FTN: Stray cases don't make a judiciary successful

Businessman Sanjeev Nanda was on Tuesday convicted by a Sessions Court and held guilty for mowing down six people in a BMW hit-and-run case of 1999.

Additional Sessions Judge, Vinod Kumar held Nanda guilty under section 304 (part 2), culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The court upheld testimony by the key witness Sunil Kulkarni that Nanda had backed his car carelessly after the accident, ruthlessly killing the survivors.

Six people had died as the drunken driver drove away. Nanda, grandson of a former Indian navy chief, later tried to destroy all evidence with the help of his co-passenger.

The verdict was reached out after a long drawn-out case which saw a lot of witnesses turn hostile, allegedly under the influence exercised by the powerful Nanda family.

The sentencing will take place on Wednesday and the heir to one of the richest families in the country now faces the prospect of spending the next 10 years of his life in jail.

And though Nanda's grandmother wept uncontrollably in the court insisting that her grandson was innocent, the court ploughed on determined that justice be done and delivered the 87-page order with a censure that the high-and-mighty should not hijack the system of justice by using their money, power and clout.

However, the Defence Lawyer, Ramesh Gupta had made an interesting comment on Tuesday, after the verdict was pronounced. He said: "I hope the media is now happy that he (Sanjeev Nanda) has been convicted and that justice has been done."

From his comment it seems as if television revolution is leading to a judicial revolution.

The question that was being debated on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation was: Sanjeev Nanda convicted: Is the law finally catching up with the influential? On the panel to debate the question were senior lawyer Harish Salve; Nitish Katara's mother Neelam Katara; and celebrity fashion designer Prasad Biddappa.

The Managing Editor of IBN 7, Ashutosh, held bay with CNN-IBN's Sagarika Ghose as the debate progressed.

The polls, when the show began, stood at 74 per cent viewers saying Yes the law was finally catching up with the influential and a small skeptical 26 per cent disagreeing.

Harish Salve in a first reaction to the judgment said, "Thank God. Justice horribly delayed but at least not denied. I have not read the judgment, but at least the trial has come to an end after nine tortuous years. See the state of disrepair in our country. A hit-and-run case required nine years to come to an end. I am sorry but I subscribe to the 26 per cent in your polls. Let us try and track down all the cases in all the courts involving Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies and see how many years their criminal trials have been pending."

That kind of tracking will show where we are headed, he added.

Recent Trends

A quick look at recent verdicts like the Jessica Lall case, the Priyadarshini Mattoo case and the Nitish Katara case, all seem to project that courts are sending out a strong message that the influential and arm-twisters in society cannot live in absentia of law.

Salve felt that the courts of the land were trying to do a job to the best of their ability but the problem lay in the fact that they were so hopelessly ill-equipped and under-staffed, that it snatches away time and the inclination of the witnesses to testify.

"All the malpractices come because the trials stretch on in this fashion. We need a more proactive system. The court is not sending out any message. It is the duty of the court to try everybody without fear or favour," he added.

"But at least when such verdicts come, people's faith is revived," Salve stated as an afterthought.

Neelam Katara - whose son Nitish Katara was murdered by Vikas Yadav, the son of an influential politician from Uttar Pradesh - felt that such cases are only the tip of the iceberg. The real chunk of cases not heard was beyond sight. Neelam had soldiered on to nail Vikas and his cousin Vishal for the murder of her son. Both have been pronounced guilty and Vikas Yadav has been awarded a life sentence.

Public, Media and Moral Pressure

Neelam felt it was heartening to know that the public had gathered a lot more confidence.

"People seem to gathering the nerve to go and fight their cases, they are empowered, but the delay in the courts takes the winds off the sails. Long-term reforms, a witness protection system and elimination of pointless adjournments are the need of the hour," she offered.

"Justice is not just a dream. For some poor people it is also a pipedream, a very far off thing. But the broad message is very encouraging," she stated.

However, with all the media exposure including sting operations - like in the BMW sting case showing collusion between the prosecution and the defence - the public seems to have become the jury. It seems as if the two combined - the media and the public - are speeding up processes and stepping up the delivery of justice.

IBN-7 Managing Editor, Ashutosh, while accepting that the media had become powerful and influential, also said that media was but a part of the civil society and therefore its role cannot be exaggerated.

He said that the media and the civil society were feeding off each other. The media in some cases may create a certain engine for justice by dubbing a case like Sanjeev Nanda's the classic case of the powerful versus poor labourers and policemen.

"This is what made the case seductive and drew attention. So justice was delivered," opined Ashutosh.

He said he felt that the media did not pressurise but only put a fear in the minds of the manipulators.

Unfair To Target Rich?

Some people are of the opinion that the rich and famous are unduly victimised by the system because of the media and public glare and that there is an urge to prosecute the accused from such stratum even more.

It seemed to many that there was a lacuna in the way the rich and influential brought up their children. However, Prasad Biddappa joined the debate at this point saying that not all children from that strata of society were spoilt brats.

"It is the rotten justice system that allows the few ones who misbehave to get away and that is where the overhaul is required," he said.

Bidappa said, "In Bina Ramani's case (who was a witness in the Jessica Lall murder case), it was that she really wasn't involved in any case that broke the law. She just got involved in a situation that was very, very difficult and the media did treat her rather shabbily. But she came out of it rather well."

"Cases like the BMW verdict are just a few stray ones. Most never see the light of the day. What about the lakhs displaced in Bihar because of one minister's callousness in fixing a dam? Who will bring him to book? The BMW verdict is justice delayed and too little too late," Biddappa added.

However, Harish Salve did not agree that the media was fuelling unfair activism or that the public was becoming a lynch mob. "If you love being on page three, you will also get on to page one," he warned.

"As far as the justice system goes, we do not have a jury trial, but a trial by judges which is on record and tested in appeals. In India, we do not have lay public sitting on trials and delivering lynch-mob kind of justice," he reminded.

It is also true that public prosecutors who want to do their duty make all the difference in the world. In the BMW case, things started to fall in place when Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan took over.

A Changed System

Given the fact that she has seen the justice system up close, Neelam Katara said that she would like to see certain changes.

"I want to see an independent investigating agency set up not just at the Central level but even at the state level, free of any other disconnected duties. I would like to see independent prosecutors being instated into the system, who are beyond the reach of the powerful manipulators. A time check is required and early deposition will bring about fearless deposition by the otherwise petrified witnesses," Neelam stated.

However, Harish Salve dismissed this as a wishlist which was not about to be fulfilled.

"The Supreme Court said that we need police reforms, but nothing has been done. The Supreme Court also said we need independent directorates of prosecution, but that has remained on paper for the want of resources. We need more judges, better salaries for judges, more court-rooms and a more serious investment in our justice delivery system," he said.

Salve had a grim diagnosis on the system. The vested interests in the society keep the system in a state of disrepair, he underlined.

"I make no bones in saying that the justice system has collapsed under the pressure of time. Nothing is wrong with the law and there is a vested interest in not rescuing the system," he added.

And the final question - that of whether the law was finally catching up with the high and mighty - seemed to have no definite answer except that there was a lot to do where the justice system was concerned and that it was a long way to go.

SMS/Web poll: Sanjeev Nanda convicted: Is the law finally catching up with the influential?

Yes: 72 per cent

No: 28 per cent

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