Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju described Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister as a tinpot dictator and a paper tiger.
In a lengthy Facebook posting on Wednesday, Katju referred to the arrest of political satirist Inturi Ravi Kiran by the Naidu government for publishing satirical cartoons on his social media page.
Katju said in feudal times the king was supreme, and the people were his subjects and subordinate to him. Hence, since the king was supreme, any criticism of him was a crime.
In a democracy, however, this relationship is reversed. Now the people are supreme, while the state authorities are all servants of the people.
Hence in a democracy the people have a right to criticize the state authorities, including the legislature, the Ministers and the officials, just as a master has a right to criticize his servant. This right has also been guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
“There are various ways the people can criticize the state authorities, and one of the ways is political satire, which often takes the form of cartoons. This is common in all democratic countries.
But of late there is a tendency on the part of some state authorities in India to become intolerant of public criticism, e.g. in the form of cartoons.
Mamata Banerji, C.M. of West Bengal got Prof. Ambika Mahapatra of Jadavpur University arrested for posting a critical cartoon about her on the social media, and now the same has been done by that other tinpot dictator and paper tiger, Chandrababu Naidu, C.M. of Andhra Pradesh. who got cartoonist Inturi Ravi Kiran arrested,” he pointed out.
Now I also want to warn the AP police or other police which executes such unconstitutional orders.
In the Nuremburg trials held in Germany after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Nazi war criminals took the defence that they were only carrying out orders of their political master Hitler. However, this defence of 'orders are orders ' was rejected, as the International Tribunal held that illegal orders must not be obeyed, and most of the accused were hanged.
“So the police must not blindly obey orders of the Ministers or their superiors if the order is illegal, otherwise they will later be held accountable and given harsh punishment,” Katju said.
