Hang Rapist Judges
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Working For The Rights & Survival Of The Oppressed
Editor: NAGARAJA.M.R… VOL.7 issue.47…… .20/11/2013
Judge accused of molesting 2 rape
survivors in UP
A sitting judicial magistrate
sexually assaulted them
UP: Two rape victims claim that a sitting judicial
magistrate sexually assaulted them. The girls
alleged that when they went to the magistrate’s chamber to
give their statement, he allegedly
made them strip and molested them.
One of the girls is a minor and the police have filed a
complaint. The girls also claimed that the
judge threatened them to not speak of the incident to
anyone.
Lawyers and the general public in Gonda launched a protest
against the judge.
Editorial : Hang Rapist
Judges to Lamp
Posts - JUDGES & SEXUAL CRIMES
At the outset , we express our
whole hearted respects to the honest few public servants
in public service including
judiciary & Police. However, the corrupt in public service don’t deserve
respect as individuals – as they
are parasites in our legal system. Still we respect the
chairs they occupy but not the
corrupt individuals.
All the following articles /
issues , past cases of sexual assaults on women by judges (hushed up ?) , whole
articles published in the weblinks mentioned
below forms part of this appeal.
The term “JUDGE” mentioned throught includes all public
servants discharging judicial
functions right from taluk magistrates , quasi-judicial
officers to Chief Justice of
India.
Indian Legal / Judicial System
is manipulated at various stages & is for sale. It is a SHAME.
The persons who raise their
voice seeking justice are silenced in many ways. The
criminal nexus has already
attempted to silence me in many ways . If anything untoward
happens to me or to my family
members , my dependents , Honourable Chief Justice of
India together with
jurisdictional police officer will be responsible for it.
Hereby, we do once again offer
our conditional services to the honourable supreme court
of India & other government
authorities, in apprehending criminals including corrupt
judges & police. Herewith ,
we once again appeal to the honourable supreme court of
India , to consider this as a
PIL Appeal in public interest.
Consider the cases of sexual
assault by JUDGES , POLICE on women . The JUDGES
have legal immunity with respect
to their official duties, official actions but not their
individual actions amounting to
CRIMES.
The public servants & the
government must be role models in law abiding acts , for others
to emulate & follow. if a
student makes a mistake it is excusable & can be corrected by
the teacher. if the teacher
himself makes a mistake , all his students will do the same
mistake. if a thief steals , he
can be caught , legally punished & reformed . if a police
himself commits crime , many
thieves go scot- free under his patronage. even if a police ,
public servant commits a crime ,
he can be legally prosecuted & justice can be sought by
the aggrieved. just think , if a
judge himself that too of apex court of the land itself
commits crime - violations of
RTI Act , constitutional rights & human rights of public and
obstructs the public from
performing their constitutional fundamental duties , what
happens ? it gives a booster
dose to the rich & mighty , those in power , criminals in
public service to committ more
crimes. that is exactly what is happenning in india. the
educated public must raise to
the occassion & peacefully , democratically must oppose
this criminalisation of
judiciary , public service. then alone , we can build a RAM RAJYA OF MAHATMA
GANDHI'S DREAM.
Hereby , we request the honourable
court to reopen all hushed up old cases of sexual assault involving judges and to punish the guilty judges.
Read Is CHIEF JUSTICE OF
INDIA above LAW ???
Law student sexually harassed
by ex-Supreme Court judge: case is not
unique, but speaking out is nearly impossible
Your’s Sincerely ,
Nagaraja.M.R.
Another law intern alleges sexual harassment
by a former SC judge
Earlier, a woman lawyer had written a blog in which she charged a former Supreme Court judge of sexually harassing her, while she interned with him in 2012. The woman lawyer who completed her law degree from National University of Jurdicial Sciences, Kolkata wrote is her blog, "In Delhi at that time, interning during the winter vacations of my final year in the University, I dodged police barricades and fatigue to go to the assistance of a highly reputed, recently retired Supreme Court judge whom I was working under during my penultimate semester. For my supposed diligence, I was rewarded with sexual assault (not physically injurious, but nevertheless violating) from a man old enough to be my grandfather."
She had also claimed that at least three other girls have also faced harassment by the same judge. The girl said that she had refrained from disclosing the details initially due to the high position that the judge held.
