Justice Bakhtawar Lentin

Justice Bakhtawar Lentin (1927-2006)

After he delivered the judgment that toppled A.R. Antulay off the chief minister's chair, Justice Bakhtawar Lentin, remained the same publicity-shy person he had always been. Disclaiming the obvious importance of the cement case, he stated repeatedly that it was a case like any other, one that he decided on the basis of the facts before him.

Q. Did you expect such a dramatic outcome of your judgment, that the chief minister would resign within hours ?

A. As far as I was concerned it was just a case. These things go on, but I, or any judge, would decide the case entirely on its merits, on the facts placed before me. But no, I didn't think he would resign. The case was an important one; it was definitely important in the sense that I had to weigh every line which I said. And during the judgment there were so many people packed into the court that I was petrified for their safety. People were standing on the catwalk which runs around the mezzanine level, and I was petrified that it might give way.

Q. Do you think there is a general lowering of standards, moral and ethical?

A. All over the world, I'd say. Certainly not just in our country. It's all over.

• Independence and courage were the hallmark of his judicial career. 
• His judgment in the cement scandal case in the early eighties in which his indictment of Antulay, the then powerful Chief Minister of Maharashtra, led to his resignation.
• Justice Lentin's official probe into the JJ Hospital glycerol case, in which eleven people had lost their lives because of contaminated glycerol, resulted in the indictment of the then health minister, Bhai Sawant, and a complete overhaul of the state's food and drug administration. Lentin Commission discovered 582 companies supplying sub standard drugs and initiated perjury proceedings against a former health minister of Maharashtra, Dr Baliram Hiray, the present Health Minister, Bhai Sawant, raised a hornets' nest in the Assembly. Justice Lentin's relentless uncovering of the gross negligence and corruption in the state health services, especially in the food and drugs administration, which is expected to protect the public from ruthless drug manufacturers, has discomfited many public men. It has brought out the devious nexus between crooked businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians. In an obvious attempt to keep the commission's work above political squabbling, Lentin quickly issued a statement pointing out that "no member of any party, ruling or opposition, has supplied information to this commission". He said that the facts the commission possessed had been sifted from hundreds of government files. "The commission has kept itself above politics," Lentin emphasised. 
• His decision as chairman of censor board not to ban the exhibition of the movie, bandit queen, which was upheld by the supreme court displayed his liberal values in the matter of freedom of expression.

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