An Indian Bureaucrat's Diary » Miscarriage of Justice

Supreme Court errrs not once, twice, but thrice

Binoy Gupta — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:51:26 +0000

The Supreme Court of India errs – not once, twice, but thrice.
It takes the Supreme Court a fourth attempt to get it right.
Supreme Court of India New Delhi, April 22, 2010

From the highest to the lowest, from the most intelligent to the greatest duffer on earth, any one can make mistakes.
Most of us do make mistakes.

After all, to err is human.
But to accept a mistake and correct it is divine.

In this glaring case of unprecedented injustice, the Supreme Court Judges made serious mistakes, not once, but three times. As a result, three innocent persons languished in jail for several months.

October 1991

In October 1991, a Sessions Court in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh convicted Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir (along with four others - Sugar Singh, Laxman, Onkar and Ramesh) and sentenced them to 6 years imprisonment on charges of rioting and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

January 2003

The eight convicts appealed to the Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court In January 2003, the High Court acquitted all the accused.

The Madhya Pradesh Government accepted the acquittal of Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir; but filed appeal before the Supreme Court against the acquittal of the other four.

November 7, 2008

A bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker and L.S. Panta set aside the High Court order and held all the eight accused guilty in the case, even though

The Madhya Pradesh High Court had acquitted Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir;
The Madhya Pradesh Government had accepted the verdict and had not filed any appeal against it, and
The issue relating to these four persons – Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir – was not before the Supreme Court (Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir were not even parties to the case).

Bhoja, Pooran and Balvir surrendered and were put back inside the jail.

March 9, 2010

Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir filed a review petition for reconsideration of the matter. The matter went to the same bench, which through another quirk of fate, released the four other persons instead of Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir.

April 20, 2010

On April 20, Aftab Ali Khan, Advocate for the four accused pointed out the mistake to a bench comprising of the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and three senior most judges, Justices S H Kapadia, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran. The Bench promised to examine the matter in May.

April 22, 2010

This matter was widely reported by the media.
In an unprecended move, the Bench comprising of the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and three senior most judges, Justices S H Kapadia, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran, convened on an urgent basis, called the lawyers and passed order “acquitting” Bhoja, Puran and Balbir, who had been languishing in jail due to two wrong consecutive orders passed by the Supreme Court in November 2008 and March 2010.

My humble request

At last a serious error has been corrected and justice has been done to the accused. Or has it been done ?

** Was it not the duty of the Govt. prosecution to point out on each occasion that the courts orders were wrong, that wrong persons were being sent to jail ?

*** Was it not the duty of the Judges to do their home work ?

*** Was it not the duty of the Present Bench of the Supreme Court to award damages on their own ?

Do the Supreme Court judges really expect the poor accused to engage in one more round of litigation for damages. Would they have the money and energy to file a case at all.

The Supreme Court should have been magnanimous to award damages to the wronged persons. They can pay such damages from the funds of the Supreme Court or direct the Govt. to pay the same.

But in my humble view, the Supreme Court should award the damages.
That is the least they can do now to rectify all the wrongs done.

Dr. Binoy Gupta, Retd. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Chennai

Haryana ex-DGP S P S Rathore Convicted

Binoy Gupta — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:07:52 +0000

It took the legal system 19 years and 400 hearings

to convict and sentence the former DGP to 6

months imprisonment and fine of Rs. 1000 for

molesting a teen……..who was driven to commit

suicide

S S Rathore, (who retired as Director General of Police, Haryana) then a senior police officer and President of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association molested Ruchika Girhotra, a 14-year-old tennis player in August 1990. She committed suicide in 1993.The following is the sequence of events:

AUG 11, 1990
S S Rathore, then Deputy Inspector General of Police, Haryana and President of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association visits Ruchika Girhotra’s house at noon.
He persuades her father, S C Girhotra, a bank manager, not to send Ruchika to Canada.
Promises special training for the teenager.
Asks her father to tell Ruchika to visit his office-cum residence the next day.

AUG 12, 1990
Ruchika and her friend Aradhana visit Rathore’s office-cum-residence in Panchkula (10 km from Chandigarh).
Rathore asks Aradhana to fetch the coach.
Aradhana returns to find Rathore molesting Ruchika.
On seeing her, Rathore lets go Ruchika, who rushes out of the room.
Rathore asks Aradhana to talk to Ruchika and that “he would do whatever she would say”.
Considering Rathore’s powerful position, the two teen age girls decide not to talk about the incident to their parents,

AUG 14, 1990
Ruchika and Aradhana go to the tennis court.
Rathore calls Ruchika again to his office.
This time, the girls decide to share it with the parents.
Ruchika confides in Aradhana’s mother, Madhu Parkash.

AUG 15, 1990
Both families, along with parents of other trainees of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association hand over a written complaint to Home Secretary J S Duggal.
The Chief Minister marks it to then DGP R R Singh.

