Two recent events have shown that the Indian judiciary is no better than the other pillars of the Indian state. In the first incident, Rajan Pillai, a noted industrialist died in Indian judicial custody. He joined hundreds of other who routinely meet this fate in that country. The other incident pertains to the granting of and interim bail to a youth Congress (I) leader involved in a heinous crime. In both the cases, the judiciary played a key role. Pillai was a former chairman of Britania Industries. He faced serious charges in Singapore on account of fraud, running into millions of dollars. He fled that country and reached India when the verdict in the case was about to be pronounced. It was Pillai’s contention that he expected no justice from the Singapore court. He was willing to be tried in India. He had been running from pillar to post seeking bail since March as he faced extradition proceedings from a court in Delhi. Finally, last week, he was arrested by the Delhi police or, perhaps, he surrendered before it. He was produced before extradition judge M.L. Mehta. Pillai requested the court for his medical examination as he had been suffering from a serious liver ailment. The request was refused even as the industrialist had offered to meet the expenses of his examination. He was sent to Tihar jail where he died of the same ailment for want of timely medical help. The judge described the death as “most unfortunate” and defended his refusal to allow medical examination as he decided on the basis of the material on record. Must each ailment have a past record? In any case, it has been described as a murder. Pillai’s cremation in Kerala, according to media reports, was attended by 20,000 people. These people were no sympathizers of Pillar’s financial misdeeds, if any. But they showed their anger against the denial of elementary human rights by the Indian state to a businessman from Kerala. In the second incident, Sushil Sharma allegedly killed his wife, Naina Sahni, in a brutal manner and tried to dispose of the body by burning it in a hotel oven in Delhi. A vigilant Muslim policeman became suspicious, discovered the crime and retrieved the half burnt body of the woman. Sharma fled from the scene and moved through his influential contacts a court in Madras to get an interim bail. The bail in a murder case without notice to the prosecution is rare.
But Sharma did the miracle. It is a different matter that the Madras high court later cancelled the bail and Sharma had to surrender to the police at Bangalore, a thousand miles away from the place of murder.
A lot of media comments on the two incidents have been published. An indisputable fact emerges from these incidents namely that India’s judicial system is as rotten as the other wings of this so-called democracy. Hundreds of persons die every year in custody in the country. The judiciary is supposed to look after and oversee the police stations and jails but they rarely perform the assigned functions. In the instance of the first case, the judiciary itself is guilty of nothing short of murder of Pillai, who merely sought access to a hospital while in custody, was denied this basic human right and died.
The other case is even more telling. A district judge grants bail to ruling party’s politician involved in a heinous crime. That judge’s case is pending for promotion as judge of high court, Most judges in India are beholden to the men like Sushil Sharma who put in a word and got the judges appointed to high position in the judiciary. Sushil’s is no isolated case. Men like him operate almost in every town and in every settlement. They are law unto themselves. There is no punishment for them even for worse crimes, a vigilant policeman discovered the crime but how many such cases go undiscovered? Legions.
The incident clearly reveals the vast criminalization of India’s polity. Thousands of Sikhs in 1984 were killed when Sushil Sharmas were on the prow. Not one of them has been punished so far. The criminalization is not limited to the politicians of the ruling party. The R.S.S. and the B.J.P. men kill thousands of Muslims every year and the “long arm” of the law has never Teached them. Why talk of the politically alone. Even petty industrialists are often heard in India of giving threats to their workers that they would be roasted alive ina mill chimney and many are actually done away with. These crimes are committed because the criminals are shielded by the Indian state including its judiciary. The true nature of India as the largest democracy in the world stands exposed yet again.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 14, 1995
