Hero worship goes a step too far
The government’s penchant for using PM Modi’s picture went a step too far as a picture of him along with the government’s ‘Sabka saath’ slogan were inserted in the footer of all outgoing emails from the Supreme Court, without the latter’s permission, thus significantly blurring the impression of independence of the judiciary that people associate it with.
In a shocking development, it came out on Friday that the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology-run National Informatics Centre (NIC), which provides the email services to the Supreme Court (and all government offices), had furtively changed the system to ensure that all outgoing emails from the apex court had a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government’s “Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas, sabka prayas” (‘Together with all, development of all, trust of all and effort by all’) slogan in the footer, court sources said.
According to one of the sources, the matter first came to light when it was brought to the notice of the Registry of the Supreme Court on Thursday evening that the official emails of the Supreme Court of India for the last couple of days were carrying an image (of the prime minister) as footer which has no connection whatsoever with the functioning of the judiciary.
It is to be noted that the functioning of the executive (that is, the government) and the judiciary are independent of each other, and hence this can be construed as having been done with insidious intent.
A “shocked” and enraged Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana, who is also the top court’s administrative head, asked the NIC on Friday morning to remove the picture and slogan and replace them with a picture of the Supreme Court of India, the source said.
According to the source, the CJI’s directive was complied with within an hour of the directive being issued.
A clarificatory note issued by the Supreme Court said the image being carried as an email footer had “no connection whatsoever with the functioning of the judiciary”.
Carrying the picture of the prime minister would give an impression of the government impinging on the independence of the judiciary and thus, the latter being influenced by the ruling party’s agenda or manifesto, court sources said. The Union government is the biggest litigant before the top court, they said.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had allowed the NIC to display certain messages of public interest on its emails: for example, the ‘Swachh Bharat’ slogan with the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in the background, a slogan urging polio vaccination, and lately, messages relating to social distancing and other COVID-19 protocols.
But importantly, all these were accompanied by a visual of the Supreme Court building in the background.
This time, though, things went too far as not only were PM Modi’s picture and one of his government’s slogans used, and not a public interest message, but the picture of the Supreme Court was also done away with.
The current BJP government’s penchant—and endorsed by Modi—of using the prime minister’s picture has already earned it the ridicule of foreign airport officials. Many have expressed their incredulousness on seeing the picture of the PM on the vaccination certificates issued by the government of India and wondered why that should be there and not of the person vaccinated, as reported by many travellers.
