Karunanidhi

New Delhi, Aug. 4: The Supreme Court today asked M. Karunanidhi and Union minister T.R. Baalu “what type of people are you” and threatened them with arrest warrants because of their “detestable” delay in answering a contempt notice over a bandh.

The court had asked Tamil Nadu’s DMK government not to observe its October 1 bandh in support of the Sethusamudram project last year. On October 29, it issued contempt notices against chief minister Karunanidhi, Baalu and senior state officials after the ADMK alleged that the bandh had been enforced.

“Why haven’t the chief minister and Union (shipping and) transport minister filed their replies to the show-cause notice? You don’t have time to reply? You are above the law? What type of people are you? You will do everything but you will not file a reply?” the court wondered.

To Baalu, the judges said: “Just because you are a central minister, you do not have time to file a reply? You can dictate terms to the Supreme Court? If this is their (Baalu’s and Karunanidhi’s) attitude, let them come and appear in this court…. We will issue warrants of arrest. This is detestable.”

Tamil Nadu counsel V.G. Pragasam said the chief secretary and the director-general of police (DGP) had replied to the notice saying the court’s orders against the bandh had not been violated.

“The chief minister has not filed a separate reply. He is adopting the reply of the chief secretary,” Pragasam said, adding that the reply was filed on July 30.

The chief secretary and the DGP had tendered “unconditional apologies” and urged the court to drop the contempt charges in case it decided its orders had indeed been violated. Pragasam said Karunanidhi could be considered to have tendered a similar apology since he had adopted the chief secretary’s reply.

But the court was not satisfied. “You should have filed an affidavit stating you have adopted the reply of the chief secretary. You have to file an explanation why there was delay in filing the affidavit,” the bench said.

On October 29, the court had asked that the replies be sent within four weeks, that is, by November 26. Today, it noted that even the replies that had been filed were late by months.

It asked all the respondents to explain the delay within four weeks and fixed the next hearing for September 22.

The apex court had departed from practice to convene on a Sunday, September 30, and pass the order against the bandh being held.

The landmark order drew a sharp line between strikes —which affect specific sectors —and “complete” shutdowns, robbing political parties of their usual ploy of flouting the apex court ban on bandhs by passing them off as strikes.

All efforts should be made to ensure that traffic movement in Tamil Nadu was smooth on October 1 and that schools and colleges stayed open, the court had said.

Counsel sacked

Karunanidhi tonight asked the two lawyers appearing for the state government in the case to resign, accusing them of dereliction of duty, a PTI report said from Chennai.

In a statement, the chief minister said the lawyers had not informed him in time about the need to file a reply and added that his government always respected the judiciary, the agency report said.