Administration of criminal justice
VIJAYALAKSHMI VISWANATHAN
|
Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law
|
A Supreme Court Bench, consisting of Justice Arjit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma, has delivered a remarkable and laudable judgment in regard to criminal justice administration. “Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence,”it said.
But the rapid deterioration in law and order and proliferation of the tendency to settle scores by individuals are manifestations of a slackness in the system. While the judges have highlighted the other considerations such as correctional needs as a possible reason for a less than proportionate sentence, much more disconcerting is the failure of the prosecuting agencies to present clinching evidence either wantonly or due to the efflux of time.
While the nation has celebrated yet another Women’s day, it is a sad fact that offences against women quite often go unpunished, thereby failing to meet the norms prescribed in this historic judgment.
Stay the contagion
The emphasis that living law must find answers to the new challenges and the courts have a duty to mould the sentencing system, lest the contagion of lawlessness undermines social order and lay it in ruins, has come close on the heels of a judgment delivered by the Delhi High court, freeing Ashok Rai, a convict in a rape case undergoing life imprisonment. The court reduced his sentence to five and a half years, the period which he had already spent in prison. The reason for this verdict is that he had made it to the civil service!
The nation witnessed a staunch outcry by feminists in 1987 when Roop Kanwar, the eighteen-year old Rajput woman immolated herself on the pyre of her husband Maal Singh, in Deorala village of Rajasthan. The incident was so outrageous that it evoked worldwide attention.
John Stratton Hawley of Columbia University authored a book entitled Sati, the Blessing and the Curse, The Burning of wives in India (Oxford University Press U.S., 1994). The author notes, “Feminists are united, first and foremost in denouncing the event as one among many crimes against women. They do not admit any obfuscating rhetoric about whether this event was or was not an “authentic” sati; coercion or consent is not really relevant to their formulations of the problem. Their concern is about the women involved — their lives, the pain they endure, the cruelty and barbarity they experience, and the resultant negation of the meaning of their separate existence.”
Sixteen years after the incident, a special court in Rajasthan acquitted all the 11 accused, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges that they glorified sati.
It will be interesting to note that the Indian Penal Code, as revised in the early 1950s, did not incorporate the East India Company regulation to abolish the practice of sati. The presumption was that its sections on murder and abetment to suicide (Section 302 and 306) respectively would be enough to deal with such a happening; this implicit redefinition of sati as a crime was accepted by those opposed to the custom.
Strong public reaction
Yet another instance of a strong public reaction was the gruesome ‘eve-teasing’ case of Sarika Shah in Chennai. The offence committed was so grave and repulsive that the Tamil Nadu Government enacted stringent legislation against eve-teasing.
The nine persons accused of committing the crime were sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment by the trial court, which was confirmed by the Madras High Court. The judge had concluded that the entire case on hand “tells tales of woe faced by women and girls day in and day out in the hands of unruly elements”— a sad reflection of the state of affairs indeed!
Jessica Lal murder case was equally noteworthy for the intense media and public pressure against the trial court’s verdict of acquittal.
The judgment repeatedly hints that the prosecution attempted to fabricate the evidence and present false witnesses so as to render the case indefensible.
The final outcome of the case is in the hands of the Supreme Court as an appeal against conviction has been admitted. It is time for a national debate on the issue to ensure that the system makes the offenders pay for their sins proportionately.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Open Page
