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Beyond reasonable doubt?
The growing crime culture, the inefficient and callous police force and a more-than-cavalier lower judiciary make for a grim social scenario, says
Mohan Guruswamy.
A visit to our courts can be very educative. Then you will begin to appreciate the malevolence behind that popular Indian threat "I'll see you in court!" What this means is that justice will be so long and late in coming that the process is in itself a punishment, for some. For others it is an escape from just societal retribution. Yesterday I got to see both of it in just one hour in the Delhi High Court. One pertained to a matter in which the landlord is seeking the eviction of a tenant, the matter being before one court or the other since 1965. The hearing got adjourned to a later date. We can be sure that the judges concerned would not have heard the story of a legendary king, Nrga, who was reborn as a lizard because he kept two litigants waiting in a dispute over a cow!
In another, a VIP lawyer appeared for his VIP son client seeking yet another extension of bail while on trial charged with a highly publicized murder. The murder took place in a popular New Delhi watering hole, holding almost a hundred people in it including at least one IPS officer. Witness after witness has been turning hostile succumbing to the pressures and inducements of those acting for the defendants. It's another matter that this lawyer had also offered counsel to the family of the victims, but now he is only appearing in the matter of bail. A fine difference which only an eminent lawyer like him will appreciate. While out on bail, one of the co-accused puts his freedom to do what he apparently does best and now stands accused of committing yet another murder. His doting father is also a member of the Rajya Sabha and our VIP lawyer may even take up this matter at the request of a valued colleague, which was his reason for taking up the first case.
I have absolutely no doubt that time, and a little help from friends in high places, will create the necessary conditions for eventual acquittals. Justice will be seen to have been done and today's murder accused can take their proper place in society's pecking order. Just as a former minister and a prominent member of the BJP in UP has done after being acquitted of the murder of a former national badminton champion. He married the late champion's not-for-very-long grieving widow, presumably much inspired by Raja Ram Mohan Roy's views on widow remarriage? His co-accused, later a Congress MLA, has after this acquittal notched up another murder, but then what is a murder or two for an upcoming leader? I have no doubt that he will get away with this also for our civil society now seems unable to make do without the law-making skills of the likes of him. His kind are now a dime a dozen in our legislatures.
People like him get away because the police and the prosecution quite often seem one with the defence in seeking exoneration. In the Jessica Lal case, I have with me on tape an eyewitness' account of what he saw and a candid confession of why this witness who turned hostile is now willing to resile. The prosecutor apparently is not very keen on calling this witness again, nor is the police willing to look into the possibility of making a case of perjury against witnesses who so readily turned hostile. When this was brought to the notice of the Deputy Prime Minister he immediately called up Commissioner of Police, Delhi. But nothing has come of it as yet.
But this was apparently not the case in another matter for when the Delhi Police wants, it acts with great despatch. We now see how after prevaricating for so long, it is keen to get its hands on RK Sharma, the fugitive Haryana IPS officer whose "co-operation" is being sought in the three-year-old Shivani Bhatnagar murder investigation. There is good reason to believe that this sudden enthusiasm has to do more with the internal power struggle in the second echelon of the BJP's national leadership. It seems that the purpose of the whole exercise is not so much to seek and punish the murderers, as it is to tarnish Pramod Mahajan's reputation as an exemplar of family values. And a good job has been done of it!
Clearly we have a bit of a problem on our hands. The law takes far too long to run its course. It seems to meander about rather than run its course. And when it picks up speed to run its course, it often seems to be quite willing to jump course enabling the guilty to get away with their crimes. No wonder less than eight per cent of all murder trials in India end with a conviction. Then there is the problem with the police. The Indian Police is probably the most corrupt and criminalized branches of our public administration. The lower levels are just not accountable to any authority as higher ranks are constantly subject to an often capricious and usually whimsical game of musical chairs orchestrated by the politicians who are more often than not in cahoots with criminals. Thus even a simple matter like registering an FIR often produces demands for bribes. Even when it is aroused into action, the force is generally so unskilled in collecting evidence that any half decent trial lawyer can tear the prosecution apart. This, in turn, leads to two pernicious consequences.
In recent days we see the emergence of a different kind of policeman, who confounded by the inability to get punishment for criminals quickly or by the demands of the law, which often requires very high standards of professionalism and competence, takes the law into his own hands. Hindi movies these days have cops mouthing the threat "encounter karwa denge!" giving the word encounter an entirely different and sinister meaning. James Bond called it "to terminate with extreme prejudice." It's increasingly common to have many persons determined by the government to be on the other side of the law to be terminated with extreme prejudice via staged encounters. In Mumbai gangsters are routinely liquidated in encounters just as in Andhra Pradesh Naxalites are gunned down in encounters. Apparently these are better than places like Bihar where you don't even have to be any of these to get killed in encounters.
Typical of this new breed of policeman is the New Delhi ACP, Rajbir Singh, billed by the newspapers as Dirty Harry as in the Clint Eastwood movie. Last year Rajbir Singh was involved in six of the seven Delhi Police encounters in which at least eight persons were killed. All these encounters have been controversial. In one, in Meerut, the gunfire was supposed to have been exchanged for over 15 minutes, but none of the area residents seem to have heard any gunshots. In another, in Jharoda Kalan, eyewitnesses state that the two persons killed were chased and shot in a field. But most controversial is the killing of Abu Shamal, a LeT terrorist who participated in the Red Fort attack in December 2000. Shamal was killed in the predominantly Muslim Batla House locality in South Delhi. Most people living in the neighborhood deny that the militants lived there and say that the encounter story is false. Even the Hindu landlord of the flat where Abu Shamal was shot dead said that he had not seen him before. These encounters have apparently done Rajbir Singh's career much good for he has been rewarded with two out-of-turn promotions rising from Sub Inspector to Assistant Commissioner in just a few years. Clearly his hand holds the promise of more encounters and a rise to the RK Sharma level if not the Lachhman Das level can be forecast.
The same officer is now in-charge of the case relating to the terrorist attack on Parliament. Already the manner in which evidence has been collected and presented to the Special Court of SN Dhingra has raised many questions about their admissibility. Since POTA requires that wiretaps can only be placed after obtaining the permission of a designated officer, the prosecution is now pleading that the tapping was done under the aegis of another law. The tapping took place on December 14 and the Home Secretary's permission was obtained on January 19 and even this does not specify any period, past, present or future. Even if the evidence is of somewhat dubious quality, judge who earned his spurs in the Kalpnath Rai case and earned a couple of raps on his knuckles for his exertions from the Supreme Court, seems just the man for the case. Already one of his orders is the subject of a hearing in the High Court. The point here is that the unprofessional exuberance of the police and the eagerness of the lower courts to grandstand often end up poisoning even good cases. The reason for this is that the quality of the lower judiciary is as suspect as that of the police. Some of these judges even may rise very high where they may break new judicial ground with pronouncements like "beyond reasonable doubt is a merely a guideline."
The author can be contacted at Email: mguru@satyam.net.in
Courtesy http://www.tehelka.com
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