Justice superannuated

Sir, - Justice, one of the four cardinal virtues, is defined as requital of desert - to do something in a manner worthy of one's abilities - and should not be confused with trying to do justice, i.e., to render unto one what is his/her due. A Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court, especially set up for the purpose, had by a majority verdict, fixed a 50 per cent ceiling in filling the backlog of vacancies for STs and SCs. The Tamil Nadu Assembly went a step further by adopting a Bill to legalise the 69 per cent reservation the State Government had decided upon. Against this background, Parliament approved recently a Bill to nullify the apex court's ruling fixing the ceiling at 50 per cent.

It is incomprehensible how and why the percentage of illiteracy and unemployment still rules high despite 50 years of reservation, which is now extended further. And what is more, there is a widespread clamour for higher reservation. One apparent reason for this situation is explained away by accusing the ``creamy layer'' of the backward classes enjoying the benefits of reservation to the exclusion of the really socially and economically backward.

The path of justice was the path of wisdom, declared Lord Macaulay. But wisdom here seems to lie elsewhere. If every judgment of the country's highest judicial authority can be countermanded by legislative enactments, though even the validity of these laws can again be tested in Court, it entails a colossal waste of time and money and the country could well do without that kind of appellate authority. The saving therefrom can be utilised for the betterment of the poor and the under-privileged and the respective vote banks enlarged. One thing needs, however, to be made clear without equivocation - whether the poor and the backward are determined to stay as such and if the powers that be are intent to keep them at that level for their own advantage.

T. P. Rajagopalan,

Chennai

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