The Chief
Justice of India said, "As the head of the institution, I am also
concerned about the allegations and anxious whether the statement is true or
not. The committee will go into the whole affair and find out the facts. We are
taking steps and in cases of sexual harassment, we cannot take it
lightly."
The latest allegations were made on a Facebook post on November 11 and reported by a law website, Legally India, on Thursday.
The same website had given the link to the first intern’s blog, describing her ordeal. The Supreme Court has appointed a three-judge panel to inquiry into her allegations and the victim has been asked to record her statement on November 18.
But unlike the first instance, the website this time has not given the link to the Facebook post or identified the woman. When contacted Kian Ganz, who reported both the incidents, told HT: “I got to know about the second intern’s experience with the judge through the Facebook post. However, I wasn’t able to confirm if she wanted to go public.”
The second victim, too, was an intern with the same judge, the website said. HT, however, could not confirm the claims or the allegations independently. The two women can’t be identified for legal reasons.
The excerpts uploaded on Legally India on Thursday quote the second intern as saying she was “at the receiving end of unsolicited sexual advance more than once”. Both the interns knew each other, the report claimed.
“…. we kept attributing all the signs of leeriness to our hypersensitivity... We discussed innocuously said off-colour remarks and dismissed their creepiness because we really respected him [the judge], and the possibility seemed at odds with everything we knew about him, his ideas about feminism, patriarchy, social justice...,” the website quoted from the second intern’s post.
The first intern had alleged that the judge had misbehaved with other women interns as well.
The second intern said as much. “In this case, we spoke to other women... and found out that there was a history to such behaviour.”
“We also alerted some female senior faculty to the incident so that they would ensure that no female student was assigned work with him without being told to be on her guard.”
The website further quotes her as saying “he promised, incidentally, that he would never misbehave with another lady. Maybe it’s naiveté to believe him. Maybe it’s just youthful optimism. Being brave is tougher than it appears on the face of it, no?”
The post then goes on say that the judge “lost his RA’s [research assistants] and got a dressing down from a 23-year-old which should have come from his father.
“Why deprive girls from the chance to work with an illustrious mind because the mind is a little sick? A guy who gets the task would get a savvy CV and a better job opp (opportunity). We didn’t want girls to be left at a disadvantage,” the post, as uploaded on Legally India, read.
Law student sexually harassed
by ex-Supreme Court judge: case is not unique, but speaking out is nearly
impossible
A law graduate who recently blogged about how a retired
Supreme Court judge sexually
assaulted her while she was his intern, says that the
problem is real and not uncommon amongst
the judiciary and senior bar but that she sees few if any
ways of tackling it.
Stella James, who graduated from NUJS Kolkata this year
and now works at the NGO Natural
Justice, Lawyers for Communities and the Environment,
wrote about an alleged incident of
physical, sexual assault by an unnamed, retired Supreme
Court judge in late 2012.
In a post that was published on the blog of the NUJS Journal of Indian
Law and Society on 6
November,
she wrote about trying to come to terms with her experience of 24 December
2012,
Christmas Eve, ironically against the backdrop of the
then-ongoing Delhi gang rape protests:
“In Delhi at that time, interning during the winter
vacations of my final year in University, I dodged
police barricades and fatigue to go to the assistance of a
highly reputed, recently retired Supreme
Court judge whom I was working under during my penultimate
semester. For my supposed
diligence, I was rewarded with sexual assault (not
physically injurious, but nevertheless
violating) from a man old enough to be my grandfather. I
won’t go into the gory details, but suffice
it to say that long after I’d left the room, the memory
remained, in fact, still remains, with me.”
“Frankly I was really shocked,” James tells Legally India in an interview today. “There’s this
thing:
a person who is a Supreme Court judge - you don’t expect a
Supreme Court judge to harass
somebody.”
However, she says that her experience was neither
uncommon, nor merely restricted to the
judiciary: “I’ve heard of three other cases [of sexual
harassment] by the same judge and I know of
at least four other girls who’ve faced harassment from
other judges - not perhaps as [bad as
mine]: most of them were in the chambers of the judge and
other people around, so it never gets
too bad.
