Politicians these days do not like the judiciary. Public Interest Litigations and judicial activism have won the hearts of the people. While politicians are mostly seen as corrupt and self-serving, the people have come to respect the judiciary as being truly just and free from corruption. The last few days have seen this faith in the law restored when our courts variously handed down 60 orders of life-imprisonment. The criminals included such notorious politicians like Amar Mani Tripathi, senior policemen and religious fanatics.
These court rulings assume significance when we set them off against a recent incident, which occurred between the infamous Narendra Modi and the well-known interviewer Karan Thapar. Mr. Modi just walked out of the television sets when Thapar quizzed him about his role in the Gujarat riots. Once again, we felt the slight that a politician is unanswerable to the people who elect him. The courts have thus proven their value to our country once more. Of course, the politicians are shouting shrill against the Indian Judiciary and call their efforts to clean up the country as overstepping the boundaries between the judiciary and the legislature. It will not be surprising if these elected representatives some day get together and once for all curb the powers of the judiciary.
The district court of Dehra Dun handed down life imprisonment to former UP minister and Samajwadi Party MLA Amarmani Tripathi for the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla with whom he had a torturous affair. Tripathi is the MLA from Laxmipur. He had fought the election from jail and won. This one fact is enough to highlight the importance of the judgment in cleansing our country of corrupt politicians. Where fake encounters have become the rule of law, it is a wonder that the courts awarded life sentences to policemen who killed two businessmen in Delhi and later like Tripathi tried their utmost to mislead and evade the law. Religious extremists who bombed Coimbatore years ago and others who provoked communal violence in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid incident were all punished. By giving these judgments, the law once again proved itself impartial and indifferent to religious considerations, status and muscle-power. And remarkably for any Indian institution, it did not spare one of its own. A lawyer too was convicted for inciting religious violence. Earlier, the Indian Supreme Court had restored our sense of justice by convicting the elusive and powerful Manu Sharma, the murderer of the middle-class model Jessica Lal. These judgments are in keeping with this new spirit of the judiciary in India.
Lawyers have pointed out the possibility of those convicted walking free in as little as three years due to legal loopholes. The criminals may be released earlier due to good behavior, time served and the ingenuity of their defenses. But the genius of the judgments does not lie in these loopholes. The main issue here is that we the common people of India have at long last somewhere to go for help when the odds seem overwhelmingly against us.
Via: Hindustan Times
