Iyer’s revelations.

The city of Kochi has become a pilgrim spot as former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer turned 100. Political leaders, legal luminaries, and well-wishers met Mr. Iyer at his residence to wish him. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Myanmar, wished Mr. Krishna Iyer through Twitter. But, he once again entered into  controversy with the once rejected claim regarding the conception of land reforms in the State. It was Iyer’s claim that it was he who wrote the agriculture land reforms law of 1957 and that Ms. Gouri Amma had no role in the law at all.

What Iyer has repeated now is a matter that veteran politician K.R. Gouri had outrightly rejected..
According to her Iyer’s statement was totally wrong and misleading. Gouri Amma had repeated several times that it was on April 11, 1957,  the government issued an ordinance on integrated land reforms, after which the Communist Party of India and the government began discussions on the same. Mr. Krishna Iyer, who had introduced a similar law when he was earlier a legislator with the Madras Assembly, came up with the same law. However, this was rejected by the government since it was restricted only to tenants in the Malabar region and was not comprehensive. Following this, a committee, comprising Ms. Gouri Amma from the Travancore region, C.H. Kanaran from the Malabar region and Gopalakrishnan from the Cochin region, was constituted. The land reforms draft Bill was shaped by this committee, with references to several other existing laws. Though it was first drafted as three laws, it was later integrated into one. This was released for public opinion. Relevant ones from around 2,500 suggestions that came up were incorporated and the final law was passed by the Assembly on June 30, 1959.

However, the Union government did not approve this Bill and sent it back, recommending more amendments, Ms. Gouri said. Mr. Krishna Iyer, she alleged, was not a member of the committee and had no major role in the conception of the law.

So what now Iyer, at the age of100, is doing is rewriting history and most probably there would be no takers for the same..

The learned Ex-Justice V R Krishna Iyer  had taken many  unacceptable stands like this. Another one was  the dragging in the name of Pope by referring to  incident of fishermen’s killing by Italian marines and saying Italy is the land of Pope.  Iyer had forgotten  the fact  that Pope is the legal head of Vatican and not of Italy. Yet another incident  is the  draconian bill drafted by the 12-member committee headed by him recommending provisions for imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 for fathering a third child by Indian nationals.

K A Solaman