Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Priyadarsini Mattu Murder- Judgment

So the Delhi High court awarded a death sentence for the accused in Priyadarsini Mattu murder case. Let the argument on the legal and humanitarian aspects of capital punishment be set aside. What struck me was the acquittal of the session’s court and the high courts criticism on that judgment.
I have serious doubts regarding the ‘justice’ delivered by many courts. Any one will have. Remember the Jessica Lal case, the Self financing case, the Coca cola case,,,,. Are the courts- at least some of them – judging impartially?
The judiciary is highly privileged. The number one is that people think (or made to think) the judges are immortals straight from the skies having no human errors, no partisan in their hearts, never affected by emotions or temptations. I don’t think so, not because I think that there can be no one with all those virtues, but I think it is unlikely that all those superior souls are automatically grown to become judges and the rest of people took an LLB eventually perish in between.
The privilege number two is that they are not answerable, not even to those victims of their misjudgment. Here in the above case the higher court have criticized the session’s judgment. So is the high court going to punish the session’s judge, or is the prosecution going to sue her/him? Never! Why? Suppose a Doctor fails in her surgery, the next place she sees herself will be in the consumer court. Same will be the fate of an engineer who built a collapsed building. But no one asks a judge who made a wrong judgment. While making the judgment if the judge feels so much embarrassed on her act, she can add a few words like ‘the prosecution have failed to produce adequate evidence’ that clears everything.
I have a few lawyer friends. All of then personally admits that things are not like we think about it. So who dares to tell these loud in public? Don’t be foolish, there is something called ‘Contempt of court’. You dare and be the state guest, with free food and accommodation at some jail in remand. Who knows if I wake up next day to the knock of police with an arrest warrant?

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