AN OPEN LETTER TO JUSTICE CT SELVAM FROM HIS JUNIOR

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY SLIPPING  SENIOR

Dear Brother 

You know that I am the last sycophant.

Yet my heart bleeds to read the posts, comments and caricatures of you on Social media vis-à-vis your handling of the Savukku case.

All these weeks, I have been expounding to all concerned that CTS is one of the few sensible judges in the Madras High Court, and that notwithstanding 2 personal indiscretions attributable only to human weakness, he is a very fair judge.

I also clarified that your open court aggression vis-à-vis Savukku is based on an error of judgment, on an erroneous understanding of facts, built upon layers of misrepresentation and falsehood.

Today (28.2.14), I can no longer state the same, and even if I say so I am scorned and rebuked. Nevertheless I still continue to believe that you have issued the ban believing as true the ex parte pandering of the 2 persons who conned you.

The other side wasn’t as helpful as required, and the fools had instead of assisting you, chosen to question your moral jurisdiction, by an action, which I consider as bordering on nothing short of contempt.

What worries me however is that you failed to sift fact from fiction, backed the wrong horse and exposed yourself to the charge of violation of oath of office, and hearing a matter in which you were seen to be interested.

To defend the same based on my perception of your integrity remains Herculean although I still maintain that you were never personally interested.

Bias, yes, you were, indeed especially after you were prodded into deciding your moral jurisdiction on the silly plea or rather ploy that you were an interested judge because there were some posts against you. By that logic no judge in India can hear a case involving say for example The Indian Express, or The Hindu – Or for that matter TATA or Reliance – cos he wud have driven around or owned a TATA automobile or consumed a Reliance grocery. Can it be pleaded that he has eaten out of Reliance’s hands ?

I know that you chose to stand by a woman’s self-styled honor over a charge of bias, but the deed was a result of entrapment by both sides.

Destiny prodded you into contemplating a CBI probe, which wud have aided you in your attempt at unraveling the truth, but that was not to be, and you stand undefended, betrayed by those who goaded you into this mess, and made you the darling of brickbats.

That single stroke of genius (CBI probe) wud have placed you on par with the highly conservative Justice NV Balasubramanian, whose verdict in the Jayalakshmi case knows no parallel. The consequences of that verdict are too well known to be elaborated.

By drawing the analogy, I am not for a moment comparing the 2 Lakshmi’s in the context of the background of the first, but the result I assure you is NOT going to be very different, and we are destined to see the same unfold before our very own eyes in the not too distant future.

Rewind your thoughts to 1975 bro. I hear your mind voice recollecting some old man telling you that “history repeats itself” even as you hung around Bertram or Jerome D Souza during an intellectual slugfest.

Exactly each decade, one such Lakshmi voluntarily knocks the doors of the Madras High Court, and I regret that you made history, by breaking the golden rule that it repeats itself. In fact you missed it by a whisker.

I know from your actions, that all is not well, may be healthwise or otherwise, but the media is an unsparing mistress, and as the adage goes ‘judges can speak only through their judgments’, but remember, the pen is mightier than the sword.

Also remember Voltaire, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto my death your right to say it”.

Rebels and renegades never flourish in tolerant regimes. You have made Savukku an All-India name only to have URL’s registered in your own name with pointer’s to savukku.

I hate to sermonize, but I will be failing in my duty, if I do not share my thoughts being an insider.

So beware my bada bhai, of the couple that drags down your reputation almost every day, causing heartburn at the bar, erasing your good deeds, and lowering your respect in the mind of the ordinary lawyer who bends and greets you each time you walk the corridors. And guard yourself against the other couple, which exploited your innocence recently.

Be watchful of the media that thrusts a 2G link in the smallest of your actions, for you are not here to protect anyone, but by the will of God and your own destiny.

Correct your website verdict if an opportunity presents, and recuse from the litigation of the 2G umbrella. You are a people’s judge and people should no longer be told that you are a family’s judge.

Looking forward to the day when we can accidentally meet at an alumni and spend a good evening over a cup of masala chai, may be some day after your judicial odyssey ends.

Lovingly Yours

Manikandan Vathan Chettiar,

Advocate

Madras High Court

nb – And to those (including my formal clients) who sincerely believe that CTS is taking instructions from Arivalayam, I have only this to say. Photos may not lie, and the Karunanidhi visit is certainly an expression of gratitude. I know of innumerable wannabe judges and a couple of sitting judges who hung around 196 even as they awaited their warrants of appointment, little knowing that they were prostrating at the wrong door. But remember that Thamarai Selvam is an Honorable man, and will not consciously sully his oath by kowtowing the 2G dada, and that too for as silly a matter as shutting down Savukku.