India: legal action planned on Information and Broadcasting Ministry advertisment - Justice Rajinder Sachar

The Statesman, 29 Jan 2015

legal action planned on i&B ad: sachar
omission of ‘secular’, ‘socialist’ criticised
shocked over govt act

I am shocked by the mischievous and deliberate omission of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ from the Indian Constitution’s Preamble used in the customary advertisement. It was a treason to the Constitution...
Justice Rajinder Sachar
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 28 January
The People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) is contemplating legal action against the controversial advertisement issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Republic Day, Justice Rajinder Sachar today said, and rubbished the government's defence that the controversy was ‘uncalled for”.
“I am shocked by the mischievous and deliberate omission of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ from the Indian Constitution’s Preamble used in the customary advertisement,” he said.
“It was a treason to the Constitution...It was an unpardonable negligence...The government should not act naive,” Justice Sachar told a gathering of intellectuals at Jamia Millia Islamia.
He added that it was “deliberate mischief to test the waters”. “The right-wing lobbies in the various ministries are every now and then creating such controversies only to see the people's reaction,” he said, and appealed to political parties as well as rights groups to take the issue seriously. “If we do not stand up now, we will not be able to speak in future”, he said. “Is not Prime Minister Narendra Modi betraying the Constitution he took oath of?” he asked.
The I&B Ministry defended the ad pointing out that the words socialist and secular were not part of the original Preamble. Justice Sachar said the Prime Minister should take some lessons from President Barack Obama's speech at Siri Fort auditorium in which he made a plea for religious tolerance. “Instead of rejoicing at Obama's invitation, Modi should hang his head in shame that a foreign dignitary reminded him of the Constitution he was supposed to follow in letter and spirit,” he said. He added that it was not a general comment. “The reference to Article 25 of the Indian Constitution was directly aimed at the Narendra Modi government,” he said. “Although it was an internal matter of the country, yet Mr Obama's speech must be taken seriously by Mr Modi given the majoritarian nature of his government,” Justice Sachar said.