now, another study (Science, September 2020) shows that birds have a more organised brain than previously thought. The cognitive skills of mammals are related to the cerebral cortex. But birds don’t have this cerebral cortex, they have a region called the pallium, and studies on this region have now revealed new information on its architecture.

Using a special technique called 3D polarised light imaging, the team studied the orientation of individual nerve fibres. They studied the brains of 42 homing pigeons, nine barn owls, a rat, a vervet monkey and one human. They found that the brains of the birds had an organisation similar to that seen in mammalian brains. The fibres were seen to be arranged horizontally and vertically, just like how they are arranged in the neocortex region of the mammal brain. They conducted another study to examine the interconnection of cells in the sensory areas of bird brain and found connections similar to mammal brains.

According to the team of researchers led by Martin Stacho from Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany, there is a possibility that both mammals and birds independently developed similar microcircuits by means of convergent or parallel evolution. The study addresses how mammals and birds perform such similar perceptual and cognitive feats.

Source: The Hindu, 7/11/20

Posted by at
Labels:

Think beyond books

 

Our world is full of opportunities and complex patterns, and only students who are capable of seamlessly tapping into their cognitive and non-cognitive skills can get ahead in the race. But, what are these cognitive and non-cognitive skills?

Cognitive skills are brain-based and enable the child to carry out any task from the simplest to the most complex. They have more to do with the mechanism of how he/she learns, remembers, pays attention, or his/her approach to problem solving, rather than with bookish knowledge.

For example, opening the door when the bell rings involves perception (hearing the bell), decision-making (deciding to open the door or not), language skill (asking who is at the door), motor skills (unlocking the door), and social skill (interpreting the tone and interacting with the person).

Non-cognitive skills include memory, language, interpersonal skills, verbal and non-verbal communication, emotional maturity, persistence, empathy, and others. So, why is the integration of cognitive and non-cognitive skills required?

The two help create a strategic balance in the mind, enabling a person to complete any task effectively and efficiently.

With only one kind of skill set, chances of success reduce. Work environments have become dynamic and involve interaction with people from different disciplines, and tackling various situations.

Also, it is quite difficult to inculcate non-cognitive skills in an individual after a certain age. Apart from that, the integration of cognitive and non-cognitive skills also helps students in their personal lives and professional lives.

Challenges of non-integration

Unemployablity: Many individuals are hired even though they do not possess non-cognitive skills. But this lack makes it difficult for him/her to interact with colleagues in a work environment, as they cannot create connections with others.

Inability to adapt: The lack of non-cognitive skills may also mean that a person is unable to match the expectations of the superiors or teachers. Also since they are not adaptable by nature, their growth tends to stagnate.

Mental health issues: The lack of a balance between the two skill sets may also lead to anxiety and depression as the individuals may find many situations unmanageable and perplexing.

How to integrate

Address the first challenge: The current curriculum is non-dynamic and does not allow participation in activities that help develop both skills. There is an immediate need to redesign it to integrate activities and practices that will help integrate the skill sets.

Evaluation and assessment: With the redesigned curriculum, schools can incorporate assessment practices to evaluate the students’ growth and development, as they grasp the knowledge and power of non-cognitive skills.

Teaching and learning methodologies: Help students develop non-cognitive skills, and provide sufficient training from the beginning, as students can be moulded easily at a young age.

Train the trainers: Teachers need to be educated in order to educate the students. Thus, schools must have sessions for teachers to learn how to teach both cognitive and non-cognitive skills.

The writer is COO, ODM Educational Group

Source: The Hindu, 7/11/20

Posted by at
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)