What is scandalous about Judge Loya's probe?
- Vinod Chand
If you want to understand what is scandalous about Judge Loya's probe, read on;
The first scandalous thing is that the lawyers who were defending Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Encounter Case became lawyers for Maharashtra Government to fight for stopping an inquiry into the death.
The second scandalous thing was that a person close to a top BJP leader moved a PIL in the Supreme Court and during the hearing instead of asking for a probe into the death turned into a litigant that was asking for stopping a probe into the death as by then it had dawned on him that the PIL that he had filed was based on hearsay and stories in a magazine.
The third scandalous thing was that the PIL by Bombay Lawyers Association was filed in Bombay High Court but was kept pending by the registry for several days and surreptitiously two PIL's were filed in the Supreme Court and immediately accepted leaving the Bombay Lawyers Association no option but to move their PIL to the Supreme Court.
The fourth scandalous thing has already been detailed by the four Supreme Court Judges in their unprecedented in history, press conference where they questioned the method of operation of the Supreme Court and the allotment of cases to benches that could give favorable orders.
The fifth scandalous thing was that Maharashtra Government commissioned a 'discrete inquiry' by a Police Officer, which was completed in a matter of days and which became the main document relied on by the Supreme Court even though neither the inquiry report nor the statements given by any of those who had been supposedly interrogated by the said senior police officer came on affidavit. They just made plain statements as ordinary citizens and not under oath. This has set very dangerous precedents for the justice delivery system. The scandalous thing is that would all courts now accept plain statements not made under oath as acceptable on record in any / all cases?
The sixth scandalous thing was that no person who had been subjected to an inquiry by the Police Officer was called for questioning by the court or allowed to be cross questioned even when repeated requests were made by the petitioners, Bombay Lawyers Association through their lawyer Dushyant Dave.
The seventh scandalous thing was that the petitioners were denied copies of post mortem and ECG reports during the hearing of the case.
The biggest scandal is that the mere words of some persons who did not even come to the Supreme Court on oath were accepted as gospel truth due to the position that they held as judges in Bombay High Court and subordinate courts.
The rejection of Judge Loya's death probe request will go down as probably the darkest hour in the history of free and modern India. We have hit the nadir, the lowest point. Our whole justice system now seems to resemble a scandal. It looks like that all established judicial procedures have been set aside to save the skin of one person and in doing that justice has been denied.
If people don't wake up to this reality, there is hardly any hope left for the country.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Kerala HC upholds death sentence in 2016 Dalit law student rape-murder case
Kochi (PTI): The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence given by a sessions court to the perpetrator, Ameerul Islam, in the 2016 rape and murder of a 30-year-old Dalit law student in the state.
A division bench of the high court upheld the death penalty, dismissing the appeal filed by the convict challenging the sessions court verdict. The confirmation of the capital punishment was also made based on the death sentence reference from the sessions court.
Islam was charged with raping and murdering the woman at Perumbavoor on April 28, 2016.
He brutally assaulted the woman, who hailed from a poor family, using sharp-edged weapons before murdering her at her house.
In 2017, the Ernakulam Principal Sessions court awarded the death penalty to Islam, a migrant labourer from Assam, for committing the murder.
Islam was found guilty by the sessions court under various sections of the IPC, including 449 (house trespass to commit an offence punishable with death), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 302 (murder), 376 (rape), and 376 (A) (causing death or causing the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state while committing rape).
The Special Investigation Team that probed the case used DNA technology and verification of call record details to prove Islam's role in the crime.
Islam, who had left Perumbavoor soon after committing the crime, was arrested from Kancheepuram in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, 50 days after he committed the gruesome crime.
More than 100 police personnel questioned over 1,500 people in the case.
Fingerprints of over 5,000 people were also examined by the SIT personnel, who went through over 20 lakh telephonic conversations before tracing Islam.
