Justice Katju gets 'get well soon' card from Odia students

Bhubaneswar: A day after tendering apology for his alleged derogatory remarks about Odisha and its people, former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju today received a flower bouquet and a "get well soon" card from the Delhi Odia Students Association.

This was informed by Katju himself through a facebook post.

Katju in his earlier post had dubbed Odias as "poor" and "humorless" but announced to have changed his opinion on Odias.

"While earlier I regarded most of you as stupid and humourless, now I regard you as smart and with a sense of humour (as all intelligent people have). And my perception about you changed suddenly due to an event which happened in the last half an hour or so," Katju wrote.

Narrating the event, Katju said: "I was having lunch with my wife a short while back at my residence in Noida, when my servant informed me that some young men had come to meet me."

"I told him to allow the young men to enter, and ask them to be seated in my sitting room till I have finished lunch. The domestic help went out, and within a minute came back with a large beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a note. He said that the young men had just given this bouquet and note to him, and gone away," Katju said.

Later, Katju narrated that he handed the bouquet to his wife, who was delighted, as all ladies are, to get flowers, and then glanced at the note.

"These were the words written on it: "Get well soon Mr Katju. Jai Jagannath. Delhi Odia Students Association "

In his initial facebook post Katju had said: ""What is there to write about these (Odiya) poor chaps? Ever since they got a thrashing at the hands of Ashoka in the battle of Kalinga, they have been a dejected lot. Now all they have with them are a lot of pots (Patras), big pots (Mahapatras) and supposedly intelligent kings (Patnaiks).

Katju's statement had sparked agitation across the state and people from various section of life demanded apology from him.

Besides tendering apology in the facebook post, the former judge had claimed that he was joking and made the comments in lighter vein.
He also appealed to the people of Odisha not to file case against him.