“A girl I know faced continuous sexual harassment
throughout and sexual advances, and actually
faced troubles through her work because of it.” And she
says she’s heard of Supreme Court
senior counsel who have made passes at or have
continuously harassed interns for longer
periods.
And though it is barely, if at all, known outside legal
circles, it is a bit of an open secret or a “big
joke” within the profession, particularly among clerks and
women working in the Supreme Court,
according to James.
“People in the Supreme Court kind of know,” she says. “I
did my internship through the college
[recruitment process].” After beginning to share her
experience with others in college, however,
James found that others had also faced similar problems
with the same judge.
James’ reasons for not going public with the name of the
judge or not lodging a formal complaint
are complex, both morally and practically. On the one
hand, she wrote in the blog post:
“I bore, and still bear, no real ill-will towards the man,
and had no desire to put his life’s work and
reputation in question. On the other hand, I felt I had a
responsibility to ensure that other young
girls were not put in a similar situation. But I have been
unable to find a solution that allows that.
Despite the heated public debates, despite a vast army of
feminist vigilantes, despite new
criminal laws and sexual harassment laws, I have not found
closure. The lack of such an
alternative led to my facing a crippling sense of
intellectual and moral helplessness.”
“I’d worked for him for six months and he treated me
really well for six months and has been
really kind to me,” James explains. “It was rather strange
to me but I haven’t really forgiven him
for it… [But] I don’t know if I want to let myself - my
impression of him as a person - be entirely
dictated by that act… My leeway to him isn’t because he’s
had a shining career and all that - part
of it is that – [but] I’m not really sure I want to ruin
somebody’s entire life because of that.”
“Once it gets out in the open that he’s harassed other
girls,” James says, “people will only look at
him in that light.”
However, James admits that one other strong reason, which
was not really touched upon in her
blog post, was concern about whether legal action would
even have any effect. James had
managed to reach two of the other young women who were
harassed by the same judge but
neither were willing to come forward in public, mostly out
of fear. “They don’t really want to
jeopordise their careers,” James relates. “He’s a Supreme
Court judge. If it’s going to be his word
against our word, he’s got more credibility, so to speak,
of his words.”
And she adds that if she by herself had wanted to take
legal action, it would probably not have
been possible. “There were no other witnesses, it was just
me. It was a hotel room, [people] saw
me walking in voluntarily, saw me walking out very calmly.
I didn’t even walk out [with] fear. At
that moment I felt I needed to walk out very calmly. I
never mentioned anything the same day to
anybody.”
Apart from the evidentiary difficulty in proving the
crime, the more serious problem for lawyers is
perhaps inherent in the profession itself. James said she
had never heard of any official
harassment complaints within the legal profession or
against any judges. And while Legally India
understands that sexual harassment complaints are at times
made in law firms, most are handled
very delicately and quietly, with the firm encouraging
informal resolution.
In courts, it is even worse, speculates James, in that there
is usually no one you can realistically
complain to, unlike in a company or college structure
where harassed by a boss or lecturer, for
example, and where she would have taken formal action in a
similar incident. “Of course you can
file a criminal complaint [against a judge or lawyer] but
that’s a whole different level.” And it is
also likely to impact your career.
“I know a friend of mine who was sexually harassed at the
Karnataka high court,” says James.
That friend “wasn’t keeping it a secret” and telling
lawyer friends about why she left the job with
that senior, and for two months afterwards she wasn’t able
to find a job at the same court, being
asked about the incident in interviews after it dripped
through the court’s grapevine (she
eventually found a job after deciding to evade the issue
at interviews).
The mindset in such cases often is, “she created trouble
for him, she’ll create trouble for us”,
speculates James.
She says she was also skeptical about the Supreme Court’s recently started
sexual harassment
cell and
guidelines improving matters considerably. “It is often one person’s word
against another
person’s word, and a lot of people tend not to take the
word” of a young lawyer against a senior
advocate who’s made his reputation for 10 to 15 years. “There
is a balance of power thing going
on here.”
The only thing that James has been able to do, other than
write the blog, is discuss the incident
with members of her alma mater,
possibly de-listing the judge from the recruitment process so
that others are not exposed to similar experiences.
While James does feel that colleges have a responsibility
to protect their students, she
acknowledges that it could be difficult. The judge in
question has been closely associated with
her former college for a while by giving lectures and
regularly taking on research assistants, so
whether faculty can take unequivocal action is not
certain.
