Justice Kannan's Legal speak

Pompeia was perhaps a terribly wronged woman. In 62 BC she hosted the festival of the Bona Dea ("good goddess"), to which no man was permitted to attend. However a young patrician named Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to gain admittance disguised as a woman, apparently for the purpose of seducing Pompeia. He was caught and prosecuted for sacrilege. Caesar gave no evidence against Clodius at his trial, and he was acquitted. Nevertheless, Caesar divorced Pompeia, saying that "my wife ought not to be even under suspicion." It almost seems judges’ turn now. Judges are under increasing pressure to declare their assets publicly on a lofty allusion to Caesar’s wife having to be beyond suspicion. The CIC verdict directing the Supreme Court judges to declare their assets has found widespread approbation and the attempt of the Supreme Court to reverse the verdict by filing a writ petition before the Delhi High Court has drawn flak from many a quarter. Former Supreme Court jud...

On 14th December 2008, an Iraqi TV journalist, Muntadhar al-Zeidi hurled his shoe at President George Bush at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, saying that “this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq. A few months later on March 12, 2009, he was awarded with a sentence of 3 years imprisonment. On March 20, 2009 a music teacher of Mumbai’s Boss School of Music at Vasai a northern suburb of Mumbai, facing an action for contempt for libelous publication against the judges of Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court further aggravated the contempt by hurling slipper against a judge hearing the case in the Supreme Court. The contempt case which was being heard was immediately disposed with punishment of 3 months’ jail term but the slipper throwing act has become now a fresh subject of contempt and the case is still pending. On 7th April 2009, Jarnail Singh, a Sikh journalist working for Dainik Jagran hurled his shoe at the Home Minister at a press conference, in expre...