While having our regular cup of afternoon chai today, my colleague the Bombay Bombshell (when this mumbai-ite gets angry she could be worse than the most powerful bomb) showed me a
news reportfrom the TOI. Amidst sipping my tea, I read the report and was aghast by the contents of the report. I felt that this was definitely one occasion of using the choicest of expletives against the justice system that prevails in India.
Here was a case where a crime is done against a harmless helpless 8 year old girl and the court was considering that this was not a crime which deserved the punishment reserved for the rarest occasions. How pathetic !!! The worst part was the following statement of one of the bench "The death occurred, therefore, as a consequence of, and not because of, any specific act on the part of the accused," So, does that mean that one can later argue, "Oh!! I just pulled the trigger. How can you blame me if the victim died ?". What crap ???
As we drank tea all of us debated about how the courts seem to work only for the rich and powerful. Every politician or celebrity who is booked in a case, goes public and says that the whole case is fabricated and he has faith in the courts. And yes, magically the court always favors the rich and powerful, take this for instance. A colleague reminded me, that sometime ago I had argued that "people must never take the law into their own hands.". But frankly, after reading the newsreport my blood was boiling. How will the people trust the courts to provide them justice, if the court goes around making such callous statements.
Reminds me of what Robert Kiyosaki had said in his book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". The law is made by "The Rich and Powerful" for the "Rich and Powerful. Why would they make the law pro-poor. Are they crazy ? If the justice system continues as irresponsbile as this and the poor continue to be deprived of their chance to justice, the day is not far when I see the public rising in revolt.
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10 comments:
hmm I think you should wait a bit before shooting the judge :) This case will def go to a higher court where it will get justice. The lower court judges usually come up with such dastardly judgments. It is not easy to influence High Court judges, I have witnessed two such examples when the high and mighty crumbled before the law!!
p.s you haven't enabled my last comment.
silverine: The judgment that I was referring to was one pronounced by a Supreme Court bench. At least thats what the TOI said.
PS: I haven't received your last comment. :(
If it is Supreme Cour then give me a gun too grrr But I remember reading otherwise hmmm maybe I was mistaken!
I am talking about the comment on the "Lozenges" post. You have replied without showing my comment :P
silverine: Shockingly, yes, it was the "honorable" Supreme Court which gave that judgment. The saddest part is that such judgments will be referred to in many similar cases to follow. And every time the SC will help the criminals get away.
PS: Your comment on lozenge was coupled in your comment on "Dont scare the daylights". I just put the responses along with the appropriate posts. Too confusing ?
The Bombay Bombshell has just sent me a very interesting read on the subject.
The news article was a sorry piece of journalism. The article makes it sound as if the courts disagreed about whether or not the child was "murdered" as the word murder is commonly used, which is ridiculous because the child is dead as a result of the violent rape. I venture to guess that the article is incorrect; that in fact the courts disagreed about which type of murder charge should have been applied in this case. The strongest clue is a quote from the Supreme Court differentiating between premeditated murder and other murder. It is likely that the death penalty is a valid sentence only for certain classes of murder, such as premeditated. In that case the disagreement between the courts is entirely about application of the law as it is written rather than what punishment is deserved by the defendant.
The bit at the end of the article about "Momentary lapse" was attributed to the defense attorney, and had no place in the article as there was no indication that the justices were contemplating that point at all.
The reporter should be fired; others should be more critical of the news they read.
@Anon: YOu make me feel much better now!!!
Anonymous: I agree that in fact the courts disagreed on the type of murder charge that should have been applied and not on whether the child was murdered. But that again, like the courts did, is getting into the technicality of the law. The law is meant to be followed in the spirit and not just by the word. To the parents of the kid and to society at large, the technicalities of the law is too hard to understand. If premeditated murder is an offense of the "rarest of the rare cases", so is premeditated rape or rape itself - premeditated or not, for that matter.
I personally think there is no bigger offense than the violation of a person's body, especially of that of an innocent child. In fact I think its worse than "pre-meditated murder".
I agree with you that this is more likely a case of "sorry journalism" and that the journalist who twisted sentences to mean differently should probably be fired. But who will fire the judge who judges by the word of the law and not by the spirit of the law ?
Puchu,
The purpose of courts is to rule according to the letter of the law *only*. Living in such system one will have to accept that an individual's notion of justice may not be served in every case. If you see systematic flaws then you must initiate public discourse to change the law. Human history and contemporary circumstances (in countries that are unpleasant to live in, I point out) demonstrate the two alternatives: 1) dictatorship, and 2) tribal courts (or village elders, or whatever you want to call them). I don't think you realize it, but you are advocating for the latter, because AS SOON as courts deviate from the legal framework, all bets are off. In the best case, nice old men rule according to the "spirit of the law." They are nice so I'm sure they will remain free from corruption forever, and that they'll never disagree with each other, meaning that laws won't be reversed and un-reversed ad infinitum. (I'm smiling.) That's the BEST case. The worst case is that the wealthy and powerful appoint judges who will do their bidding. (They can still try to do that but the body of lawyers will spot the deviation from the legal framework and alert the public.) Either way, everybody loses. It's not a coincidence that countries lacking modern legal frameworks (read: heavy on technical analysis and consideration for the letter of the law) are are also lacking functioning economies and civil rights. Countries like China, considered undemocratic, still take legal theory and practice very seriously. Order and transparency in legal matters is a prerequisite for any and all development. One additional point: in a world where people disagree on basic issues such as what constitutes "moral" behavior, the notion of the "spirit of the law" being anything real is a complete non-starter.
Here is an extremely interesting posting that I came across.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/cruel-and-unusual-25-yea_b_35781.html
Yes, the law has been applied appropriately. But the outcome was un"just".
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