HC finds lapses in trial court order
HARSHER PUNISHMENT Says lower court decision ‘unconvincing’ on some counts, overturns acquittal of 20 people in the 8yrold case
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. It is a sobering fact that the Government of Haryana has sought to rehabilitate the displaced families not in Mirchpur but in a separate township. The question is whether this accords with the constitutional promise of equality, social justice and fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual. It was not one or two houses but several which were burnt. Therefore, the attempt to characterise the incident as a mere dispute between certain individuals and not an instance of caste-based violence is futile. The intent was clearly to intimidate and subjugate the members of the Balmiki community so as to teach them a lesson for the incident of April 19, 2010.