Nevertheless, James says that potentially recruitment
committees of colleges could make a
difference. “I think at least – there should be some way,
if not publicly then at least privately, kids
who go intern with a judge should know that this has
happened before.”
James says that she was able to come forward, albeit
without disclosing names, because of her
choice to work with an NGO with a possible view to
entering academia at some point in her
career.
“I was a little afraid,” she admits. “The other friends I’ve
spoken about, they are in positions where
these judges play an important role [at the Supreme Court
or teaching in a college and they] are
afraid of jeopardising their careers. I don’t have such
concerns here at Natural Justice - I have a
team that’s incredibly supportive, and three colleagues
were first to read the blog post [before
publication].
“For me, the great thing is that I’m in an organisation
where I know that if I come out in public
about it, we are 25 people, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have
the entire team behind me.”
That lawyers elsewhere are unlikely or unable to protect
their own from sexual harassment, is a
problem
the profession will have to deal with sooner rather than later.
Update 12 November: The Chief Justice of India has decided to institute a
three-member
judicial committee to probe the allegation.
JUDGE SENDING OBSCENE SMS TO WOMEN
Lucknow Taking cognisance of the
allegation against a civil Judge (junior division) of
Budaun court that he sent
obscene SMSes to a woman lecturer, the Registrar General of
Allahabad High Court today
sought a report from the district judge into the matter.
The civil judge of Gunnor
sub-division court of Budaun — Pramod Kumar Gangwar— was
accused of sending obscene SMSes
from his cellphone to a woman lecturer of Classic
College of Law, Bareilly. A
lecturer of the same college, Vivek Gupta, was named in the FIR
lodged by the victim while
Gangwar’s name surfaced in the primary investigation.
Registrar General Dinesh Gupta
said, “The district judge of Budaun has been asked to
send a detailed report into the
allegations. Appropriate action would be taken on the basis
of the report.”
District Judge Suresh Kumar
Srivastava said, “I have asked the Bareilly district police to
send a report about the matter.
The report on the basis of the police inquiry would be sent
to the Allahabad High Court
Registrar General.”
“I am not aware about the
matter, as the Bareilly police did not intimate me before initiating
the probe against the civil
judge. They should have informed me when they had received
any such complaint,” the judge
added.
Meanwhile, Bareilly CO II Raj
Kumar, who is investigating the case, today recorded the
statement of the victim. “I have
collected the call details of the cellphone used for sending
the SMSes, but I have yet to get
the address of the person who is subscriber of the SIM
card,” he said.
“The probe is on to verify if the
accused in the case were present on the location recorded
in the call details when the
SMSes were sent. The details of the findings of the
investigation would be sent to
the Budaun district court to seek the direction,” the CO
added.
Asked if the investigation was
earlier conducted into the matter, Raj Kumar said, “The SP
(Crime) had initiated probe into
the matter, but I am not aware if the investigation had
reached to any conclusion.”
The woman lecturer had lodged an
FIR at the Mahila police station on Thursday alleging
she had received obscene SMSes
on her cellphone involving her colleague Vivek Gupta.
The preliminary inquiry into the
case by the police yesterday had found that the mobile
phone used in the crime belongs
to the civil judge.
IB confirms Mysore Roost Resort sex scandal
The Intelligence Bureau has provided the Centre with a
detailed account of the escapade
involving three Karnataka High Court judges on November 3
in a resort on the outskirts of
Mysore, highly placed sources told The Times of India on
Friday.
According to a senior official, “Most of the information
sought has not only confirmed the veracity
of the incident but the government has crosschecked it
with another police agency. Both the
reports match.”
The incident was widely reported in the media. What has
surprised the Centre is the “dogged
refusal” of the Karnataka police to confirm the incident. “Mysore
Police Commissioner C.
Chandrasekhar first denied that the incident ever took
place. Only when a public notice was
issued through the high court registrar seeking
information on the Mysore scandal, did the facts
come out in the open. Public protest helped a lot,” says
the source.
What transpired at the resort, says the source, “cannot be
expected from anyone in civil society,
leave alone persons sworn to upholding the law”. According
to him, “The IB report consists of
unmentionable facts and also makes it amply clear that the
Mysore incident is not the first time
such things have happened. Can anyone expect upholders of
the law to pick a fight with people
who complained to the police when caught in a compromising
position?”
