People of Tamil Nadu and perhaps the world over are very well aware of Jayalalitha’s proclivity for circumventing and protracting judicial process thereby attempting to pre-empt judicial action. This tendency of her also reflects in the regime presided over by her. Notwithstanding her public pretentions of respect to judiciary, there were ample evidences for her scant regard, bordering on contempt, for judicial process, verdicts and even for judicial presiding officers. Inciting her minions to violently protest against judicial verdicts which in one incident took away the lives of three young girl students of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and intimidating and harassing judges who delivered unfavourable verdicts against her or her regime like disconnecting electricity and drinking water supply to the residence of a High Court Judge and filing narcotic case against the son-in-law of another High Court Judge etc.,
If at all she had had any respect for judicial verdicts, she would not have filed her nominations from four constituencies for the Assembly elections in 2001, again in violation of election rules, when she stood disqualified from contesting in elections following her conviction in TANSI land case by the Madras High Court. Even after her nominations were rejected by the Returning Officers of the four constituencies, she had the audacity of getting sworn-in as Chief Minister only to be unceremoniously removed from the office by the Supreme Court.
Jayalalitha has developed incorrigible immunity to judicial strictures. People had lost count of the number of times courts after courts had pulled up her. She must have made Guinness record in the number of court strictures against her and number of adjournments sought by her in cases against her securing the infamous title ‘Vaaidaa Rani’.
Right from the day of her assuming power this time in May 2011, the decisions and actions taken by Jayalalitha had to face the litmus test of judicial scrutiny and most of them were either stayed or quashed by the courts with severe reprimands. Her decisions to abandon the New Secretariat complex and to convert it into a hospital had been stayed by the Madras High Court and the case is pending in the court now. So too her decisions to convert Anna Centenary Library in Chennai into a hospital, move to acquire back land allotted to Muthamil Peravai etc., were some of the moves stayed by courts.
The most infamous and retrogressive move made by her regime immediately after assuming office was giving up Samacheer Kalvi scheme much against protest by academics, students, parents and the public. The case against the regime for safeguarding Samacheer Kalvi got tossed between the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court by repeated appeals made by this reckless regime engaging private senior counsels of the Supreme Court at exorbitant cost not depending upon their appointed State Advocate General. At last, the Supreme Court quashed the move of the ADMK regime with severe reprimands. But in the meanwhile, even as the case was pending either in the Supreme Court or Madras High Court, the ADMK regime placed orders for printing textbooks as per the old syllabus even though the Samacheer Kalvi textbooks already printed at a cost of Rs.200 crore were ready for distribution. The courts took serious objection to the act of the government and even threatened to file contempt of court proceedings against the School Education Secretary D.Sabitha. This hapless IAS official had to bear the brunt of court strictures thrice due to the adamant attitude of the ADMK regime.
In the series of such patently motivated acts to circumvent and pre-empt judicial process, the Jayalalitha regime last week resorted to two such attempts in which she herself embarked: one, her inaugurating the renovated MGR memorial on December 9, Sunday and the other, the jamboree at YMCA College of Physical Education ground at Nandanam, Chennai in which she distributed appointment orders to newly recruited 20,920 teachers and ‘uniforms, colour pencils, crayons, geometry boxes, atlas, footwear and school bags to 92 lakh students’ teachers on December 13, Thursday.
Secondly, it is a crude comedy that all these things are publicized to be distributed by the Chief Minister more than six months after the schools were reopened after the summer vacation! These uniforms etc., for school students all over the state are given by the government every year without any fanfare for many years now. So there is nothing new in it.
But the blatant act of attempt to pre-empt judicial process is in the distribution of appointment orders to newly recruited teachers, for which full page colour advertisements were issued to all newspapers on December13.
It was an absolutely needless jamboree especially when the state was reeling under unprecedented power cut and total loss of crops in delta district due to the failure of the ADMK regime to get Cauvery waters. It may also be an attempt by Jayalalitha to put up all-are-well posture and divert the attention of people from their hardship. But to appease the ego of her, the 20,920 teachers, men and women, were subjected to untold sufferings, which even the generally docile English daily ‘The Hindu’ cannot but reveal in its report on the function in the issue dated December 14 thus:
“At the function held on the YMCA Grounds in Nandanam, 20,920 teachers received their orders. Candidates from Madurai, Virudhunagar and Dindigul were brought to the venue between 12.30 am and 4 am for the function.
