RIYADH, 5 April 2004 — India’s Attorney General Soli Sorabjee has said voting rights for non-resident Indians are “under consideration.”
In a lecture delivered at the packed Indian Embassy auditorium here on Saturday night, the attorney general, who is here at the invitation of the Saudi government, focused on the Indian judiciary, which he portrayed as a bulwark against the erosion of fundamental rights in India.
Sorabjee’s distinguished career saw him successfully plead for the Indian Express in the mid-1970s when the Congress-led government under Indira Gandhi sought to muzzle the press during the state of emergency.
In reply to a question on voting rights for NRIs in the upcoming general elections, Sorabjee said he was aware of the Indian community’s aspirations and the move was under consideration.
He also said that while the Indian Constitution recognized the right of minorities to establish institutions of their choice, “it is not an unfettered right unless the minority institution is an unaided one” — in other words, if it can exist without state funding — in an apparent reference to demands for Indian-funded community schools here.
He referred to the case of St. Xavier’s College of Bombay in which the Supreme Court ruled that there should be no interference in the functioning of minority institutions, especially if they are not funded by the state government.
Aided institutions, he said, will have to allocate a certain quota for students from other communities, for which admission will be on the basis of merit.
In his lecture, Sorabjee said the Indian judiciary played a major role in upholding the fundamental rights. Though freedom of the press is not specifically referred to in the Constitution, the judiciary, through creative interpretation of “the right to freedom of expression,” argued in favor of extending that right to the freedom of the press and speech.
Even in the controversial case of Gujarat, where those charged with arson, loot and murder in communal riots were acquitted for lack of evidence, the Supreme Court passed severe strictures against the state government for inaction, he said.
The attorney general said delays in the justice system sometimes led litigants to resort to extrajudicial measures, such as the use of goons in evicting illegal tenants. But he said a new fast-track system meant things are beginning to change. Now actions over bounced checks, for instance, “could come up for hearing within three months as against a much longer waiting period in the past.”
More important was to have in place a system guaranteeing a certain caliber in members of the Indian Parliament. “Now Parliament has all kinds of deputies, including illiterates, liquor barons and criminals, and others who have no idea of the responsibilities their political office entails.”
