Once upon a time, there used to be a common man. He was always proud of calling himself a common man and the people would identify him as one of them. It was a happy situation.
One day,
the CM (common man) happened to jump a red light. It is not clear whether it
was accidental or intentional; but when he was stopped by the traffic cop, he
termed it as unintentional and apologised for his carelessness. His innocent
face and apparently genuine plea had the desired effect and the traffic cop let
him go with a simple warning and a word of advice.
This
incident emboldened the CM to start taking advantage of his innocent looks and
convincing oratory skills. Twice again, he was able to manage the traffic cops
effectively.
However,
next time he ran out of luck and the cop on duty turned out to be a tough guy.
The CM pleaded with all sort of reasons which did not cut much ice with the
cop. Now, the CM got angry, refused to pay the fine and was not even
apologetic. The cop sent the matter to
the court in a routine manner as a part of his duty.
The CM,
though not very happy with the developments, decided to oblige and appeared in
the court. His plea was simple – he was let off without any fine in earlier
cases, so why should he be treated differently now? The judge didn’t want to be
tough and to avoid any further waste of time, asked the CM to just give an
undertaking that he would not repeat it in future, and go; but the CM recalling earlier cases, insisted that he should be allowed to go on the basis of his
verbal assurance. Citing the procedure, the judge said that a written assurance
was the least he could allow. The CM was very curt in his reply, “OK. You can
send me to jail.”
The judge
tried to convince the CM by recalling the instance of another associate of the CM, who had paid fine a day
before for jumping a red light. The CM argued that his case was different as he
had jumped the signal on a normal road. The CM had jumped a red light on a
highway, which was as good as a freeway. So, the two incidents cannot be compared.
The judge was spell-bound!
At this stage,
a very senior lawyer intervened to educate the judge, “I will tell you what the
law is. You don’t understand even English. The law states that a person who
jumps a red light may be prosecuted. It does not say that he will be
prosecuted. It is MAY, MAY, MAY.... it is not WILL, WILL, WILL. DO YOU
UNDERSTAND?”, he shouted.
The judge
was calm. Coolly, he replied, “Yes, it is MAY... and I may or may not. Who will
decide that? ME only. It is my judgement, not yours! ”
The CM
jumped in, “Common people are supreme. You cannot be biased against them. You send me to jail. Let the people decide who
is right.”
Out goes
the message – “What is happening in this country? A common man is jailed for
jumping a red light, whereas who make such draconian laws are relaxing at their
homes. Come out in the streets and protest against discrimination.”
So, thus starts another movement for the common people!
Poor judge
cannot even resort to such tactics! What should
he do?