“About 800 of us were brought in buses which reached Chennai around 10.30 pm on Wednesday. After a brief stay at a school in Pallavaram, we came to the venue at 12.30 am [on Thursday],” said a graduate.
“After half an hour, we were asked to vacate the venue and wait outside in pandals as the police wanted to screen every one of us for security check. We stayed outdoors in the cold on some tarpaulin sheets till they let us in,” said another graduate from Usilampatti in Madurai.With women outnumbering men, the candidates had to manage with limited number of toilet facilities in the campus and some mobile toilets at the venue, they said.
Thirty-six candidates were personally given appointment letters by Chief Minister Jayalalitha and the others received the letters from Ministers.
“Had I known that the [school education] department would treat us like this, I would have preferred to obtain the appointment letter from the district education officer himself,” said a candidate from Ramanathapuram.”
But the crux of issue is that on the same day Jayalalitha was making a mega show of handing over appointment orders to the newly recruited teachers, the Madras High Court was seized of the matter and passed an interim order which placed the appointments on tenterhooks. Even the ‘more loyal than the queen’ daily ‘The New Indian Express’ in its issue on Dec14 reported alongside the news of the function another news under the headline ‘ Recruitment subject to result of writ plea’, which is as under:
“The Madras High Court on Thursday said that appointment of BT Assistant Teachers and Secondary Grade Teachers subsequent to the Teachers Eligibility Test held in October this year would be subject to the result of a writ petition pending before it.
The First Bench consisting of Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam passed the interim order on a public interest litigation petition by M. Palanimuthu, an advocate, and headquarters secretary of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing after two weeks.
Mr. Palanimuthu said a supplementary Teachers Eligibility Test was conducted in Tamil Nadu on October 14. A total of 3,73,696 candidates wrote the examination and 8,808 were successful. When releasing the results, the Teachers Recruitment Board failed to publish the community-wise and subject-wise passed candidates. This, the petitioner said, had been done with an “ulterior motive.” The board had hidden the facts to SC, ST, Backward Classes and the physically challenged.
The NCTE had issued a communication of April 1 last year for relaxing 5 per cent to SC/ST and the physically challenged candidates for qualifying eligible marks. In the notification itself, the board had not mentioned about the relaxation of the qualifying marks for eligibility as had been done by some other States.
The petitioner prayed the court to conduct the selection of BT Assistant Teachers and Secondary Grade Teachers according to the NCTE guidelines.” So it is very obvious that the Chief Minister had hastened through with this function with the intention of pre-empting judicial scrutiny of the appointments.
Yet another brazen attempt to scuttle judicial process was the hasty manner in which Jayalalitha, well known for publicity and self-glorification, opened the renovated MGR memorial with the controversial façade of Two Leaves symbol of the ADMK in a hasty and hush-hush manner on December 9.
While publishing the report on Jayalalitha inaugurating MGR memorial, the daily ‘The Hindu’ has informed some facts. The headline of the report itself is ‘”Two Leaves” adorns façade of renovated MGR memorial – No prior announcement of inauguration by Chief Minister Jayalalitha!”
The report further stated:
“The renovated memorial of former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, with a giant-sized “two leaves” symbol of the ADMK adorning the façade, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Jayalalitha on Dec.9.
There was no prior announcement about the inauguration and mediapersons were informed about the “visit” of Chief Minister to the memorial in the afternoon.
Just a few days ago, DMK’s Legal Wing Secretary R.S. Bharathi filed a petition in the Madras High Court, seeking to restrain the State government from erecting “two leaves,” which, Bharathi contended, represented a symbol recognised by the Election Commission.
The case is likely to come up for hearing on Dec.11. About a week ago, Bharathi also wrote to the State government, expressing his objection to the erection of the official symbol of the ADMK.
When the DMK was in power during 1996-2001, it remodelled the Anna mausoleum and the entrance arch carried the design of “Rising Rays”. After the ADMK returned to power in May 2001, the design was removed. The renovation of the memorial was originally announced in the Assembly during the debate on demand for grants for the Information Department in August-September 2011. At that time, the government also stated that the memorial for former Chief Minister Anna would be renovated.
