Trials & Investigation in India-A mockery of law

If the curious case of the dog that didn't bark at night had been investigated in India, chances are the canine would turn into a mouse, then night would have become day and finally, that there is no case at all. The twists and turns in the Ruchika Girhotra case would be laughable if it were not so tragic. From the start, the criminal justice system has worked to protect the powerful and penalise the victim. We now gather that the 14-year-old child who committed suicide after being molested by former Haryana Director General of Police S.P.S. Rathore never really stood a chance at getting justice. Her autopsy report was allegedly doctored to show that she died of an overdose of slimming pills, many records related to the case have disappeared and, now in the end, the accused has got away with a mere six-month jail term.

 

This case is not unique in demonstrating the complete mockery that has been made of forensics and investigation in this country. Witnesses often change their testimonies with no fear of perjury charges. In the infamous BMW case, the killer car suddenly became a truck. In the Hemant Karkare case, his bullet-proof jacket appears to have acquired a life of its own. And making a farce of the judicial proceedings, we have Ajmal Kasab who transforms from Bollywood aspirant to short-order cook to an innocent bystander by the day. This casts doubts on the whole system in which people had reposed such faith given the decline in other institutions. And this has also opened the floodgates for what could become a dangerous form of public vigilantism. There is no doubt that there was a miscarriage of justice in cases like that of Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo. But if there is a case for the powerful keeping their hands off the legal system, there is equally a case for the public to respect the sanctity of the law.

 

Unfortunately, today many have come to believe that only public pressure will bring the guilty to book. There has to be a thorough overhaul of the procedures that lead up to framing a case. From gathering forensic evidence to interrogating suspects, the whole approach seems shambolic and worthy of the keystone cops. This has led to demands for retrials and reopening of cases that should be permitted only in the rarest of rare cases. And, of course, such public pressure can only work in very few cases, the rest, whether miscarriages or not, fall through the cracks. If the judicial system on which the very foundations of democracy rest shows such alarming cracks, we are going down the slippery slope to anarchy.