The manner of dealing with the complaints of ordinary educated citizens by the high court and the apex court puts a serious question mark on the media hype of judicial activism. The clear message of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court in Delhi University's Khalsa College case concerning misappropriation of funds for the construction of the college is to delay the trial of the criminals.

In 1979, an ordinary lecturer of the college, N S Kapur, who was also in its governing body, filed a criminal complaint before a judicial magistrate of Delhi against the then college authorities.

He alleged that the then Principal, G S Randhaa, treasurer Gurbax Singh Bhasin, building committee in-charge Daljeet Singh and building engineer Jaswant Singh had committed criminal breach of trust by misappropriating around Rs 28 lakh out of the Rs 64 lakh given to them for the construction of a new college building in the University campus. Rs 17 lakh had been given as an ad-hoc grant by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the remaining money had been made available by the governing body of the college under the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee.

The new construction was necessitated because of shifting of the college from the crowded area of Dev Nagar to the relatively open University campus in north Delhi.

The complaint was supported by the report of the engineer called in by the subsequent Principal of the college, laboratory test reports on the materials used in the construction, report of the University engineer and surveyor of works Delhi Administration, admission in the court by the Chairman, chartered accountant's report and other documents. At stake was not merely money but the safety of hundreds of boys and girls studying in the college but kept unaware of the dangerous building they were studying in.

All that the Criminal Procedure Code required the metropolitan magistrate to examine was whether a prima facie case existed. Instead the magistrate gave final findings to dismiss the complaint with a suggestion that the complainant can file a civil suit.

The magistrate did this after examining the documents as also the admittedly unsigned vouchers and receipts, the non-existence of a lift after payment of money to a leading lift company and the absence of any dome in the Principal's residence though a dome had been shown to be constructed. Five years after the filing of the complaint and tireless effort which at last brought the Chairman into the witness box, the doughty lecturer ended up with a zero in a battle for a public cause, risking his job and security. He took the battle to the high court.

Publicly funded courts do not allow a public examination of their own administration.

Under such dispensation of unaccountability the matter remained unheard for 10 years despite a letter to the Chief Justice of the high court about the ``unexplained delay'' and request for an expeditious hearing.

At last in 1995, the high court held that the magistrate was patently wrong. But then it concluded that it would be ``too harsh'' to now permit a trial. This was so as two of the accused had died and the other two, G S Randhawa and Gurbaksh Singh Bhasin, are now 70 years old.

The high court ignored the fact of the complainant informing the Chief Justice that the 10-year delay had resulted in the disappearance of his key witness Har Jeet Singh.In appeal before the Supreme Court, Kapur pointed out that what the high court had done had no sanction of law in the Criminal Procedure Code and in any event sent out a wrong signal.

All the documents showing the alarming condition of the building and especially of the columns on which it stood were before the apex court. But judicial activism disappeared even in terms of checking as a follow-up, whether the building had been made safe and the petition was dismissed with not a single reason. Judicial unaccountability and a demolished humble citizen were the remainders of the rule of law in which the UGC also escaped.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.