The total allocation for remodelling the façade of the memorial and the wall around it is Rs. 3.40 crore. The memorial, spread over 8.25 acres, is being renovated at a cost of Rs. 4.30 crore.
The structure reflecting the “two leaves” symbol has been erected between giant columns, resembling ancient Greek architecture. On the forefront of the memorial stands a statue of a gold-coloured flying horse, symbolising Pegasus of the Greek mythology.”
Not only the news of DMK Legal Wing Secretary R.S.Bharathi filing a petition in the Madras High Court, seeking to restrain the State government from erecting ‘two leaves’ was widely published in dailies on December 3. On the previous day itself (Dec 2), Thiru R.S.Bharathi had sent letters in the form of petition to the Chief Secretary of the State Government and the Chief Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of India objecting to the erection of two leaves symbol at the memorial. In that letter to the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu Government, it was stated:
The DMK Party is shocked and surprised to learn that huge money is spent for erection of “Two Leaves” the reserved symbol of ruling political party AIADMK at Kamarajar Salai [Marina Beach] Chennai, at the cost of public exchequer under the guise of renovation of MGR samathi located there. This is an important place where thousands of people visit every day to pay their respects not only to late Dr.M.G.R. but to Periraignar Anna where his Samadhi is also located next to it.
More so, thousands of people also come to marina beach every day and thus Kamarajar Salai is an important road attracting general public every day. The DMK party is not against re—modeling the memorial of the former Chief Minister, the Leader of the AIADMK. It is a fact that even during DMK period the said samathi has been renovated with new look. We are only opposed to spending of huge money for propagating the party by way of erecting party’s symbol at the cost of public exchequer.
After the demise of Dr. M.G.Ramachandran, Former Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, a memorial was constructed on the Marina Beach, where his body was buried, on the southern side of Anna Square, by the Government of Tamil Nadu, in the year 1988. There was an Umbrella type construction done originally at the memorial. Later, in the year 1991-1992 it was renovated and restructured, when AIADMK was in power, by putting a welcome-hand facade in the Memorial and the floor was laid with Marbles. Again repair works were done, at the cost of Rs.1.33 crores, when Tsunami attacked the memorial. After AIADMK came to power again in the year 2011, in the policy note of 2011-2012, a decision was taken to renovate MGR Memorial once again and also for Anna Square (Memorial). Based on the said decision, press release was issued by the Government of Tamilnadu, on 29.01.2012 regarding sanction of amount of Rs.8.9O crores with a split up of Rs.1.20 crores for renovation of Anna Memorial, Rs.4.30 crores of MGR memorial and Rs.3.4O crores for remodeling facade of MGR Memorial and for constructing a new wall around the memorial complex.
Accordingly, works are being done at the Memorial for the past 10 months. Suddenly, we came to understand that the facade of the MGR memorial is now being remodeled by putting up AIADMK party’s symbol “Two Leaves”. It is not in dispute that AIADMK party is a recognized party under the provisions of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 having the election symbol of Two leaves. Thus a symbol of political party cannot be constructed at the cost of public exchequer over the Government property. A party in power cannot canvas itself by erecting a permanent structure of a party symbol at the cost of public exchequer over the government property which is in the heart of city. Such erection of permanent structure of its own party symbol at the cost of exchequer is misuse and gross abuse of power besides breach of trust and wastage of public money. It will certainly influence the innocent minds of people as if it is the “Government Symbol” instead of a Political Party Symbol. During Election it will certainly influence the minds of Electors, thus disturbing the level playing field vis-a-vis other political parties including DMK. Such installation of permanent structure of a reserved election symbol of a political party at the cost of public exchequer in public places cannot be countenanced in law besides also amounts to violation of election commission instructions issued from time to time.
The ruling AIADMK party by misusing the Tax payers’ money is installing its party’s symbol of “Two Leaves” in the front of MGR Memorial for its evil ends which shall not be continued and allowed, as it would amount to misuse of public money besides breach of Trust and misappropriation of public funds. The party in power should not popularize its symbol at the cost of exchequer in the minds of public visitors and passers by for obvious reasons and to gain undue advantage out of it. As stated above the Road Kamarajar Salai where memorial is located in an important arterial road and there is no necessity to invest huge public Taxpayers money for political mileage and canvassing.
