The Supreme Court’s decision to arrest CS Karnan and barring the media from reporting his statements, makes you wonder whether the Emergency is back(SC sentences Karan to six months in jail for contempt", May 10). In trying to show that it means business, the highest court has trampled upon the freedom, enshrined in the Constitution, of an individual and the media in one stroke.

The intransigence on the part of Karnan no doubt needs some check with some measures like resorting to impeachment or non-allocation of cases, rather than sending a sitting judge of a High Court to prison that too without assigning any reasons.

The action of the SC is in quite contrast to the way it handled the disobedience of BCCI — with kid gloves for too long in implementing the recommendations of the Lodha Committee. A senior office-bearer was even let scot free in spite of his making a false representation to the ICC, which even the SC warned amounted to contempt of court. It is also doubtful whether the SC acted with same alacrity in instances where the judiciary was accused of corruption, bribery and even sexual harassment.

Instead of treating it as an ego or legal issue, if the SC had displayed compassion and tried to hear out his grievances across the table to arrive at mutual understanding, the nation would have been spared of these unpleasant happenings.

V Subramanian

Chennai

Karnan being sentenced a jail term for six months is stunning. Judges sentencing judges is unprecedented in the history of the Indian judiciary. The whole episode reveals that everything is not smooth with the Indian justice system.

KA Solaman

Alappuzha, Kerala

The jail sentence marks the egregious culmination of an uneven fight between seven Supreme Court judges and a single High Court judge. Clearly, there were ego clashes all along. The order to conduct a medical test on Karnan unveiled the move to depict him as unfit to be a judge. Certainly his identity as a dalit and his “less-than-diplomatic and indiscreet” accusation of corruption against 20 judges worked against him.

It is relevant to ask whether the SC has the jurisdiction to send a sitting High Court judge to jail. The court has also gagged the press with scant regard for freedom of expression. If it felt that Justice Karnan overstepped the line, it could have recommended to the Parliament his impeachment and removal. It has now become a fit case for the President to intervene.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

False expectations

With reference to the edit, ‘Hard choices’ (May 10), we have just a tenth of of China's crude steel capacity. Miscalculated capacity addition would leave us in a fix. The present per capita steel consumption in India is 50 kg, going up to 120-150 kg by 2030. Putting in excess production capacities without a matching appetite for steel both domestic and global would result in huge surpluses. Tariff walls will never incentivise cost reduction or productivity.

The crux of steeling India lies else where — R&D. We must produce steel engineered for the future and not be left making run-of-the -mill products to end up with idling plants and dead inventory. The giant steel industry of the US of the 1960s first lost out to the foresight and inventiveness of the Japanese and S Koreans, and later to the singular pursuit of far cheaper and mass steel production by the Chinese.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Inexplicable

Getting back Mallya from abroad is understandable, but what is amazing is the inability of the Karnataka Police to catch the rowdy element Nagaraj of Bengaluru. It is puzzling how he is able to pull on for so long hiding within the country and releasing different stories and getting them published in media! Is the delay in catching him deliberate in order to hide some undesirable truths being revealed?

VS Ganeshan

Bengaluru

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