‘’NOVEMBER 18TH and before’’
My belated RESPONSE
TO Shri M V Venugopalan
Dear Sri Gangadharan,
I read some ten days ago, the write up by Shri M V Venugopalan titled “September 30th and after”. My immediate reaction was that in choosing to make his post-mortem cum stock taking after waiting ‘for the heat to die down’ he selectively overlooked what exactly I wrote and what he read in the LIC PC earlier.
Some of his comments now available in print, warranted a quick response from me. Then to my good fortune, people came forward spontaneously to expose the fallacies in his write up so quickly and so clearly. I was pleasantly surprised and I am thankful to a new contributor in Sri K Govinda Swamy, who squarely called MVV’s bluff, perhaps better than what I could have done – quoting chapter and verse from what I reported but deliberately distorted by Mr MVV. The simultaneous responses of others left little for me to add, at least immediately.
In order to highlight the importance of Jaipur Case or to eulogize the services of Mr Asthana in the court battles, Mr Venugopalan need not have painted me and my role black if he cared for objectivity which we routinely expect in him. For instance, when he claims a right to question the truth in my version (gospel truth?) (Supposing, if I say that it was Mr.Murty who was lying and not Mr.Asthana, can anyone deny my claim’), I happily concede his right to claim whatever he wants to. One’s rights in such matters are inalienable. He can claim that the Sun rises in the west in his part of the country. I have no right to ‘question’ his claim, after all, though I can come to my own conclusions on the purpose of his exercise.
However, I may just remind Mr MVV that I took serious exception to what Mr A falsely attributed to the Bench, in a critical area. This is exactly what I wrote then referring to Mr Asthana’s report:
“You are at the height of your arrogance and wishful thinking when you dared to go on record and say:
The Court made it clear that the appeals will be heard on the basis of the Jaipur HC judgment and no other Counsel will be heard.
Even if you are the Judge, you cannot make such a statement. If you want to canvas to your members on these lines and collect more funds, please try. Because later on in due course, when Mr Jay Savla and Shri Shree Ram Panchu argue against CA Nos 6995 of 2013 and 9223 of 2013 respectively, (and effectively cover the gaping holes in the line of your arguments if you don’t take any hints from the Bench), you need not refund the funds you now collect.
Also to make my point simple and to put you in a place that you deserve, please check with your Counsel on your reporting (The Court made it clear that the appeals will be heard on the basis of the Jaipur HC judgment and no other Counsel will be heard) and come back and report it publicly again. If you are able to get your claim confirmed by your own Counsel I hereby undertake NOT TO VISIT THE SUPREME COURT AGAIN TILL OUR CASES ARE DECIDED. If you cannot do so, just go to any sacred river in Rajasthan and take a holy dip thrice. You can wash the sin of lying you are indulging in’’.
Now even in the absence of any kind of response from KML to set the record straight, Mr Venugopalan can claim whatever he wants to, on who is telling the truth. And it would have been wise for Mr MVV to appreciate that Mr KML faced the Hobson’s choice of taking the holy dip, due to his own irresponsible claim on what transpired in the Court on 30 Sept. Mr MVV’s protest on the Holy Dip caricature, (long after Mr KML’s eloquent silence to my challenge) was therefore certainly misplaced, to say the least.
Mr MVV asserts:
“Good six months have elapsed after the 7th May SC interim judgment, according to which all the pre -1997 pensioners must have got 20% of the DR arrears. The fact of the matter is none of them received what they ought to have. It is quite obvious by now that this happened as a result of the whimsical methods pursued by our so-called three leaders in its implementation. At least, Mr.Sridharan can have the satisfaction that he managed to secure some measly amount for 1000 and odd pre-1997 pensioners, of course, at a cost to them. In a nutshell, all the three of them, without exception, wasted away the precious six months without the pensioners gaining anything worth the salt”.
Dear Mr MVV, why did you allow such what may be called 'amnesia' overtake your memory this time, when you say that Good six months have elapsed after the 7th May? Can you erase from the records what happened in Chandigarh HC on 20th & 28th July and again on 7th Sept before the Supreme Court? And do you really believe GNS ‘managed to secure some payment to his members’ on his own, without the 7th Sept Order?
Oh, I conceded your right to claim anything you want to. Let me not go back on that. Please claim and be happy.
You made the least expected mistake of confusing on the majority/minority of the Petitioners. Mr SN Chhabra exposed and corrected you on that. You didn’t acknowledge it of course, in your subsequent ‘points to ponder’ note.