In a related development, Karnataka High Court Chief
Justice N.K. Jain has written to Chief
Justice of India Justice G.B. Pattanaik asking that three
judges be transferred. Jain has proposed
that Justice N.S. Veerabhadraiah be transferred to the
Patna High Court, Justice
Chandrasekharaiah to Jammu & Kashmir and Justice V.
Gopala Gowda to the Gauhati High
Court.
While Jain is understood not to have given any reasons,
highly placed sources say the proposal
for transfers is linked to the Mysore incident.
However, the source says that now the government is
worried about the appropriate “remedial
measures”. In such cases, transferring a judge to a remote
high court doesn’t always work. He
says, “Bar associations and the people of northeastern
states were up in arms when some
judges of the Punjab and Haryana high courts were
transferred there. We expect similar protests
if the CJI accepts Justice Jain’s proposal to transfer the
three judges of the Karnataka High
Court.”
The Bar Council of India on Friday, while expressing its
anguish at the Karnataka incident, called
for “follow-up action”.
“Unless prompt and appropriate action is taken, it will
erode the faith of public in the only
institution considered to be the bastion of our fighting
faith in democracy,” it said in a statement.
The BCI has “lamented” inaction in this case by “the
higher judiciary and the government”.
Read more: IB confirms Mysore sex scandal – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/IB-confirms-Mysore-sexscandal/articleshow/29801662.cms#ixzz1B7PtvFdU
Lokayukta: DC demanded sex from widow
In the midst of a national
outrage over former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore molesting a teenager,
the Karnataka Lokayukta on
Saturday made a startling revelation that the state government was
shielding a top bureaucrat who
had demanded sexual favours from a young widow.
Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde disclosed that the
official concerned, who was the deputy
commissioner of one of the districts when he demanded sex
from the widow in return for
discharging his duties as public servant, has since been
promoted to a senior position.
Justice Hegde, in the course of an interaction with
journalists at the Deccan Herald office
Saturday afternoon, said the unnamed widow had dared the
deputy commissioner and
approached the Lokayukta’s office with a complaint against
the officer.
On examination of the complaint, the Lokayukta had found
sufficient grounds to recommend to
the state government the suspension and prosecution of the
DC concerned. The
recommendation was subsequently considered by the
concerned department head as well as
the chief secretary and both endorsed it.
But, according to Justice Hegde, no action was initiated
against the DC as the same official who
had endorsed the recommendation subsequently found no
basis for initiating departmental action
against him. Instead, the official cleared the DC’s name
for promotion in the super-scale.
Presently, the official holds a senior position in the
government.
The widow, in her late 20s, had approached the DC with a
representation to sort out some
problems. But she was shocked when the DC demanded sex.
Justice Hegde did not identify the official in question or
the complainant. Nor did he offer to name
the district where the official was serving as deputy
commissioner. But the incident has
happened sometime in the course of last three years as
Justice Hegde took over as the
Lokayukta in mid-2006.
3-year jail term for ‘dirty’ judge
Family court judge Ramrao
Gangaram Bhise attempted to get sexual favours from a housewife in
1997
Family court judge Ramrao Gangaram Bhise’s attempts to
extract sexual favours, in addition to a
bribe, from a housewife, Alka Gaikwad — who had sought an
increase in her monthly
maintenance allowance from her estranged husband, in 1997 —
proved costly to him.
Pronouncing him guilty on both counts, the special court
hearing anti-corruption bureau (ACB)
matters sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment
and a collective fine of Rs55, 000,
on Monday.
According to the FIR in the case registered against Bhise
by the ACB, Suryakant Gaikwad had
filed for divorce from his wife, Alka, before the Bandra
family court. Alka, a housewife, in turn,
filed a petition seeking mutual cohabitation with her
husband. The then family court judge, Meera
Khadakkar, directed the husband to pay her an interim
maintenance allowance of Rs750 per
month.
Subsequently, in January 1997, Alka filed another
application before the same family court (now
presided over by Bhise) seeking to increase the monthly
maintenance amount to Rs3,500. “On
October 27, 1997, Bhise issued an interim order,
increasing the maintenance allowance to
Rs2,000 to be paid by Suryakan to his estranged wife till
the disposal of the case. Immediately
after issuing the order, Bhise asked Alka to meet him and
gave her his residential telephone
number, asking her to call him when the court hours ended.
