LYNCH JUSTICE AND THE RULE OF LAW
The incident that occurred in Nagpur city on August 13, involving the women of Kasturba Nagar in the murder of a notorious criminal of that colony inside the court premises, has been prominently in the news.
Details of what happened are not very clear. The police have kept a tight lip and in the absence of information, all types of rumours are flowing thick and fast. The initial reaction in some quarters was to see a police hand in the engineering of the incident, if not in its execution. The talk of this being the result of a gang rivalry, with women providing a cover up, was also heard. Some felt that caste played a role in the entire incident- a predominantly dalit community finally taking its revenge against a goon belonging to a backward caste. Different types of questions are being asked. How could this happen inside the court premises? Why couldn’t the police escort rescue him from the mob? If a similar attempt had been made earlier, why couldn’t the attack be foreseen and adequate arrangements made to safely escort him? Why couldn’t the man do anything to defend himself? Was he unable to do so because, in violation of D. K. Basu’s judgement, he was handcuffed while being brought to the court?
Some of these questions will be answered during the trial of the case. For the time being, let us accept the story as it has been reported and analyse its implications.
The police are prosecuting five women, though 400 are reported to have come forward, openly confessing to the crime. Women have shown no remorse, but, in fact, issued a determined warning they will do it again if another Akku Yadav takes birth. Their argument is that they had suffered enough wrongs through the hands of one man and the entire state machinery had failed to provide security, protection and justice to them. They therefore decided to right all wrongs done to them by taking law in their own hands and in their opinion there was nothing wrong about what they did.
Very few voices of disapproval over what happened have been reported. While the residents of Kasturba Nagar are all united in backing the women, it appears that the public in other places too are sympathetic to what happened. On a TV programme the other day, someone said that the incident was waiting to happen
There are two important reasons for sympathetic public response. One is the fact that the act, as per the story, was done by women, who did not belong to any naxalite or war like group or who had no criminal record. They were simple ordinary women belonging to poor or lower middle class families and had been victims of all kinds of humiliations and atrocities for a long time. The other reason is the helplessness that most citizens experience when they find the system of justice failing them when it is needed most. The system is too slow and inefficient to provide them a feeling of security.
One of the important needs of citizens is to get protection from crime and criminals and they expect the state to provide that. When crime continues to rise menacingly and the state fails to deal promptly, justly and effectively with those who commit crime, it creates a feeling of insecurity. The rich are able to buy security, private as well as public; but most have no means to defend themselves. Their sense of insecurity resulting from fear of crime, combined with a sense of injustice caused by the repeated failure of the system to deal with criminals effectively, gives rise to vigilante incidents. It shows complete collapse of public faith and confidence in the capability of the formal system.
Delivering instant private justice to suspects of crime has very serious implications for the functioning of the criminal justice system and good governance in a democratic society.
Article 14 of the Constitution provides equal protection of laws to all citizens and Article 21 says that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Killing a person without legal or judicial sanction constitutes an offence of murder. However, this is not viewed accordingly by the public when they take law in their own hands and beat suspects of crime or known criminals to death. It is such public fear and perceptions, which sometimes provide a licence to the police to ignore the law and deal with crime and criminals by using rough and illegal methods. Blinding of criminals done by Bhagalpur Police way back in early eighties was one example of such licence. This has since been followed by many other incidents.
In fact, killing criminals in fake encounters is a manifestation of police vigilantism. The prominent danger in ignoring public vigilantism, like the Nagpur incident, is that it is likely to promote greater acceptance by the public of police vigilantism.
Fear of crime grows faster than crime and feeds on itself. The State knows this and uses the opportunity provided by the fear of crime to arm itself with repressive powers. It reacts by adopting short-cut methods. Black laws are introduced; powers of the police are enhanced; use of third degree methods by state agencies is overlooked and many rights are curtailed. Instead of the rule of law, rule of fear reigns supreme. In the final analysis, it is the democracy, which really gets “mugged”. This has been happening in many parts of the democratic world since 9/11.
The Government in this country has not devoted adequate attention to reforming the criminal justice system. Its time it did so, enhancing its capability to deal with crime and criminals swiftly and effectively and providing justice to all. The state cannot abdicate its responsibility in this regard. Letting people take law in their own hands and practise ‘lynch justice’ against suspects of crime is to allow the rule of jungle to prevail over the rule of law and is the surest way of sounding the death-knell of the democratic system of governance.
(Original version of the article published in the Indian Express dated September 4, 2004)
