Justice delayed

While handing life imprisonment to NDFB chief Ranjan Daimary and nine other members last month, the fast track special court judge had some harsh words for the Central and State governments. The 14 accused in the October 30 serial bomb blast case have spent the best part of their life, which is youth, as undertrials, so condemning to death row now will cause them ‘gross injustice’ — the court observed.

Failure to set up a special court immediately after the blasts came in the way of a speedy trial; after the CBI charge-sheeted 22 people in 2010, the trial began in 2011 but was fast tracked only in 2017. Further, the CBI and State government could not even appoint a public prosecutor to conduct this ‘rarest of rare’ case despite repeated orders of the trial court and Gauhati High Court.

Expressing ‘disgust’ at such apathy, the fast track court observed that the State now has ‘no right to take away the lives of the convicts’. The October 30 bomb strike was the worst terror attack Assam has so far suffered — 88 lives snuffed out for no cause in Guwahati, Kokrajhar and Barpeta, while the families of those killed and those badly maimed have been waging a grim battle for survival ever since. Nevertheless, we are not arguing for death penalty, though some victims and their kin might disagree.

After all, there has long been a debate in the country whether to keep the death penalty, when the list of countries abolishing it in law or in practice has been growing longer (around 170, according to UN; 142, claims Amnesty). While India has expanded the scope of capital punishment by providing death penalty for hijacking resulting in death and rape of child under age 12 years, it is a fact that the country has been going slow in actually carrying out executions. An Amnesty report has noted that 109 death sentences were handed down in India in 2017 (compared to 136 in 2016), but not a single execution was carried out in that year.

Rights activists argue that the prospect of hanging do not deter perpetrators of heinous crimes, but all too often, lawmakers and governments clutch on to capital punishment to show that they mean business in tackling crime. But such posturing comes at the cost of investigation that could have been improved, prosecution that could have been speeded up and effective support for victims’ families. Be as it may, even if the death penalty is not going to be jettisoned anytime soon in India, it would do well to keep in mind what the Supreme Court has been saying about tardy investigations.

In landmark cases like Hussainara Khatoon vs State of Bihar, Kartar Singh vs State of Punjab and Dilawar vs State of Haryana, the apex court has ruled that speedy investigation and trial should be an integral and essential part of the fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. In May last year, the apex court ticked off the CBI that inordinate delay in completing investigation may be taken as ‘presumptive proof of prejudice’, particularly when the accused is in custody, so that ‘prosecution does not become persecution’. In this context, the apex court observed that two things were needed — timeline for completing an investigation, and in-house oversight mechanism to fix accountability at different levels for adhering to the timeline.

In a State like Assam where police stations lack separate investigation wing while cops are mostly taken up with law and order duties, the number of investigating police officers is grossly inadequate, and forensic labs are provided with materials and manpower only at the court’s prodding — is it surprising if many investigations run aground and often fail to reach the trial stage? When even a Central agency like the CBI makes a hash of investigations, so that courts are unable to hand down convictions or the highest penalty — where can the victims turn to for justice? And we are not even talking about lengthy court proceedings! The suspicion that investigations can be fatally compromised by bribery and political pressure merely heaps insult onto injury.