On May 5, the apex court upheld the decision of death penalty for the four rapists involved in Jyoti Singh’s (popularly known as Nirbhaya) rape case.
The Supreme Court said and please read each word carefully, twice if you must lest you should miss the hidden helplessness of our judicial system… “If ever a case called for hanging, this was it…The Nirbhaya rape-cum-murder case is the rarest of rare case and we are compelled to give extreme punishment to ensure justice”
Now forgive me for being a complete cynic while whole of India foolishly clap their hands and celebrate what is being hailed as a landmark judgment but let us go through the verdict word by word again.
If ever a case called for hanging….as if our country, constantly setting up new records in world of crime, has till date not witnessed a single act atrocious and vicious enough to call for a death sentence. Their insensitivity doesn’t just stop here, they further go on to explain that because it was a ‘rarest of rare case’ it became worthy enough of hanging someone.
What the Court has done is to set up a benchmark against which future cases shall be compared. So only a case involving both rape and murder would get qualified for death sentence. Going by their logic, cases of rape would be only rare and our law doesn’t see them as acts barbaric enough to award death penalty.
Similarly if a woman is harassed or sexually abused in a manner that doesn’t constitute an act of rape, it won’t even be rare, it will be at best-abnormal. In that case, I would suggest not getting hopes up as I don’t think courts would even lend ears to such trivial matter.
And please, if you’re being eve teased or stalked, don’t be foolish to step inside a police station for it is an everyday thing.
Have you ever seen a boy/girl complaining to register an FIR because his/her sibling was teasing?
As per this epic judgment, getting stalked or intrusion into privacy is also an equally ludicrous incident.
We’re just too busy shouting “Justice Won”. If we keep silence for a moment, we will be able to hear the suppressed laugh of a boy-now grown adult who was spared because he wasn’t major at the time of incident. That young and innocent minor was probably unaware of the consequences of shoving a metal rod into a woman, perhaps that’s why the trial of the most demonic of the six rapists was conducted in a juvenile court.
Later on he was given 3 years worth of holiday, our court was sympathetic and human enough to make sure they don’t ruin an innocent’s life, after all what has that kid done-just destroyed lives of a family in an act which shook humanity to core.
It may appear as crude criticism rather I am concerned. If those intellectual, qualified and obviously honorable judges would’ve let go of the shackles of law keeping them tied, complete justice could’ve been served long ago.
Sorry to say, but what the judgment reads is just as barbaric and brutal as was the act of those six monsters.
Legislation should look up at making laws more stringent because common man has the right to justice, and he will take it one way or another.
The problem is while doing so we won’t be objective and rational enough to care for stupid things such as right and wrong. The repercussions would be that everyone will be viewed as guilty and more and more ‘Anti-Romeo Dal’ will come into existence.
A quick and fair trial must be ensured so that neither the innocent get dragged into mud for long nor the criminal stays away from claws of punishment.
Let us not hold this decision as unique rather as first of many more to come so that a man is frightened to bones even before thinking of committing such a disgusting and inhuman crime.