Jaipur hungama in general and the larger than life build-up by people like you wish to give to Mr KML, is good only for the purpose of their base being large enough for ‘fund collection’. Please be informed that the Jaipur Petitioners are no better bunch in the eye of Law than the actually bigger number that constituted the Chandigarh Petitioners. Your attempt to exempt Mr GNS from any ‘to do’ role (ably rebutted by Mr Mahadevan already) and your choice to canvas to ‘ignore Chandigarh’ are both based on your hollow logic. Your right to stick to it or if you wish to claim it is not hollow, are however intact, Sir.
A word about my IA. Yes, I still claim it was a valuable gain and I secured it against heavy odds. Incidentally, it had your full support (when I elaborately explained the strategy to you over phone even before filing it) as a necessary measure, in the circumstances in which it was filed. You now took a U turn on that (God knows why).
If my IA heard and decided on 7 Sept did not yield much more benefit than what some 1000 members of GNS Federation received, it was because both KML and GNS had sabotaged it silently. And you are comfortable with it?
I could see a willing initial tilt for the Jaipur judgement on your part & Mr KML’s strategy in general, in your recent ‘approach’ to our on-going legal battles. You have every right to wager on the horse of your choice. But you seemed to have already developed second thoughts, if one goes by what you wrote in your ‘Points to Ponder’. In that note you liberally borrowed from what I reported as ‘what transpired in the court’, including what I interpreted as the Judge’s mind. Or did you check the gospel truth from any other independent source?.
I wish to refer here to the doctrine of ‘accountability’. In the LIC Pensioners world, this sacred doctrine seems to have received a beating. Let me elaborate. In my view, Mr KML & Co are ACCOUNTABLE to all the Jaipur Petitioners, ALL the members of AIRIEF and all those who, together pooled well over Half a Crore of Rupees, while how exactly it was spent remained a Swiss Bank secret. Yet none of that is seen to be honoured. Mr GNS & Co are ACCOUNTABLE to ALL the members of his Federation both pre & post Aug retirees. One doesn’t see it happening. I am accountable to all the Chandigarh Petitioners and the Panchkula team leaders (they ARE so, not the ‘so called’) who trusted me and entrusted their case to me. I claim I have not let them down. You are accountable to NONE and so you can say anything and get away because you have an unquestioned right to claim what you want to claim. Can you disprove my theory on accountability, Mr Venugopalan?
I read some ten days ago, the write up by Shri M V Venugopalan titled “September 30th and after”. My immediate reaction was that in choosing to make his post-mortem cum stock taking after waiting ‘for the heat to die down’ he selectively overlooked what exactly I wrote and what he read in the LIC PC earlier.
Some of his comments now available in print, warranted a quick response from me. Then to my good fortune, people came forward spontaneously to expose the fallacies in his write up so quickly and so clearly. I was pleasantly surprised and I am thankful to a new contributor in Sri K Govinda Swamy, who squarely called MVV’s bluff, perhaps better than what I could have done – quoting chapter and verse from what I reported but deliberately distorted by Mr MVV. The simultaneous responses of others left little for me to add, at least immediately.
In order to highlight the importance of Jaipur Case or to eulogize the services of Mr Asthana in the court battles, Mr Venugopalan need not have painted me and my role black if he cared for objectivity which we routinely expect in him. For instance, when he claims a right to question the truth in my version (gospel truth?) (Supposing, if I say that it was Mr.Murty who was lying and not Mr.Asthana, can anyone deny my claim’), I happily concede his right to claim whatever he wants to. One’s rights in such matters are inalienable. He can claim that the Sun rises in the west in his part of the country. I have no right to ‘question’ his claim, after all, though I can come to my own conclusions on the purpose of his exercise.
However, I may just remind Mr MVV that I took serious exception to what Mr A falsely attributed to the Bench, in a critical area. This is exactly what I wrote then referring to Mr Asthana’s report:
“You are at the height of your arrogance and wishful thinking when you dared to go on record and say:
The Court made it clear that the appeals will be heard on the basis of the Jaipur HC judgment and no other Counsel will be heard.
Even if you are the Judge, you cannot make such a statement. If you want to canvas to your members on these lines and collect more funds, please try. Because later on in due course, when Mr Jay Savla and Shri Shree Ram Panchu argue against CA Nos 6995 of 2013 and 9223 of 2013 respectively, (and effectively cover the gaping holes in the line of your arguments if you don’t take any hints from the Bench), you need not refund the funds you now collect.
