|
Juxtaposing Shame
Two cases showcase how justice in India is skewed along class lines
Anand Patwardhan
 Nothing
better illustrates the flaws in
India’s
legal and political system than a comparison of the treatment meted
out to Binayak Sen in Chhattisgarh and that enjoyed by State Reserve
Police Force (SRPF) Sub-Inspector Manohar Kadam in Mumbai.
After spending two
full years as an undertrial in a Chhattisgarh prison, Sen is out on
bail. A civil liberties activist, he was falsely accused of aiding
Naxalites primarily because he exposed atrocities committed by the
State through its ‘Salwa Judum’ campaign. The prosecution failed to
turn up any evidence against him while the State steadfastly denied
him bail without bothering to give reasons.
 Police
Sub-Inspector Manohar Kadam, on the other hand, was found guilty by
the government-appointed Gundewar Commission of being directly
responsible for an unjustified police firing that claimed the lives
of ten Dalits protesting the desecration of B.R. Ambedkar’s statue
at Ramabai Colony, Mumbai, in July 1997. Kadam remained a free man
as the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance ruling
Maharashtra
refused to take effective action on the commission’s findings. In
large measure for their anti-poor, anti-Dalit policies, these
right-wing political forces were defeated in the state elections and
a Congress-led alliance came to power in 1998. Despite pre-election
promises, this alliance also took no action.
In 2001, as a
result of two Dalit writ petitions, the Bombay High Court ordered an
end to the inaction. The government filed an FIR against Kadam, but
he was taken to hospital and then granted bail. Further proceedings
remained stalled for many more years though the police initiated new
‘rioting’ charges against the residents of Ramabai Colony, including
many who had been injured in the police firing, in a cynical attempt
to intimidate eyewitnesses. Despite these efforts, finally on May 5,
2009, a sessions court found Kadam guilty of culpable homicide and
sentenced him to life imprisonment.
|
In the last 12 years, after causing the death of 11 people,
Manohar Kadam has spent less than 48 hours in prison. Civil
liberties activist Binayak Sen spent two full years as an
undertrial in a Chhattisgarh prison before he was let out on
bail. The State steadfastly denied Sen bail without bothering to
give reasons. Kadam remained on bail even after his conviction. |
|
Kadam was whisked
off —not to jail but to a hospital. There he remained until a
vacation bench of the Bombay High Court granted him bail despite the
fact that he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In the last 12
years, after causing the death of 11 people, Kadam has spent less
than 48 hours in prison.
Let us revert to
Sen. In March 2009, at his trial in Chhattisgarh, Sen complained he
was suffering from a heart ailment. An angry judge ordered he be
returned to his cell. The next day, the judge relented and
authorised a doctor to examine him. Despite the doctor’s report that
Sen be sent to a Vellore hospital for further diagnosis and a
possible angioplasty, no action was taken. The reply to a Right to
Information (RTI) query reveals that the police had sought to
intimidate him and get him to modify his findings
 What
of our political system? After the Ramabai firing in 1997, Dalit
protests in various parts of Maharashtra led to many more deaths.
The poet, Vilas Ghogre, hanged himself not far from Ramabai Colony
to protest the firing. As Dalits throughout the state raised the
ante, the Congress and its allies saw an opportunity to defeat the
ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance. They publicly advocated punishing the
guilty police. Chhagan Bhujbal of the Nationalist Congress Party
spent long hours mourning with grieving relatives at Ramabai. After
the elections, he became home minister and was never seen at Ramabai
again.
A few days ago,
while arguing for Kadam’s bail, his advocate Raja Thackeray stated
in court that if Kadam was punished, no police officer would ever
obey an order to open fire for fear of legal reprisal. Would he have
said this if the police had been convicted of wrongfully killing
residents of Marine Drive or Malabar Hill? Most of those killed at
Ramabai were sanitation workers, domestic servants,
rickshaw-drivers, handcart-pullers and their relatives. Most of
Binayak Sen’s patients are poor adivasis. But for the massive
publicity his case received, it is clear that he, too, would have
suffered the fate of the powerless.
Such is the law of
this land.
(Anand Patwardhan
is a documentary filmmaker.)
1
July 2009
|
Read Also