As the nation combats the coronavirus pandemic, it must conduct its public affairs with an utmost sense of justice and non-partisan evenness. This is the import of the observation of the judges when they said that they were part of the nasty and evil society. We can only ill-afford to miss the message.

Nagpur, April 22: Mincing no words in deprecating the callous and negligent attitude of the authorities in complying with its directions to supply 10,000 Remdesivir vials to Nagpur, the High Court, on Wednesday, blasted the administration ...

“If you do not feel ashamed of yourself, then we feel ashamed of being a part of this nasty and evil society. We cannot do anything for the unfortunate patients of Maharashtra. This is how we are shirking our responsibilities. You are neglecting and ignoring our patients. ...”, a Division Bench consisting of Mr. Justice Sunil Shukre and Mr. Justice S.M. Modak said.

THE no-nonsense rebuke by the honourable High Court judges highlights the current condition of management of the coronavirus challenge in Maharashtra. In the larger context, this angry observation also brings to fore the seriousness with which the nation needs to address the situation.

When the High Court judges lament that they are ashamed of being a part of a nasty and evil society, they offer a sad commentary on the overall state of affairs, and not just point to flaws in a particular issue or case. This is the criticality of the remarks that came during the hearing of a public interest litigation seeking immediate directions to the administration to ensure adequate supplies of appropriate medicines to coronavirus patients. The import of this observation, thus, goes far beyond the confines of a particular case -- and travels deep into the wider zone of national application of similar principles of immediacy and urgency of emergency services when the nation is stuck deep in a frightening pandemic condition. No society -- that is the people and their Government -- can afford to take a casual approach to such an observation that describes the current situation so aptly.

The global judicial arena is full of such stories of the compassion and social commitment displayed by judges at all levels. The civil society has always taken the judges’ observations and directions most seriously because of the core realisation that nobody sitting on the Bench would ever make any loose statement. In this particular case, the judges did not seem angry just because their directions were not followed by the administration, but also because the laxity was hurting the larger society deep down with a sense of despair that even basic medical supplies were not being made available to its patients.

It is the larger society’s misfortune that the people have to hear such remarks from the honourable judges of a High Court.

A story is told famously of how a judge ordered everybody present in the court-room to pay fine for being part of a society in which somebody was forced into stealing a loaf of bread just because he had no other way to earn his meal for the day. And then, the judge himself opened his wallet, took out the money, and placed certain amount on the table as the fine he, too, felt compelled to pay as part of that society.

The import of the story is phenomenal. It suggests that the larger society can never escape the responsibility of even one act of stealing of a loaf of bread by some one. It highlights the simple principle that no one in the society should go to bed hungry. And the judge himself felt that he also could not escape the responsibility of being a part of the society. So he himself also paid the fine.

The observation of the Division Bench of Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court is of similar criticality and depth. When the judges say that they are ashamed of being part of a nasty and evil society, they are offering a very critical observation on the state of affairs in the society. The larger society can only ill-afford to ignore the sentiment expressed by the two judges.

If the larger Indian society and its political community and the ruling class had paid proper heed to various observations from the Bench over the decades and corrected its acts of commission and omission, then India would have reached a very high standard of general life. Unfortunately, as a society, we have often to take such observations only causally or only as narrow representations of the given situation.

Of course, the society has no intentions of insulting the judicial observations, so to say. But another part of the reality is that it has taken such observations seriously only on a few occasions. This one particular observation -- by the Bench consisting of Mr. Justice Sunil Shukre and Mr. Justice S.M. Modak -- however, needs to be taken very seriously. In fact, it should be the core duty of the larger society in general and the administration in particular to abide by each word uttered with such an intense emotion.

As regards a lot of irregularities are being suspected in adequate supplies of appropriate medicines to COVID-19 patients in the past some time. If there is even an iota of truth in these suspicions, then a lot of correction has to be effected on an immediate basis. That is what the honourable judges meant to state. Their disgust can never be ignored. It is the bounden duty of the administration -- anywhere in the country -- to understand the principles of evenness of application of systemic benefits as underlined by the direction of the honourable High Court.

The issue is not restricted to one case; it extends itself to covering the most important principle of complete justice in the face of any situation. As the nation combats the coronavirus pandemic, it must conduct its public affairs with an utmost sense of justice and non--partisan evenness. This is the import of the observation of the judges when they said that they were part of the nasty and evil society. We can only ill-afford to miss the message.