- Manoj Mitta (Times of India)
What if Sita hadn’t crossed the lakshman rekha? There are two possible answers. One is of course that Sita would not have been kidnapped. But then, as a corollary, Ravan would not have been killed either. The Supreme Court cited the latter logic on Thursday while justifying its decision to continue monitoring the 2G investigation even after chargesheets had been filed in the trial court. In contrast, just a few days earlier, a larger bench of the same court upheld the inviolability of the lakshman rekha even before any chargesheet had been filed on the complaint against Narendra Modi.
In the span of a fortnight, the Supreme Court has come up with conflicting approaches to corruption and communal violence. While it has been goading the CBI to spare none of the culprits in the 2G scam, the apex court showed more concern about ensuring fair trial than about making the Modi regime accountable for the Gujarat carnage. The activist zeal involved in transgressing the lakshman rekha to kill Ravan, much as it is evident in the corruption case, is conspicuously absent in the communal violence case.
The UPA government tried to scuttle the Supreme Court’s monitoring of the 2G probe by citing, ironically enough, the precedent set in the Modi case. The two-judge bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi, however, clarified that it would not allow the lakshman rekha to come in the way of monitoring the remaining aspects of investigation and insulating the trial from extraneous pressures. In one such bona fide transgression of the lakshman rekha, the Singhvi bench attacked the covert attempt to undermine the trial by bringing in the telecom regulatory authority’s assessment of a zero loss in the spectrum allocation.
On the other hand, the three-judge bench headed by Justice D K Jain ended up taking an ultra conservative view of the lakshman rekha of monitoring in the Modi case. Yet, its September 12 judgment, directing the special investigation team (SIT) to file a final report before an Ahmedabad magistrate, is bristling with legal anomalies. To begin with, it was an SIT probe initiated by the Supreme Court in April 2009 into Zakia Jafri’s complaint against Modi and 61 others. The so-called “preliminary enquiry” into the big picture of the 2002 riots stretched for over 13 months. Then, in a surreptitious move, it suddenly transformed into “further investigation” of the Gulberg massacre in which Zakia had lost her husband.
The opacity and inconsistencies of the Jain bench are most evident from its handling of the two reports given by its amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, who had been appointed to give impartial advice. When Ramachandran gave his “preliminary note” in January 2011 on the first two reports of the SIT, the Supreme Court directed the SIT to give a fresh report “in light of the observations” made by him. But when he gave his “final report” in July 2011 on the SIT’s third report, the Supreme Court actually withheld it from the SIT.
This is despite the fact that Ramachandran’s last report was based on an extraordinary mandate given by the apex court to conduct “his own independent assessment” by going down to Gujarat and interacting with the witnesses examined by the SIT. Yet, after the submission of his final report, the apex court refrained from repeating its direction for a reappraisal by the SIT “in light of the observations” made by Ramachandran.
All that the Supreme Court instead said in its verdict was that it would “be open to the SIT to obtain” a copy of Ramachandran’s final report, that too not from its registry but from the man himself! Little wonder then that SIT chief R K Raghavan said blithely that the verdict only required him to do “the mechanical act” of forwarding Ramachandran’s report along with his to the competent court in Ahmedabad.
With the sudden termination of its monitoring, the apex court has in effect left it to the complainant to figure whether Ramachandran’s assessment has been duly considered by the SIT while chargesheeting or dropping those named in Zakia’s complaint. Such abdication of responsibility on the part of the apex court may lead to at least one unintended consequence. The upcoming trial may land the Supreme Court’s amicus curiae in the witness box! In its bid to keep within the lakshman rekha in the Modi case, the Supreme Court has reduced the chances of killing Ravan — that is, securing justice to riot victims. The cause of justice would have been better served had the Jain bench shared the Singhvi bench’s approach to criminal law.
The UPA government tried to scuttle the Supreme Court’s monitoring of the 2G probe by citing, ironically enough, the precedent set in the Modi case. The two-judge bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi, however, clarified that it would not allow the lakshman rekha to come in the way of monitoring the remaining aspects of investigation and insulating the trial from extraneous pressures. In one such bona fide transgression of the lakshman rekha, the Singhvi bench attacked the covert attempt to undermine the trial by bringing in the telecom regulatory authority’s assessment of a zero loss in the spectrum allocation.
On the other hand, the three-judge bench headed by Justice D K Jain ended up taking an ultra conservative view of the lakshman rekha of monitoring in the Modi case. Yet, its September 12 judgment, directing the special investigation team (SIT) to file a final report before an Ahmedabad magistrate, is bristling with legal anomalies. To begin with, it was an SIT probe initiated by the Supreme Court in April 2009 into Zakia Jafri’s complaint against Modi and 61 others. The so-called “preliminary enquiry” into the big picture of the 2002 riots stretched for over 13 months. Then, in a surreptitious move, it suddenly transformed into “further investigation” of the Gulberg massacre in which Zakia had lost her husband.
The opacity and inconsistencies of the Jain bench are most evident from its handling of the two reports given by its amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, who had been appointed to give impartial advice. When Ramachandran gave his “preliminary note” in January 2011 on the first two reports of the SIT, the Supreme Court directed the SIT to give a fresh report “in light of the observations” made by him. But when he gave his “final report” in July 2011 on the SIT’s third report, the Supreme Court actually withheld it from the SIT.
This is despite the fact that Ramachandran’s last report was based on an extraordinary mandate given by the apex court to conduct “his own independent assessment” by going down to Gujarat and interacting with the witnesses examined by the SIT. Yet, after the submission of his final report, the apex court refrained from repeating its direction for a reappraisal by the SIT “in light of the observations” made by Ramachandran.
All that the Supreme Court instead said in its verdict was that it would “be open to the SIT to obtain” a copy of Ramachandran’s final report, that too not from its registry but from the man himself! Little wonder then that SIT chief R K Raghavan said blithely that the verdict only required him to do “the mechanical act” of forwarding Ramachandran’s report along with his to the competent court in Ahmedabad.
With the sudden termination of its monitoring, the apex court has in effect left it to the complainant to figure whether Ramachandran’s assessment has been duly considered by the SIT while chargesheeting or dropping those named in Zakia’s complaint. Such abdication of responsibility on the part of the apex court may lead to at least one unintended consequence. The upcoming trial may land the Supreme Court’s amicus curiae in the witness box! In its bid to keep within the lakshman rekha in the Modi case, the Supreme Court has reduced the chances of killing Ravan — that is, securing justice to riot victims. The cause of justice would have been better served had the Jain bench shared the Singhvi bench’s approach to criminal law.
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