Mis-carriage of criminal justice

In the midst of the recent Karnataka assembly election campaigning, a member of a certain popular yahoo-group suddenly came up with a posting that Dr Ashwin Mahesh, the LokSatta candidate from Bommanahalli constituency, has a criminal record. With LokSatta generally projecting itself as the crusader against corruption, besides 'criminalisation of politics', keeping Dr Ashwin Mahesh in the forefront of its campaign, this came as a rude shock to the Yahoo-group members. Fortunately, a more discerning member bothered to delve into the site, which had published the info, a bit more deeply, to find that the case related to "a review of a movie in a paper that is edited by him, and the film producer had filed a defamation case", and accordingly posted a clarification. Quite like this member put it "not many were even aware until then that defamation was an offense under criminal law".

The important point to note is that, had it not been for the discerning member's immediate clarification, the wrong kind of a message would have gone around, and the undoing of the damage thereafter would have been extremely difficult.

Well, whatever, now that we know it for what it is, I expect Ashwin has also to declare his 'criminal record' every time he applies for renewal of passport, or while applying for a visa, and face the numerous hassles thereof (some bit of a relief for him is that there is no 'khan'  or a 'hasan' anywhere in the name). The fact of the matter is that, in lot many such cases (as perhaps in Ashwin's case too), it is a deliberate tactic used by the powers that be very plainly to harrass people who have brushed them on the wrong side, while standing up for their rights. In fact, the 'discerning' member, who clarified Ashwin's case status, himself went on to cite how there is a criminal case pending against him, for 'rioting', when all he did was to participate in a RWA demonstration against the unauthorised felling of trees by BBMP officials.

That being the case, I expect, a fair section of the population will be having similar cases, largely 'foisted' on them, which will then have to go through the long grind of the judicial process, taking years, before the 'accused' are finally discharged. Imagine the scenario in the case of young professionals who may want to take up assignments, or even higher studies, abroad. Many a career, I am sure, would have got ruined because of such deliberate acts.

Similar has been the plight of artists, movie stars, etc, also, who have been repeatedly harrassed by petty politicians by foisting cases, supposedly for "hurting religious sentiments", blasphemy, etc, etc, in the remotest corners of the country, plainly with a view to harrass them. The more shocking aspect is the readiness with which the police, as also the lower judiciary, admit these, and then keep them going for years on end, thorough adjournments using the flimsiest of excuses, perhaps to force the 'accused' to enter into "negotiated" settlements, which are not easy to come by either.

Well, the higher judiciary in the country is generally seen to be very sensitive, fair, as well as proactive in the way it functions. The incumbent Karnataka High Court Chief Justice in fact went on to "promise that every effort will be made to see that mission of the Indian judiciary of having zero tolerance to delay and arrears of cases is made a reality" (check here) at the time of his swearing in too. One hopes he will very soon bring about a paradigm shift in the handling of such cases, and set an example in Karnataka, using the state's IT prowess, for the rest of the country to follow.

Muralidhar Rao