Death of a Nathu

Nathu died yes­ter­day.

He was found on a street in the premis­es of the Faisal­abad dis­trict courts. His clothes were in shreds and shoes torn. A scroll of paper was stuck under his armpit and flies were buzzing all around him. See­ing his dead body remind­ed me of a day, four years ago, when he almost faint­ed in front of my cham­ber and I rushed to bring him water. He told me that he was deprived of his shop by local author­i­ties almost six years ago and even though the Lahore High Court had said that he be paid in cash or in prop­er­ty as com­pen­sa­tion, he had received noth­ing.

He said he had used up every sin­gle pen­ny at his dis­pos­al — and went to the extent of not pay­ing his kids’ school fees — to meet the expens­es of lawyers, clerks and low­er judi­cia­ry (read­ers, stenog­ra­phers) for con­test­ing his case. But he was no clos­er to get­ting his due. I asked him why he hadn’t filed a fresh appeal for the imple­men­ta­tion of the orders of the Lahore High Court.

He liked my pro­pos­al and did as I told him. Over the next few months, I didn’t see or hear from him. One day, with a glow on his face and marks of a tired but vic­to­ri­ous ath­lete, Nathu said a loud sla­malekum to me and broke the hap­py news that the Lahore High Court had tak­en notice of the non-coop­er­a­tion/non-com­pli­ance of the author­i­ties con­cerned and ordered for quick action. The time lim­it, Nathu added, was four months. He even offered me a cup of tea from his own pock­et, such was his ecsta­sy.

Nathu was incor­ri­gi­bly opti­mistic but the time lim­it was end­ing and noth­ing was hap­pen­ing. One could tell his patience was wan­ing but Nathu was Nathu. Unlike most Pak­ista­nis, even after hav­ing been duped by the local admin­is­tra­tion and wit­ness­ing the treat­ment met­ed out to him by dif­fer­ent lev­els of low­er judi­cial staff, he was still wait­ing for a chhak­ka on the very last ball.

The signs of anx­i­ety appeared on his face again imme­di­ate­ly after the sacred four months were over. “How can this hap­pen? Why doesn’t the city naz­im take any action? Why don’t the offi­cials con­cerned give any con­sid­er­a­tion to the injunc­tions of the supe­ri­or judi­cia­ry? What should I do now?” He let loose a bar­rage of ques­tions which were sim­ple to ask but dif­fi­cult to answer. Signs of fatigue and exhaus­tion were quite promi­nent on his face. How should I tell you what he was look­ing like?

Have you ever seen a woman who under­goes the unbear­able pangs of child­birth but is deprived of catch­ing even a glimpse of her baby? Have you ever seen a gar­den­er who waters, cuts, trims and prunes a plant and when one day, after many years, the tree bears fruit, the gar­den­er is deprived of the right to enjoy them? Have you ever seen a man with a bun­dle of dog-eared papers on which is the ver­dict of the supreme judi­cia­ry on his behalf, but even after months of wait­ing, jus­tice evades him?

Your reac­tion will def­i­nite­ly be that this is sheer injus­tice and below all norms of com­mon sense and equi­ty. But this is a com­mon phe­nom­e­non in any court in Pak­istan. As a stu­dent of law, I bear wit­ness to hun­dreds of dis­tressed peo­ple who car­ry files and files of papers with them, not know­ing where to go and whose door to knock on for the imple­men­ta­tion of ver­dicts in their favour. If you are a peti­tion­er, you have no chance of jus­tice if the par­ty against you has any link with the gov­ern­ment, be it fed­er­al, provin­cial or local. In Pak­istan, the deci­sions passed in favour of the poor remain unim­ple­ment­ed and the deci­sions tak­en against the rich remain unim­ple­ment­ed. It is com­mon to see the less-priv­i­leged cry­ing for the exe­cu­tion of deci­sions made decades ago in their favour; and after they are gone their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren con­tin­ue to do the same, but noth­ing ever hap­pens.

What is the val­ue and effec­tive­ness of a ver­dict passed by the judi­cia­ry if it is not imple­ment­ed? I would like to bring the atten­tion of cer­tain peo­ple to this mat­ter: the pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter of the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Pak­istan; the chief jus­tice of the Lahore High Court; the ban­ner hold­er of suo-moto actions, Chief Jus­tice of Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry; Chief Min­is­ter of the Pun­jab Gov­ern­ment Shah­baz Sharif; and the D.O. Faisal­abad — not in the capac­i­ty of an advo­cate but as a very com­mon cit­i­zen. How can the pro­ce­dure of jus­tice be con­sum­mat­ed if peo­ple like Nathu, who con­sti­tute almost 85% of the pop­u­la­tion, are tram­pled upon and neglect­ed?

Some­times I think that Pak­istan is a place of won­ders where peo­ple with no land become pro­pri­etors of lands overnight, and peo­ple like Nathu are not even giv­en a right­ful share of their own belong­ings. Had this inci­dent hap­pened in India with a Mus­lim, a furor would have been raised. But I think that Nathu should be over­looked as he is a worth­less man. It would be out of place if I men­tion how he paid for the expens­es for lit­i­ga­tion by sell­ing his wife’s jew­ellery and his son’s tri­cy­cle. Let Nathu go to hell! Why should I wor­ry about him?