Judge’s pet theories

Justice Mahesh Chand Sharma had only his last day to spend in the Rajasthan high court and he might have found the circumstances compelling enough to attempt to leave behind an indelible imprint. It is now known if he indulged in such airy obiter dicta throughout his career on the bench, but without quite having achieved lasting fame. He certainly earned notoriety by airing his thoughts about the cow and the peacock on the given day. At a time when the nation is struggling to cope with new rules and interpretations of the status of the cow, the retiring judge did his bit to fan the flames by calling for the cow to be declared the national animal because he finds in it such sublime qualities that he wants his state to order life imprisonment for anyone slaughtering a cow. It is as well that he added a rider his pronouncements were not binding.

This foot-in-the-mouth disease is by no means a monopoly of any one set of people like politicians with a mike in front of them. Judges are not exempt from harbouring eccentric theories either and this judge seemed to enjoy the experience of begin sought after on his special day by a television reporter and a microphone. Tempted thus, the judge aired his own theory of evolution by expounding on the sex life of peacocks, which biologists would have found mirthful. The twitter world was atwitter with the advent of more humour, which is the very essence of memes. He was in such fine flow on the world of animals and birds that he did not allow facts to get in the way of a good yarn. His life in retired bliss may, however, be least affected by science, which knows that both the peacock and the peahen have the avian reproductive organ cloaca, which transfers sperm between partners.