MATHIVANAN Vs. INSPECTOR OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Jug Suraiya, Bachi Karkaria, E.P.Unny and G.Sampath .. if any one of them, or for that matter any satirist or cartoonist had authored this judgement, they would have proposed a momentous amendment to the Constitution of India to incorporate sub-clause (1) in Article 51-A. Article 51-A states that it shall be the duty of every citizen of India-

(2.) "Laugh at what?" is a serious question. This is because we have holy cows grazing all over from Varanasi to Vadipatty.One dare not poke fun at them. There is however no single catalogue of holy cows. It varies from person to person and from region to region. A real cow, even if terribly underfed and emaciated, shall be holy in Yogi's terrain. In West Bengal, Tagore is such an iconic figure that Khushwant Singh learnt the lesson at some cost. Coming to my own Tamil Desh, the all-time iconoclast "Periyar" Shri.E.V.Ramasamy is a super-holy cow. In today's Kerala, Marx and Lenin are beyond the bounds of criticism or satire. Chhatrapati Shivaji and Veer Savarkar enjoy a similar immunity in Maharashtra. But all over India, there is one ultimate holy cow and that is "national security".

(3.) The petitioner herein is an important office-bearer of a not-so-important political party. CPI (ML) is now an over-ground organization which contests elections also. Paper warriors are also entitled to fantasise that they are swadeshi Che Guevaras.