Also to make my point simple and to put you in a place that you deserve, please check with your Counsel on your reporting (The Court made it clear that the appeals will be heard on the basis of the Jaipur HC judgment and no other Counsel will be heard) and come back and report it publicly again. If you are able to get your claim confirmed by your own Counsel I hereby undertake NOT TO VISIT THE SUPREME COURT AGAIN TILL OUR CASES ARE DECIDED. If you cannot do so, just go to any sacred river in Rajasthan and take a holy dip thrice. You can wash the sin of lying you are indulging in’’.
Now even in the absence of any kind of response from KML to set the record straight, Mr Venugopalan can claim whatever he wants to, on who is telling the truth. And it would have been wise for Mr MVV to appreciate that Mr KML faced the Hobson’s choice of taking the holy dip, due to his own irresponsible claim on what transpired in the Court on 30 Sept. Mr MVV’s protest on the Holy Dip caricature, (long after Mr KML’s eloquent silence to my challenge) was therefore certainly misplaced, to say the least.
Mr MVV asserts:
“Good six months have elapsed after the 7th May SC interim judgment, according to which all the pre -1997 pensioners must have got 20% of the DR arrears. The fact of the matter is none of them received what they ought to have. It is quite obvious by now that this happened as a result of the whimsical methods pursued by our so-called three leaders in its implementation. At least, Mr.Sridharan can have the satisfaction that he managed to secure some measly amount for 1000 and odd pre-1997 pensioners, of course, at a cost to them. In a nutshell, all the three of them, without exception, wasted away the precious six months without the pensioners gaining anything worth the salt”.
Dear Mr MVV, why did you allow such what may be called 'amnesia' overtake your memory this time, when you say that Good six months have elapsed after the 7th May? Can you erase from the records what happened in Chandigarh HC on 20th & 28th July and again on 7th Sept before the Supreme Court? And do you really believe GNS ‘managed to secure some payment to his members’ on his own, without the 7th Sept Order?
Oh, I conceded your right to claim anything you want to. Let me not go back on that. Please claim and be happy.
You made the least expected mistake of confusing on the majority/minority of the Petitioners. Mr SN Chhabra exposed and corrected you on that. You didn’t acknowledge it of course, in your subsequent ‘points to ponder’ note.
Jaipur hungama in general and the larger than life build-up by people like you wish to give to Mr KML, is good only for the purpose of their base being large enough for ‘fund collection’. Please be informed that the Jaipur Petitioners are no better bunch in the eye of Law than the actually bigger number that constituted the Chandigarh Petitioners. Your attempt to exempt Mr GNS from any ‘to do’ role (ably rebutted by Mr Mahadevan already) and your choice to canvas to ‘ignore Chandigarh’ are both based on your hollow logic. Your right to stick to it or if you wish to claim it is not hollow, are however intact, Sir.
A word about my IA. Yes, I still claim it was a valuable gain and I secured it against heavy odds. Incidentally, it had your full support (when I elaborately explained the strategy to you over phone even before filing it) as a necessary measure, in the circumstances in which it was filed. You now took a U turn on that (God knows why).
If my IA heard and decided on 7 Sept did not yield much more benefit than what some 1000 members of GNS Federation received, it was because both KML and GNS had sabotaged it silently. And you are comfortable with it?
I could see a willing initial tilt for the Jaipur judgement on your part & Mr KML’s strategy in general, in your recent ‘approach’ to our on-going legal battles. You have every right to wager on the horse of your choice. But you seemed to have already developed second thoughts, if one goes by what you wrote in your ‘Points to Ponder’. In that note you liberally borrowed from what I reported as ‘what transpired in the court’, including what I interpreted as the Judge’s mind. Or did you check the gospel truth from any other independent source?.
I wish to refer here to the doctrine of ‘accountability’. In the LIC Pensioners world, this sacred doctrine seems to have received a beating. Let me elaborate. In my view, Mr KML & Co are ACCOUNTABLE to all the Jaipur Petitioners, ALL the members of AIRIEF and all those who, together pooled well over Half a Crore of Rupees, while how exactly it was spent remained a Swiss Bank secret. Yet none of that is seen to be honoured. Mr GNS & Co are ACCOUNTABLE to ALL the members of his Federation both pre & post Aug retirees. One doesn’t see it happening. I am accountable to all the Chandigarh Petitioners and the Panchkula team leaders (they ARE so, not the ‘so called’) who trusted me and entrusted their case to me. I claim I have not let them down. You are accountable to NONE and so you can say anything and get away because you have an unquestioned right to claim what you want to claim. Can you disprove my theory on accountability, Mr Venugopalan?