As a student of journalism, I had got an opportunity to visit the High Court in Mumbai. I had assumed law courts were only frequented by criminals and lawyers. Fortunately, me being neither, I never had the opportunity to go to a court before. But this visit turned out to be quite enriching my general knowledge about our country’s judiciary.

So one fine day, I and my friends landed at the court gate. The security at the entrance was tight. We had to pass through a metal detector and our bags were passed through a screener. Anything suspicious was checked. It reminded us that this was the court premises which has seen numerous shoot-outs and gang wars in the last few decades. As we moved in, we could notice noisy commotion everywhere around. There were hundreds of ordinary people like us talking among themselves and with lawyers. Some were getting their case papers typed. While everyone was busy only we seemed a bit lost, literally and figuratively.

Then we randomly chose a court room, entered and quietly sat down on the audience bench. After all, it was the highest seat of law, and we were strictly instructed to maintain decorum. We were amused to see dozens of advocates moving to and fro, while some just sitting waiting for their turn. Frankly, we were a little disappointed that there was no ‘filmi-type’ courtroom drama going on. The lawyers weren’t arguing on top of their voices. They were speaking courteously, in such low voice we couldn’t hear anything! We also saw heaps of case papers lying on tables. No wonder it takes ages in our country to get a case solved. A helpful lawyer sitting beside us informed us that the judge was giving out dates for the cases of that particular day, to be heard later. Reminds you of “Taarikh pe taarikh”, eh?! I was more amused to see the judge just throwing the case papers back to the lawyers, without even reading or listening to what they had to say.

We got out of that room after 20 minutes and looked for someone who could guide us and give us some useful information. Luckily, we found one Mr. Rashid, a lawyer at the high court, and who was quite jovial for his sober profession! He took the trouble to show us around and explained how the court actually functions. To begin with, is the Affirmation Department where a where a plaintiff has to first file a case, known as a ‘civil suit’. Here, our case papers have to be signed in front of a court officer, to confirm that it is us who are filing the suit. Filing the criminal cases are taken care of by the police.

From there, the case papers are passed to the Lodging or Board Department. The officers there, known as associates of judges, verify the papers and see if anything objectionable is to be deleted from the papers. Once the mistakes are rectified, a ‘Pukka’ number, or the case number is given. Which means our case is now ready to be heard in the court. However, when that might happen depends on our luck. It is up to the judge to hear either one to ten cases in a day. Our lawyer guide told us that a 1972 case just got solved in 2008!

We then saw the Probate Department, which deals with the cases on personal and commercial wills. If we want to get a particular will executed, we have to file an application in the high court, and get a succession certificate. Only then can we get the benefits of the will. In case we want to file a case against the government (God forbid!), they have a different department. Here, we don’t file a suit, but a ‘writ petition’. Then there is the Appellate Court, which handles cases that were dismissed by a single judge at the first attempt, and were submitted for re-appeal in the same court. It is then heard by two judges.

Law can be a very exciting subject to learn, especially if you have a liking for debate. But let’s not forget, it is a very serious aspect of a country’s functioning, too.

Trivia

Talking about high courts, the Allahabad High Court bench in Lucknow which gave the Ayodhya verdict recently, is the only high court in india which has a bench in its capital city, but the main court is in Allahabad.

Another trivia on Ayodhya case – Bhaskar Das the mahant of Nirmohi Akhara, had filed the first petition seeking ownership rights of the Ayodhya land in 1959. Recalling those days, he said it was actually a Muslim clerk named Siddiqui Sahib who had typed the first petition on a Remington typewriter. Ironically even today, many court clerks use the same machine!

Text – Jigna Khajuria
– Factfile –
http://www.flickr.com/kenliffiton/
http://bombayhighcourt.nic.in/
Wiki/Allahabad_High_Court
http://www.telegraphindia.com

I am aware that even for my generation, I could just be an anomaly, a late comer to a revolution that had everything going for it but a name and someone to label it thus. In all fairness, I am not a child of the digital age where we are in a constant state of technological dependence. By most standards, I entered the age of computer awareness quite late.

How strange it is to talk of processes like internet surfing and mobile telephony, which today seem as if they were almost organic, wired into the human DNA along with basic motor skills and instincts.

It was only in 2000, that my family bought its first desktop PC. I was familiar with it, having discovered the joys of 2D gaming like Prince and Dave earlier. For a long time, my immediate association of a computer was with the function of gaming.

Before that I had dabbled in non-interface based computing: typing out commands on MS-DOS as an exercise for what passed for computer education. I really did not understand what the internet was, except for the buzz from Bangalore – which in popular imagination was always the Indian hub of technological innovation, and that it seemed to engage the phone lines quite a bit and subsequently increase the telephone bills.

Courtesy: beam-iStock—nostalgia-tech

With my first PC, I discovered the internet, where I created my first email id and learnt how to browse the web. Each time, I discovered something new, like Need for Speed or the Encarta series; I was elated, proud in the knowledge that I now had experience with something that a lot of others did not.

I was not born into a childhood of play-stations and computer games. Mario Brothers were still the cutting edge of gaming, when I was growing up. Video games with adapters that got too hot too fast, cartridges that glitched often producing double images were our first forays into the world of an interface that was not TV. Did I mention Prince of Persia? These games were temporary obsessions with us back then, having relinquished the computers to adults who needed to do their adult things with it!

Television itself was so basic. I remember how annoyed I was at Doordarshan for telecasting DD-Metro only in the big cities, while the rest of us had to make do with DD-One. I realize today, it’s not much of a story to tell to my younger cousin watching DTH, that I was there when Cartoon Network changed into TNT at 6 PM, because it was only broadcast for 12 hours. Somehow, that knowledge does make a difference to me, a nostalgia that resonates with the older generation when they talk of the black and white movies or the days of writing letters.

I did not grow up with computers, or cable or internet, but I did grow into them. I can recall watching some of the finer serials that Doordarshan brought out like ‘Kshitij yeh Nahin’ and lurking around to catch the only English programming available: Shekar Kapoor’s ‘A Mouthful of Sky’. Today, I realize that but for the nostalgia; there isn’t anything else that makes my generation different. We have learnt to make technology just as indispensable. My peers are no better equipped to deal with the absence of these technologies that we take for granted than the children who were born into them.

Children today have the advantages of computer literacy, access to information and more entertainment avenues than their older generations. Their social interactions, schoolwork, book reading and leisure activities are all heavily mediated through technology. Does that automatically mean that the illusionary childhood construct is lost forever? Today’s children don’t run through barley fields in the sun anymore, because they are too busy texting, tweeting, and growing up.

If social relations have altered in their form, why then do we cling to a wistful idea of what a childhood should be like? Can we be right in gate-keeping technologies or information on the premise that children cannot make the right choices?

Idealizing childhood is in a way a disservice to children since we enforce a nostalgic construct that they are entirely unfamiliar with. When a child is in a culture that is inundated with technology, can it appreciate or even care for this abstract notion of the innocence of yore. To make a nonsensical analogy, it seems like, telling us 10 years ago that we were wrong for not knowing what MS-Windows means!

Text: Deepti Bharthur