The trial of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh will go down as the most sordid slur in the judicial history of India. From the trial court to the Supreme Court, the story of prejudging the accused was repeated over and over again with monotonous regularity. The defense Attorneys freted and fumed to make the presiding judges follow the law of the land but all their arguments were arbitrarily dismissed. None of the judges showed either the integrity or the courage to proceed in accordance with the established legal procedures even though these procedures stand corrupted to an extent that they provide hardly any opportunity to the accused to prove his innocence. The legal pundits will in time to come, describe Satwant and Kehar’s sentences as judicial murders.
The law in its present form is hopelessly inadequate to meet the ends of justice, especially in the context of complex and intricate human reactions and relations. The frequent additions and amendments in the code bear testimony to the deficiencies that plague the judicial system which is far from perfect.
The existing law provides that homicide is justified in self-defense. It also provides that in extenuating circumstances and in the face of sudden and grave provocation, homicide shall not attract the extreme penalty of death. But while awarding death sentences to Satwant and Kehar, the judges conveniently ignored these important provisions. Because of their jaundiced perception, they instead magnified out of all proportions the fact of bodyguards shooting down the person they were supposed to protect. They never for a moment paused to consider that Indira Gandhi had committed the most outrageous crime by attacking the holiest shrine of the Sikhs and killing thousands of innocent pilgrims, With a single diabolic stroke, she stood red in tooth and claw, a veritable reincarnation of Hitler.
For the Sikhs she became a dangerous criminal at large, out to destroy their identity, religion and all that was sacred to them. Her guilt was all the more offensive as she could not be legally proceeded against for the barbaric murders because of the inadequacy of the laws. It, therefore, became incumbent upon Beant Singh and Satwant Singh to perform the onerous duty of her execution. They in fact, did not commit a murder even within the definition of the Indian Penal code. They merely carried out a sentence that was collectively pronounced against her by the entire Sikh community. Their guilt, if at all it can be termed as guilt, is the guilt of an official executioner performing an unpleasant duty.
The manner in which their trial and their appeals were handled in various courts, from the bulletproof chambers in the high security Tihar jail to the Supreme Court, made a mockery of the judicial system. Who would call the trial a fair trial when important eyewitnesses like R.K. Dhawan were not allowed 10 be cross examined, when the report of Thakkar commission, set up to investigate the events attending Indira Gandhi’s murder, ‘was not made available even to the court, when the defense counsels were left with no option but to compulsively tread the dotted track marked by the prosecution itself, when the government inspired mobs had vitiated the climate with their revengeful murders and mayhem, when the media had prejudged and pronounced the accused guilty even before the trial formally began.
No judge, at any stage, considered it necessary to examine why ITBP guards opened fire on the unarmed Beant Singh and Satwant Singh after they had surrendered and taken into custody. Awarding death sentence to Kehar Singh on the basis of insufficient and vague circumstantial evidence is shockingly revolting. It is a vulgar exercise of vendetta which ill-behooves the exalted judicial portals. It is a crude reminder to the Sikhs of their slave-status in India. The bells have begun to toll for Satwant and Kehar. It is an ominous toll that forebodes disturbing tidings. Will the Sikhs take up the challenge or perish in humiliation? The choice should not be hard to make,
Article extracted from this publication >> October 21, 1988
