INDIA: Minister of Law and Justice not above the law
A Statement from the Asian Human Rights Commission
This week and the last one have witnessed an overflowing of violence in India. It manifested in manifold shapes, colours, and intensity: permeating right from the gory incidents of rapes reported in the media to the sensational allegations of corruptions against the most powerful players in the country, the shameless circus-dog denials of political leadership, the brazen threats and abuse of power that affronted politicians - including the union law minister - made, and the total absence of discussion of justice institutions in India. What India is witnessing today are manifold forms of betrayal of trust that the people had once placed in their state – to establish, nurture and promote a democratic country.
Of more than a dozen cases of rape reported from India during the past 14 days, none of the news or analysis covered two vital aspects concerning rape - the uncontrolled re-victimisation of the victim and the absence of justice in the country. What prompts a person to believe that an adult or a child could be sexually violated at will is not just a mere abrasion of the mind. It is the manifestation of a psychological state of the predator, promoted by the abundant possibility of escaping punishment for the crime.
Additionally there is the factor of the re-victimisation of the victim - of accusing the victim for the crime - during medical examinations, by the investigators, in courts, and by the media. The statement made by the Chief Minister of West Bengal that rape occurs because men and women behave freely is not a Bangla aberration. It is an accurate reflection of the state of mind of the average Indian.
Why should a criminal be afraid of the crime being detected, investigated, and prosecuted in a country where the entire justice apparatus has fallen? The state of affairs is such that the country's Oxford educated minister for law and justice can threaten a civil society activist, with death, in public, if the minister is accused of irregularities in running a family business for the differently abled. Issues like conflict of interest, of the minister maintaining a stake in a business entity run by his wife to receive grants from the government were not of concern in India. It will never be. The statement by the minister's colleague in the cabinet that the law minister is innocent since the amount involved is only 7.2 million and not 720 million sums it all.
The students at Trinity College, where the minister formerly lectured, must have been wondering what their one time teacher had learned at St Edmund Hall as a student of jurisprudence. That such a criminal mind could become India's law minister, belching death threats against a civilian, while continuing in office, is one measure of the betrayal in India today. The question whether there would be any punitive action against this "open call for violence" is in fact meaningless. There would be none.
A witness, complainant, investigator, lawyer, and judge can be bribed, threatened, abducted, or murdered at will in India today. In such a state, a criminal on the street has, understandably, virtually no reason to worry.
The country's judiciary has also betrayed the people. A substantial number of persons undertaking responsibilities in the courts - judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and the court staff, are corrupt to the core. For a petition that is stamped with two rupees worth of court fee to be called in the bench will require at least a thousand rupees spent as bribes at each desk in the court's registry. This is the case right from the Supreme Court to the Magistrate courts in India. Most prosecutors are appointed and promoted, often not on an assessment of their merit, but on the basis of political servitude. Prosecutors who do not demand and accept bribes for not opposing a bail application are the exception in India.
India is itself no exception to the state of the judiciary in the region, where the concept of justice has been rendered just another commodity in the marketplace. The conviction of Dr. Sunilam is the latest episode in this bargain. Police officers are no exception either to the open and wanton negation of justice. The suspicious disappearance of Mr. M. S. Chouhan, Superintendent of Police in Arunachal Pradesh police's Special Investigation Cell, investigating corruption in the Public Distribution System, since 16 October, is another such event.
Such an India, understandably, will have no space for human rights, fair trial, and democracy. It has no right to claim itself a democracy. And, it will not be a nation those destined to live there will be proud of. Unless drastic changes are brought to the justice framework in the country, to rekindle the expectation of the people – that of their state being the primary guarantor of justice – one fears India may perish into lawless oblivion, and become just another rouge entity in South Asia.
Picture courtesy: Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India
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