A MAN who lied before a court has been asked by the Delhi High Court ( HC) to offer prayers at the Rajghat daily for two hours and clean the areas surrounding the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi as an atonement for his sin.
The Delhi HC, however, directed the samadhi management committee to pay a compensation of Rs 35,000 to Kanhaiya Lal, who worked as security guard there, for illegally sacking him.
" This court would not recommend any action of initiating perjury proceedings against him and would rather direct the petitioner to offer his daily prayers for at least two hours for a period of one month to seek atonement for committing the sin of being untruthful to the Court of Law," Justice Kailash Gambhir said in the judgment. The court also asked Lal to clean the samadhi for one month.
" It is no doubt that falsehood is easy and truth difficult. But that does not entail that the virtue of truthfulness be worn like a garment, worn and removed at our own will. It would not be wrong to say that in the time of universal deceit today, speaking truth seems like a revolutionary act," the court said.
The court, meanwhile, directed the samadhi committee to pay Lal a compensation of Rs 35,000 for firing him
without following the proper procedure of law. Lal filed a petition seeking a direction to the Rajghat Samadhi Committee to re- instate him. The petitioner claimed he was working there from 1990 to 1999. However, the court found discrepancy in his version.
