Friday, December 02, 2005
Documents NOT EQUAL TO affidavit
From the news articles about the High court case on NIS it has been reported that the court asked both the central and state government for all documents related to the NIS case. It has been reported that the central govt initially did not produce any documents and recently after a temporary stay order was granted, the central government has produced an affidavit. No mention has been made regarding the central government producing any document. Based on that, my assumption, could be wrong, is that the central govt only did an affidavit and did not produce any other documents.
My question is in Indian legal system can one just make an affidavit and not produce the documents. In the US when the court asks, boxes and even truckloads of documents are produced.
Now going back to the NIS highcourt case, is not it the court's job to figure out whether NIS was shifted or not, whether NIS = IISER or not, etc. by going through all the documents, and not by just taking the word of the affidavit produced by the central govt representative. The affidavit is basically the central government's interpretation of the facts in the document and what is being challeneged is that interpretation.
How can the court then base its decision without looking at the documents and on the affidavit only? Granted the court will look at the defendant's documents and the state government documents
which they have provided. But the defendant and the state government do not have access to all (or perhaps any of) the documents of the central government.
In the US all parties (including the government) would be forced to produce all documents including emails and files in their computer. I personally was subpeoned by a court to produce all documents, emails, files, etc. for a particular case which involved my writings on a topic.
Thus the high court should not take the word/interpretation of the central government as given in the affidavit. It should insist on the central government producing all documents, emails, notes, computer files etc., in regards to both NISs and IISERs. Only then it can reach a fair conclusion regarding whether an NIS was shifted or not and whether IISER is a new concept or just an evolution of NIS.
My question is in Indian legal system can one just make an affidavit and not produce the documents. In the US when the court asks, boxes and even truckloads of documents are produced.
Now going back to the NIS highcourt case, is not it the court's job to figure out whether NIS was shifted or not, whether NIS = IISER or not, etc. by going through all the documents, and not by just taking the word of the affidavit produced by the central govt representative. The affidavit is basically the central government's interpretation of the facts in the document and what is being challeneged is that interpretation.
How can the court then base its decision without looking at the documents and on the affidavit only? Granted the court will look at the defendant's documents and the state government documents
which they have provided. But the defendant and the state government do not have access to all (or perhaps any of) the documents of the central government.
In the US all parties (including the government) would be forced to produce all documents including emails and files in their computer. I personally was subpeoned by a court to produce all documents, emails, files, etc. for a particular case which involved my writings on a topic.
Thus the high court should not take the word/interpretation of the central government as given in the affidavit. It should insist on the central government producing all documents, emails, notes, computer files etc., in regards to both NISs and IISERs. Only then it can reach a fair conclusion regarding whether an NIS was shifted or not and whether IISER is a new concept or just an evolution of NIS.
# posted by chitta @ 6:32 AM 
