Sunday, July 29, 2007

Supreme Court: Wrong precedents

First it was Mohammed Afzal, where the Supreme Court gave him death penalty only to satisfy the ‘collective conscience of the society’.

Now, it is conviction of a B C Deva for raping a girl even though ‘no medical evidence’ suggested there was a rape, and even though the only witness or testimonial is that of this 16-year old girl. Here is what our esteemed Supreme Court has to say:

‘‘Though the report of the gynaecologist pertaining to medical examination of the victim does not disclose any evidence of sexual intercourse, yet even in the absence of any corroboration of medical evidence, her oral testimony, which is found to be cogent, reliable, convincing and trustworthy, has to be accepted.’’

Hmm… sounds dangerous!

So, all you need is a good actor who is so good at acting that they appear ‘cogent, reliable, convincing and trustworthy’ and that testimonial will be accepted by the Supreme Court of India to convict someone.

Such precedents, ‘capital punishment to satisfy national conscience’ and ‘conviction based on oral testimony of the victim without any forensic evidence’, cast a doom for judicial system in this country.

What is to stop a young girl to take revenge on a man? Or parents with a young daughter to take revenge on another man? All she needs to do is say that she got raped, and then be ‘cogent and convincing’. That’s all. No evidence, no other witness and no medical examination need to prove it. The man is now convicted! Wow! What a shame!

The modern judicial system is based on the idea 'it is better that 1000 guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned'. And what are we doing here?

May be, its time to cut off man's penises when any woman shouts 'Rape!'


12 comments:

  1. You are missing a fact here. She jumped into a well immediately after the incident, and had to be rescued.

    If someone is willing to take such a big chance with life just to frame someone, that kind of person can even find some false witness and make other evidence.

    If there was no suicide attempt, the court might not have given the same verdict.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anjali:
    Lot of people do lot of things for lot of reasons.

    In the movie: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the alleged victim (a white woman who tries to seduce a black man for sex) is spurned by the alleged perpetrator. The scene is seen by the father of the girl who beats her up black and blue. The signs of this beating is shown as signs of brutality (by the black man).

    We DO NOT KNOW what happened. We need to accept that we DO NOT KNOW.

    May be, the girl asked the man for sex, got refused, and jumped in a well. May be, the man spurned her while she was coaxing him, the family of parents saw her, beat her up, and therefore she jumped into a well to save herself from disgrace. May be, the girl had an affair, the boy refused to marry her, she jumped into the well in anger. Later when parents asked her why she jumped, may be she made up a story to cast herself as a victim.

    What I am trying to say- is that WE DO NOT KNOW.

    Anything could have happened. Her jumping into well is not directly causal to her getting raped.

    Unless that causality is established, the alleged perpetrator cannot be blamed for the action she committed (that she jumped into the well). Was she pushed?

    Nobody knows. That's a good enough reason NOT to convict someone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clearly, you have NO clue what a rape means.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous:
    May be, you can teach us what RAPE means then!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Given the mediocre way we handle everything in our country, why should we expect anything better from these men in black robes? These two bad precedents are just the latest in a long series.

    My father is a lawyer. He says that so many judges don't even know the law!! Let alone have the ability to interpret it. Corruption is also rampant at ALL levels of the Indian judiciary.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What about Sanju Baba? Poor him. He was given this sentence because he is a celebrity. It is same as how Paris Hilton was sentenced in such a harsh way just because her last name is Hilton. Poor her.

    Sujai: Do you ever get to sleep at night? Poor you, there is so much going on in this world for you to worry about.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sujai:

    To the best of my knowledge, supreme court judgments are never in one liners as you have quoted here. 500+ pages is quite normal. I wonder on what basis you have concluded that your quote is the crux of supreme court's argument. Have you read the judgment or even the context of the quote?

    I do not mean to say that supreme court is infalliable. But it certainly has more information on this case than you or me. The least one would expect from a critic is to read the judgment, however such niceties rarely bother a professional intellectual.

    This is the biggest price of presenting oneself as a professional intellectual. You are obliged to have an opinion on everything from politics to string theory without having the humility to recognize that some issues may simply be beyond your competence.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sanjay:
    You are right. Supreme Court judgments are never one-liners.

    In the same way, none of the things that we hear about in news are one-liners. Either it is increase in tax in yearly budgets, or increase in reservations for OBCs, or compensation plan for farmers.

    However, we don't seem to read the entire 1000-page manuscript before we start commenting on increase in reservations, nor do we read the entire yearly budget before commenting on increase in taxes.

    Most often, these one-liners provide the gist.

    In these two cases, Supreme Court in its final verdict clearly mentioned that they do not have any other evidence other than the oral testimony. Is that not good enough to know where this is all going?

    'to satisfy collective conscience' is what Supreme Court said for awarding death penalty to Mohammed Afzal. If you want the detailed analysis of this verdict, a lady named Arundhati Roy has written copious amounts in OUTLOOK magazine.

    Yes, of course, if I am challenging this decision in a court, which would be then be my full-time job, I would definitely read the entire report. If I were challenging the Finance Minister in a court against his increase in taxes, I would be reading the entire budget report on that taxation.

    I am NOT doing that right now.

    If you are expecting that people should read every line of Einstein's Theory of Relativity before having an opinion on it... Hmm... that leaves us with no opinions!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, if someone who had read high school physics started commenting on Einstein's theory based on what he read about it in a popular magazine, then we are certainly left with no opinions.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sanjay:
    Yes, you are absolutely right. BUT if I read a column on Theory of Relativity written by a high school student it would show; and I wouldn't waste my time writing a comment or a reply to it ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sanjay:
    AND even if I did comment on it,
    I would point out the glaring flaws in his argument by providing the correct view.

    BUT I would NOT say 'You should read the ENTIRE theory of relativity before you can even starting writing your opinions'

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. clearly from evidence one can deduce rape has been committed or not but our esteemed s.court has laid bench mark that medical evidence is not necessary then why medical examination is conducted a lot of cases where possible inter caste marriages have been converted to rape the parents who force the girls to change her testimony are the reason for number of increasing rape cases and first they project her to be minor many a times openly in evidence the girl has 25 versions and still our esteemed courts pick whats needed for conviction the very fabric of indian society is undergoing sea change and many cases have come where media has exposed this phenomenon.

    i myself am a victim a girl who was a major forced me to elope or she would commit suicide we went to bangalore 1700 kms away she stayed for ten days with me prior to that we had sex consented sex and police did catch us at tumkur near bangalore and brought us back two days she was kept in police station and pressurised by the cops and her family to testify against me then handed over to the family and six days later she testifies against every step police wa with the family of prosecutrix and helping them

    85% cases are where its consented sex which is turned to rape for the convinience of police and relatives of the girl its disgusting

    lie detector test is a must and the truth will be out

    ReplyDelete

Dear Commenters:
Please identify yourself. At least use a pseudonym. Otherwise there will be too many *Anonymous*; making it confusing.

Do NOT write personal information or whereabouts about the author or other commenters. You are free to write about yourself. Please do not use abusive language. Do not indulge in personal attacks and insults.

Write comments which are relevant and make sense so that the debate remains healthy.