When I was a Judge of Allahabad High Court, I had come to Delhi to attend a function. This was perhaps in 1996 or so, when the SP-BSP alliance was in power in U.P.
At that time illegal house grabbing was being done on a large scale in U.P. by some SP BSP men, which if not stopped would have led to a total collapse of law and order in the state, replacing it with jungle raj ( which I called, following the term used by our ancient thinkers, matsya nyaya, or the law of the fishes).
To prevent this, I gave very strong judgments against the illegal house grabbing, and called the bureaucrats and police officers who did not stop this as cowards, who were not justifying their salt. by behaving in a cowardly manner before the politicians. I ordered immediate restoration of possession to the rightful owners.
Appeals were filed against my judgments before the Supreme Court, but they were all dismissed.
At the function in Delhi, Justice Kuldip Singh, a very senior Judge of the Supreme Court, met me and referring to my judgments, said :
" काटजू, ठोंकते रहो ठोंकते रहो "
