Mirchpur murders: HC convicts 33, says no let-up in atrocities on Dalits
HARSHER PUNISHMENT Says lower court decision ‘unconvincing’ on some counts, overturns acquittal of 20 people in the 8yrold case
NEWDELHI: The Delhi high court on Friday convicted 33 people in the 2010 anti-Dalit violence in Haryana’s Mirchpur, lamenting the continuing trend of atrocities against Scheduled Castes in independent India. A bench of justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta overturned the acquittal of 20 people, who were let off by a trial court in 2011, while upholding the conviction of 13 others.
The court said the incident of April 21, 2010 — when groups of the dominant caste Jats attacked and torched settlements of the Balmiki caste — constituted an act of deliberate violence carried out in a “pre-planned” and “carefully orchestrated” manner.
“Seventy-one years after Independence, instances of atrocities against Scheduled Castes by those belonging to dominant castes have shown no sign of abating. The incidents that took place in Mirchpur between April 19 and April 21, 2010, serve as yet another grim reminder of “the complete absence of two things in Indian society” as noted by Dr BR Ambedkar when he tabled the final draft of the Constitution of India before the Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1949. One was ‘equality’ and the other, ‘fraternity’,” the court said in its 209-page order.
Caste tensions flared up in Mirchpur on April 19,2010, after a dog belonging to a Balmiki man reportedly barked at some Jat men, triggering a verbal spat and physical clashes. Two days later, some Jats allegedly attacked the Balmikis and set their houses on fire, killing 60-year-old Tara Chand and his 17-year-old disabled daughter, who were burnt to death.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court pointed out several loopholes in the trial court judgment in the 2010 anti-Dalit violence in Mirchpur as it imposed harsher charges on some of the accused and overturned the acquittals of 20 others.
The two-judge bench of justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta said the reasoning used by the lower court to change the charge from IPC section 302 (murder) to 304 (unintentional murder) could not be held as accurate. The HC said that “defects in investigation” couldn’t be held as grounds for acquittal.
“The legal position that emerges is that while there may have been lapses in the investigation that alone will not lead to an acquittal of the accused. All it does is put the court on caution in evaluating the evidence. A faulty investigation does not ipso facto result in affecting the credibility of PWs (prosecution witness) and completely discarding their evidence,” the court added.
The bench said that even though there were glaring loopholes in the investigation by the police, the defence had not pointed the same.
“For instance, in the present case, there was no scaled site plan of the entire village drawn up for reasons best known to the police. Fortunately, the unscaled site plan of the entire village (Ex.PW-54/B) was not seriously questioned by the defence except for giving a preposterous suggestion that it was drawn up at the PS (police station), without PW-54 even visiting the village.”
“That was of course denied by PW-54. Other than this, there was no attempt even before this court by the learned counsel for the defence to question that site plan,” it said.
The HC bench said though the trial court judge pronounced a 1048-page order, the judgment was silent, inconsistent and unconvincing on the cause for the incident. “Eye witnesses examined by the prosecution supported its case as regards stone pelting, rioting and arson. However, on the question of the cause for this flare up, they were either silent or inconsistent and unconvincing,” it said.
The trial court in north Delhi’s Rohini had convicted 15 out of 97 accused in 2011. Two convicts died in the interim. The high court upheld the conviction of the other 13, while overturning the acquittals of 20 others.
The HC also asked Haryana to utilise the fine imposed on the convicts for rehabilitation of the victims. “The fine amounts collected shall be utilised by the Government of Haryana as part of the provision of pecuniary relief and rehabilitation to the victims,” the bench said. The killings were a deliberate act of targeting Balmiki houses by the Jat mob and involved a large-scale conspiracy “to teach them a lesson”, the court held.