A sentence sans full-stop

After eight arduous years, it is finally curtains down on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. That is, if you decide to accept the Supreme Court sentences awarded to seven of the twenty six accused as the conclusive verdict beyond ‘all reasonable doubt’ and that those convicted are the only ones required to be convicted.

As a corollary, it follows that those let off deserve to be let off and those who were not apprehended, need never worry. Also that, the long arm of our law is not long enough to grab the masterminds across the Palk Straits; nor do the Commissions of Inquiry appointed under the due process of law have teeth enough to bite the political abetters that it identified and indicted with conviction and facts.

We never thought that Rajiv’s murder mystery was such a simple open and shut case. Rajiv was killed, the killer died with him, and the seven, who are the ‘only’ conspirators, have been punished. Who said there were larger conspiracies, criminal lapses, political patronage et all? Rubbish.

But, those, like this writer, who feel that true justice has not been done to the memory of the slain leader as several mysteries still remain unsolved, can only rue over the inadequacy of the legal machinery in establishing genuine culpability and curse the porous laws that allow real guilt to seep through, passing off as legal innocence.

The nineteen acquitted have reason to celebrate their flight to freedom though one gets the inescapable feeling that a few of them have really cocked a snook at law which seems to have lived up to its reputation of being an ass. The Trial Court, which was formed exclusively to deal with this case, took years to establish their guilt, after conducting extensive questioning and cross-examinations of the accused besides scores of witnesses and sifting through tons and tons of evidences.

The Trial Court Proceedings themselves were preceeded by one of the most intensive and thorough investigative exercises in recent criminal history which culminated in the chargesheeting of over forty persons for their varying roles in the run up to and the eventual assassination. The forty odd dwindled to twenty six owing to a few of them joining Rajiv up above for reasons both natural and unnatural with a couple of them absconding also.

The point is, the SIT and the Trial Court that painstakingly analysed the facts threadbare, that too in the immediate aftermath of the killing when the blood had still not dried, found all the twenty six summarily guilty and declared so too. But if the Supreme Court has, in little more than a year which time was probably adequate enough for the learned judges to grasp the nitty gritties of this mammoth case, proclaimed nineteen of them ‘wholly innocent’, one is indeed struck by awe as well as consternation at the extremes to which the legal pendulum can swing.

With facts and evidence remaining the same at both the legal fora, one can understand if there has been a partial dilution of guilt or a commutation of a few sentences. But if such diametrically opposite judgements, ranging from summary indictment to total exoneration, can be delivered, then obviously something has gone wrong somewhere. And turned right for the nineteen lucky ones.

Expectedly, voices are already being raised which will soon be turned into a hue and cry with several liberals and human rightists too joining the fray, demanding adequate compensation to the nineteen for their ‘wrongful incarceration’. Of course, the SC judges need never worry about the consequences when they make their pronouncements as their duty is to just judge and be damned.

But there is no gainsaying the piquant situation that is emerging as a direct consequence of the verdict. If all the nineteen acquitted never had even a shred of guilt for their share, as the judgement seems to indicate, then why has there been no clear clean chit about their innocence? None of them, according to the SC, deserves even a jail term, not even a fine, and have been ordered to be released just like that as if nothing had happened.

Would these free birds now be justified in claiming to be compensated for being ‘falsely’ implicated, for loss of reputation and for the mental turmoil that they had gone through? Of course, it seems a bit difficult to swallow, but then, the judgement is there, in black and white, and thrust down our throats.

From the point of view of the SIT, who have ironically earned kudos from the SC bench, even as much of their arduous work has been nullified, the fallout is even more poignant and frustrating, though its chief puts up a brave face. Were all the manhours spent hunting down the ‘culprits’ just a wild goose chase? Or was there anything wrong in the collection and presentation of evidence which apparently satisfied the Trial Court judge but failed to impress the ones at the apex court?

Or were there any material changes in the interrugnum that conclusively tilted the legal scales in favour of the accused? All these and several questions beg for answers as the Rajiv case is no ordinary litigation where victory or defeat can easily be attributed to the warring lawyers’ gift of the gab. It was an event that altered the course of Indian history and a logical legal solution is the barest justice one can expect for a happening of such ramifications. The current judgement, to say the least, is very baffling.

One also learns from the press about an interesting debate among the judges on the fate of Nalini. It was argued by a learned and ‘compassionate’ judge of the bench that Nalini should be spared the noose for the sake of her child born out of wedlock to Murugan, who has also been ordered to be hanged.

The bench, eventually decided to go ahead with the death sentence but not before a lengthy debate had been conducted on the ‘moral pros and cons’ of orphaning a child. That this debate has come to light, along with the judgement is quite gratifying and revealing too, for it gives an insight into the minds of SC judges, though there could be no generalisations, thankfully.

In a country where orphans abound in multitudes, the concern of a legal luminary for the impending orphanage of a child is quite moving. So what if the child itself is in excellent care in distant Australia under the watchful eyes of those who also supervised the killing of Rajiv?

Also who cares, if the intended beneficiary is a confirmed accomplice to the diabolical act that orphaned the country itself? All that would be politics, a matter of subjectivity, beyond the purview of impassionate statute books.

Compassion is perfectly legal… even if it is misplaced.

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