Once again by way of repetition we state that we are not against remodeling of the memorial of late Dr. M,G.Ramachandran; but we are only against erection of the reserved election symbol of AIADMK Party TWO LEAVES at cost of state exchequer. Hence, I request your good self to kindly direct the authorities to stop construction of AIADMK party symbol (Two Leaves) and oblige.”
So the Chief Minister cannot feign lack of information on the objection raised to the façade of the memorial. But after six days of receiving notice from the High Court, if she dares to quietly unveil the renovated structure without any fanfare most unlikely of her character, that too of the memorial of her proclaimed ‘ political mentor’ MGR, obviously it is an attempt to cause fait accompli and thereby pre-empt further judicial process on the objection raised.
The High Court did not seem to be carried away by the submission of the State Government that the structure did not represent two leaves symbol of the ruling party but it was a “Y” shaped structure with two wings, a honeycomb jaali arrangement at the top portion and ‘Pegasus’, a flying horse in Greek mythology. The Judge of the Madras High Court Justice N.Paul Vasanthakumar, before whom the petition came for hearing on Dec 13, with a smile asked the Advocate General “ the shape of the structure set up at MGR memorial looks only like two leaves!”. When the Advocate General said ‘ Two leaves is different and this is different’, the Judge told him, “Haven’t you studied botany? You say it ( the projections over and under the two leaves) is not stem. Do you say it is a pillar resembling a stem? “ and directed the government to file a detailed counter affidavit within eight weeks. He said decision could be taken only after detailed enquiry and admitting the petition for hearing he ordered seven officials including the Home Secretary to file their counters.
During the course of the hearing Senior Counsel R.Viduthalai, who appeared for the petitioner, reminded the court that the case opposing Mayawati government of Uttar Pradesh setting up her party’s election symbol of elephant at government cost was pending in the Supreme Court. The Mayawati government also during the course of hearing on the petition against her government setting up elephant statues in Lucknow, just like the contention of the ADMK regime, contended that the elephant represented Lord Ganesh in Hindu mythology, which was rejected by the Supreme Court saying the trunk of the elephant representing the god would be curved and pointing upwards.
As the Madras High Court is enquiring into the DMK’s petition challenging the construction of the structure resembling two leaves symbol, the Election Commission has said it has no role to play now. However, the Election Commission while hearing a complaint seeking freezing of the BSP’s symbol as elephant statues had been installed in parks and public places by spending public money, ruled then, “If a party, whether ruling or in the Opposition, by misusing public funds for its own partisan ends, erects or installs statues of its party symbol, even during non-election period, the party cannot absolve itself of the accusation that it has acted in breach of salutary principles underlying the objects of the code of conduct – may be not in letter, but undoubtedly in spirit”.
The ADMK regime has a lot to explain about the alibi ‘invented’ by them to refute the charge that the structure is indeed ‘Two Leaves’ symbol of the ADMK. First, what is the relevance of ‘Pegasus’, a flying horse in Greek mythology to late MGR? Second, if it is indeed a flying horse, how can the spread out wings of the horse are seen in north-south direction when the statue of the horse is also facing north with its tail in the south? All such questions lead to nothing but one answer that everything was done on an after-thought in a hasty manner, after receiving the petition of the DMK Legal wing.
Much more, it was this same Jayalalitha who took objection to a very much prevalent design universally in semi-circular structures of building materials and grilles and removed them from Anna memorial immediately after she assumed office in 2001, claiming it represented the ‘Rising Sun’ election symbol of the DMK. Kalaignar then itself pooh-poohed her contention by publishing photographs of similar designs at many buildings in the city. A matured statesman he is, later he dissuaded his Cabinet colleagues from attempting to restore the design at Anna memorial after the DMK was returned to power in 2011.
With such a mean record of associating everything with the DMK and deleting or destroying it, Jayalalitha’s action of deliberately erecting a giant sized ‘two leaves’ symbol of the ADMK adorning the façade of MGR memorial is indeed the height of arrogance and audacity and the most unusual manner in which she unveiled it will be considered as an attempt to pre-empt legal process, when it had been challenged and the case is pending in the High Court. r
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