The modern thinking Indian

The military forces in India have almost a separate life with a separate code of honor and law; their life is much more controlled than the lives of ordinary civilians. As a result, they have a separate process for justice, with a separate legal system that governs them. This includes offences they commit that are normally treated as criminal offences for the normal citizens of the country such as rape, murder, theft, etc; instead, these were normally handled through the military process of court-martials where military designated justices handle these offences. This would make sense if the crime was committed at a military owned location, or at the border of the country. However, in the past, it was argued that if a soldier was on leave and then committed a crime, even this was under the jurisdiction of military justice. This was because even under casual leave, the soldier was still under the jurisdiction of the army. However, a judge of the Madras High Court has ruled that such offences can also be handled in the civilian court system (link to article):

The Madras High Court Bench in Madurai has held that the armed forces personnel accused of committing murder, rape and other such crimes could be tried in a criminal court and not necessarily through court martial.
Justice A Selvam in his order yesterday said both the criminal court as well as the Army courts enjoyed concurrent jurisdiction to try criminal offences. Justice Selvam agreed that a soldier on casual leave could be considered to be in active service. However, he said that neither Army act nor the code of criminal procedure prevented a criminal court from conducting trial against servicemen.

This makes a lot of sense, since if a crime is committed under the laws of the country, it should be handled by the constitutionally valid legal system of the country.

Labels: Army, Crime, India, Judgment, Judicial, Law, Legal, Military

The case of Varun Gandhi and his detention by the Mayawati Government is reaching a critical point. As a lot of people may be aware, Varun Gandhi, in a speech made some time back, sought to inflame people by speaking against the Muslim community. It is difficult to justify what he is stated to have said, since his speech was supposed to have been very provocative (and I am sure that people will point out that other people have made equally provocative or more provocative speeches and got off lightly, but that is a separate matter). He was condemned by wide sections of the press and political parties, and the Election Commission took note of what he had said (but did not have powers to do much about a speech).
However, what happened next was the troubling part. An FIR was lodged against him, and he was taken in custody. Next, the Mayawati Government stated that it would lodge a case under the National Security Act (meant to be used against terrorists or habitual dangerous criminals) against Varun. And soon enough, the UP Government filed a case against him, using the violence that happened when Varun was being lodged in the jail after surrender.
The NSA is an Act with strict provisions, such as "Under the provisions of the NSA, a person cannot get bail atleast for six months"; if this had happened, Varun would have had to remain in jail till elections are over. However, there is a right to appeal in the Supreme Court, and also the state advisory panel takes a decision on the persons against whom the NSA has been filed. In both cases, the Mayawati Government has not been able to justify the harsh measure used for what is basically a 'hate speech' (not to reduce the significance of what Varun had said, but there are criminals and terrorists against whom the NSA has not been applied). Here is an excerpt of what the state advisory panel stated:

The Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh did not apply its mind and violated cannons of natural justice in invoking National Security Act on BJP leader Varun Gandhi raising a question of bias, says the state advisory board which struck down the NSA against him. The Board said "there was non-application of mind and breach of rules of natural justice" by the authorities which raises a question of "bias" and "legal malafides" for invoking NSA against the 29-year-old BJP leader who was not supplied with the copy of the order and material, including the CD of the alleged hate speeches which were the basis for taking stringent action.

The board further points out that the District Magistrate, the competent authority to pass the NSA order, based these orders on 2 FIR's that were not filed by anybody else but the DM (to re-state, the DM filed 2 FIR's, and then used these 2 FIR's to show as evidence to pass the NSA orders).
Most people have no doubt that the reason that the DM passed the NSA order was so that the Mayawati Government, in order to shore up its secular credentials, could show that it was aggressive in protecting the interests of minorities. While I cannot condone the speech by Varun, it is equally hard to agree when somebody twists laws and justice for furthering their own agenda and scoring political points.

Labels: BJP, Court, Crime, Election, Mayawati, Minority, Police, Politics, Punishment, Secular

For some time now, the Mumbai police has been waging an intense campaign against drunk driving, including the use of jail time (anywhere from 1 day to multiple days) as part of the measures against drunk driving. This had surprised many people since observing traffic laws (including road safety laws such as not drinking and driving) is a common problem that India faces, and not too many states had done serious prosecution of such cases (contrast this with the measures taken in states such as Singapore and the United States where you better not be caught drinking and driving). The high number of cases of accidents and fatalities where drunk driving is a factor are incredible; it is absolutely necessary that such campaigns continue.
Here is a case in Mumbai where the police prosecuted a drunk motorcyclist as well as the pillion rider for the crime of drunk driving and got them sent to simple custody for a period of 7 days. This punishment is the longest period of punishment for the crime of drunk driving so far in Mumbai, and the terms of the punishment were also enhanced due to a fine as well as the driving license of the motorcyclist being suspended for a period of 6 months (link to article):

A Girgaum metropolitan court on Monday sentenced a pillion rider to seven days' imprisonment for abetting drunk driving. This is the longest sentence awarded in such cases so far. "The biker too got the same punishment. Both were in an inebriated state,'' an official said. The drunken duo, Abdul Karim and Kadir Shaikh, was also asked to pay a fine of Rs 2,000. The driving licence of Karim, who was riding the bike, has been suspended for six months by the court. The two will now have to cool their heels in the Byculla jail for a week.
Tests showed 245 mg of liquor in Karim's blood and 83 mg of liquor in Shaikh's blood. Shaikh was booked under Section 188 of the Motor Vehicles Act,'' a policeman said. "We argued in court that Shaikh had not stopped Karim from riding the bike despite being aware that the latter was drunk and could cause an accident,'' sub-inspector P K Naik of Tardeo traffic division said. Abetting drunk driving attracts the same punishment as the offence of drunk driving (Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act). No lawyer represented the duo in court.

Drunk driving not is a menace to society because of the danger to others, but also threatens the drunk drivers themselves; who can forget the cases in Delhi where many young adults have been needlessly killed when their cars (being driven by drunk people) have crashed at high speeds. The nation can ill afford these losses.

Labels: Court, Crime, Driving, Punishment, Social Issue, Traffic