Justice Kannan's Legal speak

Between life and death, it is the latter that hogs more news. The qualities of even a person unknown are epitomized in a hyperbole more after a person departs than while living. The cause of death itself is of no value except when the process adopted for snuffing out life is so crafty that the perpetrator of the heinous crime leaves no trail. The name of Aarushi, a 15 year old girl, evokes a great deal of sympathy since the prime suspect for her murder is her own father, a dentist and at the same time bewilderment about how there has emerged no tangible clue to nail down by a plausible story of who could be the real culprit. After the CBI has taken over, it has assumed importance for another reason. Like never before, are questions asked whether narco-analysis and brain mapping employed against prime suspects and witnesses legitimate tools of getting at truth in the investigative process. Should a scientific process be immune from critical attack only because it is scientific? Of wha...

Ever since transplantation of human organs from live donors became possible, every living person is a potential property. The most important component of property is its transferability. In a country like India where poverty is prevalent it is not surprising that an individual thinks of trading on his own organs to tide over his financial difficulties. The scope for exploitation of the poor and the reports of commercialization in the trade of human organs were weighty reasons enough for enacting Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994. The Act authorizes donation only from amongst specified classes of relatives and if the donor is a non-relative, the consent of such a donor shall be evaluated by an Authorization Committee that the donation is ‘for affection or attachments towards the recipient or other special reasons’. The Act prohibits receipt of consideration for donation of any human organ. Pernicious, as the effect of commercialization of human organs could be, one cannot doubt t...

World over, bomb blast trials seem to have one thing in common – long gestation between events and trials. The serial bomb blasts at Mumbai took place on 21st April 1993 and the cases in the Special Court saw their denouement through judgments after a protracted trial in May 2007. The RSS office bomb blast took place on 8th August 1993 and the judgment against the accused was pronounced on 21st June 2007. The Coimbatore bomb blasts that shook the city on 13th February 1998 led to large scale arrests and the judgment in the case was delivered on 6th August 2007. Several hundreds lost their lives in Mumbai. A handful of 12 bright youngsters were consumed in Chennai blast. The Coimbatore devastation took a tally of nearly 60 lives. Perhaps, the worst case of catastrophe through terrorists’ plans were unleashed at the World Trade Center in New York and at Washington on September 11, 2001. If you thought trials in foreign regimes invariably got under way with god speed, you may not be corre...

An enigma as old as the world is, what came first, the chicken or the egg? There have been many more unresolved questions, like for instance ,what poet Kannadasan would pose through his lyrics: Kodi assainthathum, katru vandada? Katru vandadum kodi assaindada? (Did the tendril sway to the wind or The wind blew, by the swaying of the tendril?) Nilavu vandadum, malar malarndada? Malar malarndadal nilavu vandada? (Did the flowers bloom after the moon appeared or The moon appeared to behold the flowers bloom?) An immediate conundrum at a time when the courts in Tamil Nadu are going to reopen after a month old holiday is, did we deserve this long rest because of our hard work; or, do we owe the society strenuous work, because we have had a long spell of rest? It all depends on how you have spent your holidays and how you are looking forward to your resumption of work in courts. To many of us, holidays are a welcome relief from the tedium of routine. We would have spruced up our office/chamb...