Growing old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you have not committed — Anthony Powell
I imagined that only women like to maintain that they are younger than what they actually are. General V.K. Singh has proved me wrong.
Reading the controversy surrounding the General's age, my mind travelled to the days when I was in the ‘Public Department' of the Secretariat, Government of Tamil Nadu.
To be precise, between 1963 and 1965 when the issue of age of the sitting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court became a controversy, the facts of which I was personally aware. A word about the Public Department.
It is the hub of the Secretariat which handles all important work. The head is the Chief Secretary (CS) and he reports directly to the Chief Minister. In those pristine days, there was only one Under-Secretary (US) who reported to the Deputy Secretary (DS), and in turn the DS reported to the CS. In my time, I worked both as US and DS.
Life in the Public Department was never dull, because each day brought something new and unexpected. But we were not prepared for a petition enclosing an invitation for the Shastiabadapoorthi (60 years) ceremony of the younger brother of the Chief Justice, Hon. S. Ramachandra Iyer, to land on our table. To say the least, it was both amusing and serious. At that time, the retirement age of judges of the High Courts was 60. By inference, therefore, the Chief Justice had crossed 60 years and had no business to be on the Bench!
The CS brought this matter to the notice of the Chief Minister. By this time, Mr.Vasanth Pai, a doughty and tenacious lawyer, was determined to get to the bottom of the matter. Pai went to Ramachandra Iyer's birthplace and photographed the original birth register (there were no photocopiers in those days). With this evidence, he concluded that the judge had lied about his age. He then relentlessly sought the judge's removal, undeterred by many obstacles that came his way.
The following, which is an extract of an article written by K.G. Kannabiran of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, sums up the case.
“The question of the true age of S. Ramachandra Iyer surfaced as a major issue after he became Chief Justice of the Court. It was then believed that he had a fair chance of being called to the Supreme Court. The declaration of his age was found to be not true when his younger brother sent out invitations for celebrating the completion of his 60th year. He was known to be a competent judge, but competence and ability are not synonyms for ethical or moral conduct. Nor the presence of ability and competence assure also the presence of ethical conduct in the discharge of duties. It became the unenviable task of the then Chief Justice of India, P. B. Gajendragadkar, to ease him out of the position without much damage to the Institution. Really age has nothing to do with a person functioning as a judge. Nor has it anything to do with the administration of justice. But once an age of entry and exit is fixed misrepresentation of age becomes unethical and continuation on such representation does affect the administration of justice, not because he is past the age but because he misrepresented to extend his tenure.” Hon. Justice Iyer resigned in 1964.
Interestingly, the Madras High Court was again in the limelight in 2001, when the age of Hon. A.S. Anand, who had served on the Bench before moving to the Supreme Court, eventually ending up as the Chief Justice of India, became a controversy. Mr. R. Karuppan, an advocate of the High Court, averred that Hon. A.S. Anand was born on November 1, 1934, and not on November 2, 1936. Regrettably, Mr. Karuppan had no bona fide documents to prove his point. The Registrar of the University of Jammu and Kashmir on September 1, 1951 submitted a matriculation certificate showing, without the slightest ambiguity, that the date of birth of Hon. A.S. Anand was November 1, 1936. Further, on November 2, 2000, the Chairman of the Bar of England and Wales had written in unambiguous language that Inner Temple records showed that the date of birth of Adarsh Sein Anand was November 1, 1936, the date given by A.S. Anand, in a form in his own handwriting and bearing his signature.
The Hon. Bench of the Supreme Court, which heard Mr. Karuppan's petition, had no hesitation dismissing it. It concluded that once the age of Dr. Justice A.S. Anand was determined by the President of India, in exercise of his authority under Article 217 of the Constitution, the decision was final.
Hon. Ramachandra Iyer's case and General V.K. Singh's petition before the Supreme Court belong to different eras. Iyer's case did not attract media attention the way Gen. Singh's has attracted. In an earlier era, there was a serious attempt to protect the credibility of the institution and the rights of the individual involved. Today, every turn and twist of the case is laid threadbare by the media, and one sees a frenzy to outdo one another. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's silence on this issue has proved to be wise. However, one cannot help feeling that General Singh's claim that he is fighting for ‘dignity and honour' would have been better served had he, after filing his petition in the Supreme Court, resigned and awaited the outcome. The nation awaits the court's decision in this case, which concerns not only an individual but also an institution that has served the country well.
Till then ‘valour appears to have been the better part of discretion.'
(The writer is a retired IAS officer and his email ID is: sonabel@eth.net)
