Once the mayhem of rabble rousing against all forms ofmining, couched in the garb of protests only against illegal mining subsides,perhaps some shrill voices will find the will, more than the time to read theGoa Government’s letter to the CEC, telling it exactly where it stands in theperception of Goa’s duly elected dispensation.
Chief MinisterManohar Parrikar, who has obviously supervised and injected the tenor and paceof the contents, has kept the burning issue of the Shah Commission report andthe need to start mining aside and addressed a far more fundamental issue ofconstitutional space. In clear, unequivocal terms, the Goa government has risenabove the immediate to address the permanent and that is, that the mandate tobring Goa out of the morass it has sunk to, due to the maladministration ofmining in the past, is Parrikar’s.
This assumes immense significance, because this is perhapsfor the first time in India, that any entity-political, academic, legal or evenjournalistic has engaged with the judiciary on the same level playing field.This isn’t about contempt, this is about facing reality in a country which hasbuilt itself on the bedrock of democracy. It has taken Goa, a late entrant tothis democracy in 1961, to ask ‘Do we really have democracy as our bedrock?”
The events that followed the incomplete and yet to beaccepted Shah Commission report has reached a crescendo where there is muscleflexing over application of mind. The result of this is that the Supreme Courtthrough the CEC has taken over an executive role of controlling the minesdepartment of Goa. This upsets not just the constitutional equilibrium but thefederal equilibrium too.
The almost 70 pages note to the CEC, which has addressedevery possible issue or charge from mining on dumps, to encroachments beyondlease areas to lease holders not being the actual miners. But this is the sideshow. The real deal is this, the Chief Minister, saying in four simple words,“This is my business.”
The immediate counter to this from the ‘stop all mininglobby’ will be that the state of Goa itself is in the dock for the mining messas pointed out by the Shah Commission and the CEC on its 48 hour whirlwind inNovember. The defendant cannot claim the right to be the redeemer. Butdemocracy is also about governments. Governments are not faceless. Governanceis about policy and decisions arrived at by a government, which has beenelected by its ultimate masters, the people. Therefore the retribution for theills of a past government can be the onus of the next only if it does notattempt to clean the past ills, for its people. The subtext of Parrikar’sargument in its response to CEC is this. That it has taken the onus away from ademocratically elected new government, which was in the midst of puttingsystems in place by closing down mining, and placed it in the row ofrespondents
Either way, this letter, which is suo-moto and differentfrom the government’s collation and reporting of ground level facts as desiredby the CEC, can have the following response. The CEC may choose to keep this onthe backburner and take the view that this isn’t part of the documentation ithas sought from the government.
But it will be difficult for the CEC to completely ignore itsince the charge made against it, in as many words is “interference”. And acharge against the CEC, can by extension be seen as a charge against the apexcourt. But here too, the Goa government has sought to isolate the CEC and reject its role by stating on page 6of its long letter “The state government however, is more than willing tosubmit its acts for scrutiny by any agency the Honourable Court may decide toappoint to designate”. It doesn’t need a legal mind to interpret this as “anyother agency” barring the CEC.
The CEC may therefore view this as a missive of confrontationand reject the territorial argument of Goa, drawing its strength from the apexcourts mandate.
That is why this issue has to be seen in a broader spirit ofthe constitution that has a place for its different pillars. And if there is aconflict, then the ultimate authority, which rides above all, the parliament,must address the issue of shifting goalposts between the pillars of theconstitution, thereby affecting the spirit of the constitution itself.
To start with though, it will be in the interest of justiceif the apex court hears Goa when it files an independent affidavit alongsimilar lines, because even higher than the right of freedom to debate anddisagree, is the right to be heard. And even above this lies the right todecide the fortunes of the people who have placed their trust in a governmentfor whom they have voted. Only if there is a consistent failure, should many ofthe processes now in place may be considered.
Manohar Parrikar has merely asked for an opportunity to takehis exam before being punished for failure.