He told her that he would ask her
husband to pay her a lump sum of Rs2 lakh in addition to
the monthly maintenance, provided she
called him up,” the FIR states.
When she called up the judge at 7 pm the same day, Bhise
told her that she would have to pay
him a sum of Rs2,000 in addition to granting his sexual
favours if she wanted an order in her
favour. He also directed her to meet him at the Haji Ali
bus stop with the bribe amount the
following evening.
“Alka approached the ACB, which sought permission from the
Chief Justice of the Bombay High
Court before laying a trap on the first class judicial
magistrate (Bhise). The HC while granting the
permission designated a court official to bear witness to
the events leading to the trap. Alka,
under video camera surveillance of ACB sleuths, along with
the court official and other women
witnesses met Bhise at 8.30 pm at the Haji Ali bus stop.
Bhise took hold of Alka’s wrist and when
she protested, repeated his demands,” the FIR states.
Alka was then taken to a nearby hotel, Sharda, where the
judge accepted the bribe amount. But
before he could do anything else, ACB sleuths swooped in
and arrested him.
Rajasthan judge is indicted for seeking
sexual favours
Chief Justice of India G B Pattanaik retires tonight and
he doesn’t have much to write home about
on the unprecedented drive he launched to enforce judicial
accountability.
After the PPSC scam fiasco, reported in The Indian Express
today, comes the case of the
Rajasthan judge who has been indicted in a sex scandal and
yet has escaped action—pending
another inquiry.
On December 14, a three-judge committee set up by
Pattanaik confirmed the ‘‘involvement’’ of
Justice Arun Madan of the Rajasthan High Court in a
proposition to a woman doctor to have sex
with him in exchange for a judicial favour.
The committee, headed by the Chief Justice of the Punjab
and Haryana High Court Justice B K
Roy, submitted its report to Pattanaik, indicting Madan on
a complaint made from Jodhpur by the
woman concerned, Sunita Malviya.
But Pattanaik has not announced any action against Madan.
When contacted by The Indian
Express, Pattanaik confirmed that the committee had
indicted Madan and his ‘‘bad reputation’’ in
seeking sexual favours in return for judicial ones.
However, Pattanaik said that no action was being taken
since the committee had also mentioned
allegations of corruption against Madan. And so he had
ordered a further inquiry by the same
committee into the corruption charges.
When asked what he did with the indictment of Madan in the
sex scandal, Pattanaik said, ‘‘That
is on hold because I could not have taken piecemeal action
against him….I am praying to God
that the final report will give some tangible material to
take action.’’
Highly placed sources told The Indian Express that when
the committee recorded statements last
week in Jodhpur of about 30 persons over four days, it
also came to know of several allegations
of corruption against Madan and another judge of the same
high court. The committee put these
on record as well.
Pattanaik said that when he summoned Madan to New Delhi
last week, he did not raise the sex
scandal issue and instead limited himself to saying that
he was ordering a further inquiry into
corruption allegations.
In effect, Pattanaik has now passed the Rajasthan buck to
his successor Justice V N Khare.
The gist of Malviya’s complaint is that Madan made a
sexual proposition to her in October
through a deputy registrar of the high court, Govind
Kalwani, who said that the judge would help
her, in turn, get out of a criminal case booked against
her.
With this, Pattanaik’s much-touted in-house judicial
accountability seems to have hit a wall. The
first committee’s report into the PPSC scam exonerated one
judge despite evidence and let two
others off with a mere slap on the wrist. The third
committee is now busy probing the involvement
of judges in the Mysore sex scam.
Ten reasons why criminals in khaki
get away
Siddharth Varadarajan
Behind every man like S.P.S. Rathore who abuses his
authority stand the generals and
footsoldiers who help and support him. We need to take
them all down.
S.P.S. Rathore, the criminal former top cop of Haryana,
may appear alone today but we must
never forget that he was able to get away with the sexual
molestation of a young child and the
illegal harassment of her family for 19 years because he
had hundreds of men who supported
him in his effort to evade justice.
