Thursday 23 February 2012

FISHING - PIRACY - DIPLOMACY


Shooting of 2 Indian fishermen off Kochi coast by Italian marines from the vessel Enrica lexie has been hitting newpaper headlines daily. The Italian marines thought them to be pirates. Piracy in Indian ocean has become common in recent days. Particularly the Somali pirates have created great concern along this busy suez canal route which connects the west to the far east. Now both India and Italy are claiming the jurisdiction of the case. As India has already arrested the 2 marines involved in the shooting, diplomacy has come in.

             Let us first understand law of sea so that we can understand the incident better.

             The sea is governed by the UNCLOS i.e. United Nation Conventions on Law of Sea. The convention defines jurisdictional zones as

1.Internal water- constitues lakes and rivers along the coast
2.Teritorial water- upto 12 nautical miles from the base line i.e. generally sea coast
3.Contiguous zone- upto 24 nautical miles from the base line
4.Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ)- upto 200 nautical miles from base line. A country having a coast has the exclusive rights to explore economically in the EEZ.
5.High Sea- belongs to all.

             The incident took place in Indian territorial water. So India claims the legitimacy of arresting the Italian marines and prosecuting them in Indian court of law. But Italy says that according to Article 97 of UNCLOS the flag bearing state has the legal jurisdiction. In this case it is Italy. But it forgets that Art. 97 has given the provision in case of collision of vessels or any other incident on navigation. Here neither is the case.

             The Italy Govt. is trying hard to extradite their marines from India. Even the Vatican Pope also has tried his hand to influence the Catholic population of Kerala. But public mood is in the contrary. Govt. of India has taken a firm stand which is most welcome. We have history of letting go foreign culprits; be it Warren Anderson of Bhopal gas disaster or Kim Davy of Purulia Arms dropping case.

             At the same time India can't afford to put its long time diplomatic relationship with Italy at stake. Recently only Italy was at the receiving end of Indian decision of buying Rafale aircraft from France overlooking the Euro fighter Typhoon of which Italy is a part. But India has to get over its image of soft state and show more concern for lives of its citizens.

Monday 6 February 2012

IT IS SUPREME COURT ALL THE WAY




I  have been thinking of writing blog for some time now but today I decided to just start. Everyday the front page of any national daily starts with some verdict of the honourable supreme court, be it 2G scam ,vodafone verdict, army chief's age row, The list seems to be endless.

               So why all of a sudden judiciary has become so active and important? 

     India is a parliamentary form of democracy where the functions of 3 pillars i.e. legislature,executive&judiciary are clearly demarcated with non overlapping characteristics i.e. legislature do the policy formulation, executive the policy implementation and judiciary the review. Our constitution framers have designated judiciary as the ultimate interpretor and guardian of constitution. It only steps in to fill the vaccum created by the non performance of legislature and executive  where a situation of 'policy paralysis' emerge at the apex level of governance.

               Let us analyse some verdicts in short

1.the 2G case- SC ruled that all the 122 licenses allocated in 2G auction on the basis of first come first serve during 2008 be cancelled and fresh auction should be done.Fines have been imposed on the companies who were involved in the process. The corporate world reacted vehemently. Some companies have said that they have already invested a huge amount on the basis of license and they may loose finanacially if fresh auction being done. But the verdict reassures that there is still rule of law in this country and if u want to do business then it has to be on the lines of law. One person will definitely be happy with this verdict, Pranab Da. He is struggling to meet the target of 4.6% fiscal deficit of this year, the fresh auction will definitely bulge the govt coffer. thanx SC

2. the vodafone case- Because of the SC ruling in favour of Vodafone the Govt. will be loosing 11200 crores. So is it a thing to go ga ga for SC? The income tax department of india wanted to bring the accusation of vodafone essar in 2005 under the tax net. The finance ministy could have gone for a retrospective amendment to bring that deal under tax purview  but the minisrty tried to fight it out in the court of law. It got ruling in its favour in Bombay high court but the SC gave the verdict completely contrary to Bomaby high court. It definitely sent strong positive signals across the foreign investors that 'rule of law' rules India.Looking at the financial situation of the country, we desparately need heavy foreign investment. So Govt. of india may be loosing in short run but it will definitely pay in long run in the form of more FDIs.
kudos to SC.

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     The independence of judiciary that was envisioned by the founder fathers of constitution has definitely been maintained. Some times from the quarters of the govt, allegations of Judicial activism and judicial overreach emerge where the legislature and executive allege that judiciary crosses its limit and try to interfere in the policy making process. Leaving aside some odd issues, SC is discharging its functions well. Lets hope this institution of SC continue to do its good work and India move in faster path of growth and prosperity.