Melee of lynchings & withdrawn cases : The Tribune India

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Hammers and Tongs

Melee of lynchings & withdrawn cases

The daily media roundabout is a maelstrom of tragedy, from protest against Sterlite Copper Smelting plant’s expansion and the police firing, to the mob violence that confronted the two unfortunate persons from Guwahati being lynched by a mob in Karbi Anglong on suspicion of being child lifters, to two alleged cattle thieves in Jharkhand, to news about the same gun used to kill Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.

Melee of lynchings & withdrawn cases

Outrage on streets: All-Assam Muslim Yuba Parishad (S) members protest the lynching of a rape accused in Dimapur, Nagaland. PTI file



Keki Daruwalla       

The daily media roundabout is a maelstrom of tragedy, from protest against Sterlite Copper Smelting plant’s expansion and the police firing, to the mob violence that confronted the two unfortunate persons from Guwahati being lynched by a mob in Karbi Anglong on suspicion of being child lifters, to two alleged cattle thieves in Jharkhand, to news about the same gun used to kill Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. Since vigilantism started with suspect meat, lynching incidents have become more common. There was other tragic news about a stork’s beak being caught in a plastic ring, making it unable to eat or drink water for five days. This, at least, ended happily with the bird being caught and fed. A stork has as much right to live in the universe as any of us. 

Yet, if one has an eye for happy news, it is there for the picking — and I am not referring to the hilarious revelations by Imran Khan’s second wife about the sexual life and mores of certain people in Pakistan. I am not even drawing attention to speculation that the RSS may put forward the name of our respected Pranabda as would-be Prime Minister in the 2019 elections. I am speaking of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Shahjahanpur (UP), Shikha Pradhan, who rejected the UP Government’s plea for withdrawal of a rape case against a former Union Minister Chinmayanand (let’s do away with the prefix ‘Swami’ attached to his name). The court issued a warrant against the former minister, ordering him to be present in court on July 12. The UP Government had brazenly written to the District Magistrate to withdraw the case, but the court, according to the press, was hearing a plea by the victim, a former disciple of Chinmayanand, who alleged she was not just raped but also held hostage by the spurious swami, but it must be noted, a genuine former minister of the Union.

A ministry for the withdrawal of cases 

The UP Chief Minister needs to form a separate ministry to deal exclusively with withdrawal of criminal cases, including the ones against himself. Four cases against the CM were withdrawn. His Home Ministry is, meanwhile, running a police establishment, which is filing criminal cases and encouraging police ‘encounters’. There could be a race between the two and some day we may witness the spectacle of a case being ‘withdrawn’ before the charge-sheet has been filed! Capital stuff.

In April, the UP Government started a big exercise to consider the massive ‘withdrawal’ of cases. The statistics trotted out were ominous and sounded like the backwash of the tsunami. It ‘initiated the process’ of withdrawing 131 criminal cases’, including 13 of murder against members of one community, namely Jats. The state law minister described the cases as ‘politically motivated’. Some of them must have been, because the Samajwadi government of Akhilesh Yadav was vociferously vocal about the Yadav-Muslim combine. Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi called the cases “old non-serious cases”. But the riots of 2013 claimed 63 lives and saw 50,000 persons (mostly Muslims) being rendered homeless in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli. It was obvious that the real reason for the brazen attempt to sidestep the spirit of the law was to favour the BJP in the Kairana elections. As irony would have it, those who fought each other in 2013 got together and defeated the BJP in the Kairana elections where Tabassum Hasan won. 

Crime and political immunity

In our country, where disorder is often the order of the day, and much of the so-called grass-roots political activity is confined to the streets, policing and politics get inextricably mixed, to the detriment of both. Processions, hunger strikes, gheraos and on the big stage caste rallies and ‘rath yatras’, this is the grammar of our day-to-day politics. In some of these activities, especially if you are in the Opposition, defying restrictions against unlawful assemblies under Section 144 of the CrPC, are axiomatic. Politicians lead these crowds, cases are filed against them, they are released on bail, a compromise is worked out with government in the end, and in the give-and-take criminal charges are withdrawn. 

That would amount to, what could be called at a pinch, a bona fide withdrawal of a case from court. But if buses are burnt, as they often are, and women and children get killed, the cases are obviously not withdrawn. These linger year after year unless the government means business, which is not very often. Cases are also allowed to linger, acting as a sort of Damocles’ sword over the errant politician. To recall an incident, the Janata government had quite some difficulty in withdrawing the Baroda bomb case against George Fernandes. 

The Janata government withdrew a lot of criminal cases perversely filed during the 1975 Emergency clamped down by Indira Gandhi. To arrest every single politico in the Opposition, the police had to invent and file a criminal case. There was no moral sanction to file such cases, which were withdrawn.  If hate is aroused through speeches, riots take place resulting in an exodus, surely the cases must be persevered with. But the UP Government has initiated measures to withdraw cases against Sadhvi Prachi and others.

 Where does all this leave the police and the magistracy if one day you ask it to file cases and the next day you withdraw charges. This is not some game which a political war lord can play and get away with, the tough political cookie who shoves his opponents in jail, one day, and later in his suave politician avatar having thandai and tobacco-smeared paan with the same guys after the charges are dropped. The country needs more people like the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Shahjahanpur, Shikha Pradhan. A PIL before the highest court to lay down minimum standards for withdrawal of serious criminal cases is also called for.

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