The fact that these men – fellow police officers,
bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, judges, school
administrators – were willing to bend the system to
accommodate a man accused of molesting a
minor speaks volumes for the moral impoverishment of our
establishment and country. Decent
societies shun those involved in sexual offences against
children. Even criminals jailed for
`ordinary' crimes like murder treat those serving time for
molesting children as beyond the pale.
But in India, men like Rathore have their uses for their
masters, so the system circles its wagons
and protects them.
The CBI's appeal may lead to the enhancement of Rathore's
sentence and perhaps even the
slapping of abetment to suicide charges, since his young
victim killed herself to put an end to the
criminal intimidation her family was being subjected to by
Rathore and his men. But the systemic
rot which the case has exposed will not be remedied unless
sustained public pressure is put on
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P.
Chidambaram, two men who have
it in their power to push for simple remedies in the way
the Indian law enforcement and justice
delivery system works.
First, abolish the need for official, i.e. political
sanction to prosecute bureaucrats, policemen and
security forces personnel when they are accused of
committing crimes. The original intent behind
this built-in stay-out-of-jail card was to protect state
functionaries from acts done in the course of
discharging their duties in good faith. Somewhere along
the line, this has come to mean
protecting our custodians of law and order when they
murder innocent civilians (eg. the infamous
Panchalthan case in Kashmir where the trial of army men
indicted by the CBI for murdering five
villagers in 2000 still cannot take place because the
Central government will not grant
permission), or assault or molest women and children. No
civilised, democratic society grants
such impunity. It is disgusting to see former officials
and bureaucrats from Haryana saying how
they had wanted Rathore prosecuted but were prevented from
doing so because of pressure.
Such officials should either be made formally to testify
in a criminal case against the politicians
who so pressured them or they should themselves be hauled
up for perverting the course of
justice.
Second, stop talking about how making the police and army
answerable to the law will somehow
demoralise their morale. Does anybody care about the
morale of ordinary citizens any more? Or
the morale of upright police and army officers, who do not
think it is right for their colleagues to be
able to get away with criminal acts?
Third, bring an end to the cosy relationship between the
police and politicians. Rathore was
protected by four chief ministers of Haryana. He served
them and they served him by ensuring
his unfettered rise. It is absurd that the Indian Police
is still governed by a colonial-era Act dating
back to 1861. A number of commissions have made
recommendations for reforming the police
over the years; but no government or political party wants
to give up its ability to use and misuse
the
police for their own benefit
Fourth, ensure that police officers who abuse their
authority and engage in mala fide
prosecutions are dismissed from service and sentenced to
jail for a long period of time. Mr.
Chidambaram should use the considerable resources at his
command to find out who were the
policemen involved in filing 11 bogus cases against the
teenaged brother of the young girl
Rathore molested. He should then make sure criminal
proceedings are initiated against all of
them. The message must go out to every policeman in the
country: If you abuse the law at the
behest of a superior, you will suffer legal consequences.
Fifth, ensure that criminal charges against law
enforcement personnel are fast-tracked as a
matter of routine so that a powerful defendant is not able
to use his position to delay proceedings
the way Rathore did for years on end. The destruction or
disappearance of material evidence in
such cases must be treated as a grave offence with strict
criminal liability imposed on the
individual responsible for breaking the chain of custody.
Sixth, empower the National Human Rights Commission with
teeth so that police departments
and state governments cannot brush aside their orders as
happened in the Rathore case. This
would also require appointing to the NHRC women and men
who have a proven record of
defending human rights in their professional life,
something that is done today only in the breach.
The attitude of the Manmohan Singh government to this
commission and others like the National
Commission for Women (NCW) and National Commission for
Minorities is shocking. Vacancies
are not filled for months on end.
Seventh, ensure the early enactment of pending legislation
broadening the ambit of sexual
crimes, including sexual crimes against children. Between
rape, defined as forced penetrative
sex, and the vague, Victorian-era crime of `outraging the
modesty of a woman', the Indian Penal
Code recognises no other form of sexual violence. As a
result, all forms of sexual molestation
and assault short of rape attract fairly lenient
punishment, of the kind Rathore got. In his case, the
judge did not even hand down the maximum sentence, citing
concerns for the criminal's age.
Sadly, he did not take into account the age of the victim
and neither does the IPC, which fails to
distinguish between `outraging the modesty' of an adult
woman and a young child.