AUG 26, 1990
The DGP summons Rathore.
In retaliation, Rathore arranges 45-50 hoodlums who raise slogans against Ruchika and smash the window panes of her house.

SEPT 3, 1990
DGP’s report finds the allegations true, recommends registration of case and investigation by CID.

MARCH 11, 1991
Change of government brings in a new DGP, RK Hooda,
He too recommends departmental action against Rathore.1992
Government agrees that an FIR can be registered against Rathore.
The case is transferred to the Chief Secretary.

AUG 12, 1992
First of the six auto theft FIRs is registered against Ruchika’s brother, Ashu.

OCT 23, 1993
Ruchika’s brother, Ashu is arrested, kept in custody for two months.
He is beaten up in custody and one day taken to his house, where Ruchika is told that her father would meet the same fate if she did not withdraw the complaint.

DEC 28, 1993
Ruchika consumes poison, dies next day.
Her brother Ashu is released.JAN 1994
Government withdraws all charges against Rathore.

APRIL 1997
Ruchika’s brother Ashu is discharged from all theft cases.

NOV 1997
Aradhana’s mother files a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
A year later, the High Court directs CBI to conduct an inquiry.DEC 1999
The Supreme Court upholds the order of High Court.

JAN 2000
The CBI files charge sheet against Rathore, recommends his removal in the interest of “free and fair deposition”.

JULY 2002
Rathore retires as DGP.

NOV 2009
The Case is transferred to CBI Chandigarh.

DEC 11, 2009
On Monday, 21^st December 2009 the special CBI court in Chandigarh sentences , S.P.S. Rathore to six months imprisonment and fine of Rs. 1,000.

The family was harassed so much that after Ruchika’s deatgm it shifted from Panchkula to an undisclosed location.

Authors note

Ø What is surprising is that not only successive governments did not take any action against Rathore, but promoted him.

Ø During the pendency of the case, Rathore was promoted by successive governments in Haryana, till he became DGP and retired in 2002 as the Director General of Police.

Ø He was also awarded the Police Medal in 1985.

Ø According to Lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj, who has been fighting the case free of cost for the last 13 years. “Rathore’s atrocities over Ruchika’s family forced the innocent girl to commit suicide”.

Ø Only now the Home ministry has issued show cause notices on S.P.S. Rathore, in an attempt to strip off the medal and also for reduction of his pension owing to the gruesome crime he committed.

Chief Justice of India

I hate people who are now saying that they tried to help in the case, but at that time remained silent spectators.They could then have leaked the information to the media and appropriate action would have been taken.

Does not this case call for suo moto action ?

This is my humble request to you..

Dr. Binoy Gupta
Retd. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax

Capital Punishment

Binoy Gupta — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:48:14 +0000

Hanged….what if he was innocent Capital Punishment is an extremely controversial subject.
When ever a heinous crime is committed which enrages the general public, the outrage is understandingly very strong calling for the capital punishment.All countries in the world had capital punishment in their legal systems.
But most of them are abolishing it.

Britain had capital punishment for more than 200 offences – including some extremely trivial offences.
Two centuries ago, in 1808, Sir Samuel Romilly introduced reforms to abolish the death penalty for some of the capital offences in what he termed England’s “Bloody Code”.
Finally, the entire European Union totally abolished capital punishment for all offences.

Today, 135 countries have abolished the death penalty, in law or practice.
In 2006, 1591 persons were executed in 25 countries.
Unfotunately, 91 per cent of these executions were carried out in six countries – China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA.

Apart from the unfortunate fact, that time and again, innocent persons have been convicted, and even executed, there is no evidence to show that execution has ever deterred crime.
It is surprising that even today USA, Japan and even India have retained capital punishment.

Hon’ble Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court is convinced that India in its penological reform from Macaulay to Mahatma will wipe out the bloodstained sentence of judicial verdict.

I have done considerable study of this subject.
I have written a book Hanged ….What if he was Innocent
which is being published through Booksurge of U.S., a subsidiary
of Amazon.com in September 2009.

This book is a fictionalised study of our more than two centuries experimentation with capital punishment – packed with facts and laws. You can not come to a correct conclusion about the correctness of capital punishment unless you know the facts …………………….

This book is a mine of factual information about Capital Punishment.
Read it and arrive at your own conclusion.

An Indian Bureaucrat's Diary » Miscarriage of Justice

Supreme Court errrs not once, twice, but thrice

Haryana ex-DGP S P S Rathore Convicted

It took the legal system 19 years and 400 hearings to convict and sentence the former DGP to 6 months imprisonment and fine of Rs. 1000 for

Capital Punishment

It took the legal system 19 years and 400 hearings

to convict and sentence the former DGP to 6

months imprisonment and fine of Rs. 1000 for