A draft law changing these provisions and bringing India
into line with the rest of the modern
world has been pending with the NCW and Law Ministry for
years. Perhaps the government may
now be shamed into pushing it through Parliament at the
earliest.
Eighth, take steps to introduce a system of protection of
witnesses and complainants. The fate
that the family of Rathore's young victim had to endure is
testament to the fact that people who
seek justice in India do so at their own peril.
Ninth, ensure that robust interrogation techniques like
narco-analysis, which are routinely used
against other alleged criminals, are also employed against
police officers accused of crimes.
Tenth, the media and the higher judiciary must also turn
the light inward and ask themselves
whether they were also derelict in their duty. The Rathore
case did not attract the kind of constant
media attention it deserved, nor do other cases involving
serving police officers accused of
crimes against women, workers, peasants and minorities. As
for the upper courts, their record is
too patchy to inspire confidence. It was, after all, the
high court which chose to disregard the
CBI's request for including abetment to suicide charges.
Keywords: Siddharth
Varadarajan, S.P.S. Rathore, criminals, khaki, former
DGP of
Haryana, custodians, sexual violence, NHRC
Porbandar judge accused of dowry
harassment
A complaint has been filed against District and Sessions
judge of Porbandar for allegedly
harassing his daughter-in-law for dowry, police said here
on Sunday.
Darshana Dave, a native of Amreli, has filed a complaint
against her husband Kinnar, father-inlaw
and district judge Arvind Dave, mother-in-law Pratibha and
brother-in-law Prashant, the
police added.
Darshana married Kinnar two years ago. Her complaint says
that she was harassed from the
beginning, and was even beaten up by the husband and
in-laws, who were demanding Rs 10
lakh as dowry.
She has also alleged that she was thrown out of the house
a few months back, and her husband
is now seeking divorce, the police said.
Amreli Superintendent of Police H R Muliyana confirmed to
have received the complaint against
the judge and others. He said that action will be taken
after verifying the complaint.
This is the second complaint related to dowry harassment
filed against a judge in the state in the
recent past.
Earlier, a woman had filed a complaint against additional
sessions judge of Jetpur after her
daughter and the judge's wife committed suicide.
Gurgaon judge to also face dowry
harassment charge
Gurgaon's Chief Judicial Magistrate Ravneet Garg, booked
for the murder of his wife, will also
face dowry harassment charge, police here said Monday.
Police have issued notices to the CJM's father K.K. Garg
and mother Rachna Garg, who have
also been named in the dowry harassment case.
The CJM's father reached here Monday morning from
Haryana's Panchkula town and contacted
police, who wanted to question him.
"We had called CJM's parents...K.K. Garg was
questioned by special investigation team (SIT),"
Gurgaon Police Commissioner Alok Mittal said.
Mittal said on the basis of written complaint filed by the
parents of the CJM's wife Geetanjali,
penal sections of dowry harassment and extra-marital
affair were included in the FIR lodged
against the CJM Saturday.
Geetanjali, 24, bore three bullet wounds - on her chin,
chest and stomach - but no bullets were
found in her body that was recovered here Thursday. The
CJM's licensed firearm was found near
the body, police said.
Mittal said two bullets were seized from the scene of
crime and would be sent for ballistic
examination Monday, a day after ballistic experts examined
the crime spot.
"The SIT Sunday questioned two women relatives of
Ravneet Garg for hours at his government
allotted house here in the Officers Colony," said
Mittal.
"We have asked CJM to produce supporting evidences to
prove his statement," he said.
The CJM allegedly said that his driver and domestic help
may throw some light on his wife's
death.
Judge Garg's in-laws alleged that two cars were provided
to the accused on his and his family's
demand. Rs.2 lakh were also delivered to him at the time
of the admission of his daughters in
school in May.
Geetanjali's brother Pradeep Aggarwal Saturday lodged a
first information report against Garg
and his parents, accusing them of murder.
"Ravneet and Geetanjali got married in November 2007.
Everything was fine for a few years but
the attitude of Ravneet and his parents towards Geetanjali
started changing after she delivered
two baby girls (now aged around four and a half and three
years)," Aggarwal said in his
complaint.
He demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) into his sister's murder.
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