Opinion - Editorials

Making victims of the accused

Under normal circumstances, the successful prosecution of almost all the accused in a major terrorism case would be cause for public satisfaction. But the investigation, prosecution, and verdicts in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts case raise disturbing questions about the criminal justice system in India. Although a special court was constituted to handle the case, nine long years separated the crime — in which 58 persons lost their lives — and the punishment, which was handed down on August 1 to 153 of the166 accused brought to trial. Under the circumstances, the verdict will hold little meaning for survivors of the blasts and the relatives of the victims. As the case dragged on public sympathy shifted to many of the accused who were held on minor charges, but could not get bail. A standout example of an accused morphing into a victim is Abdul Nasser Maudhany, the founder of the Kerala-based People’s Democratic Party, who was acquitted of all charges after more than nine years in prison. The prolonged trial gave the ailing Mr. Maudhany a martyr’s halo as the trial drew to a close. The PDP leader appeared to have been denied bail on account of the sensational nature of the case — not because there was anything material to suggest that he had any role in the horrible acts of terrorism. Surely justice requires that bail must be the norm, and imprisonment through an inordinately long trial period the exception, especially when the accused are unlikely to run away from the reach of the law. Those interested in even-handed justice must ponder over this comparison: Sanjay Dutt, who was eventually convicted to a long term in prison, managed to get bail in the Bombay blast cases but Mr. Maudhany was denied liberty for close to a decade before being acquitted of all charges in the Coimbatore blasts case.

Although 153 of the accused have been convicted (the verdict has been deferred in respect of five others), many of them face relatively minor charges. Indeed, after the sentencing, a large number of the convicted might walk free, with the period they spent in jail being set off against their sentence. Barring two who were arrested a year later, all the 166 accused brought to trial were arrested in 1998, within a year of the blasts. They have thus spent close to nine years in jail. Only 69 among them have been found guilty of conspiracy; the other 84 have been convicted for less serious offences under the Indian Penal Code, and under the Explosive Substances Act, the Arms Act, and the Tamil Nadu Properties (Prevention of Damages and Loss) Act. Literally, in the case of many of the accused, the trial was the punishment. Crime and punishment in this case is yet another painful reminder that India’s criminal justice system is in need of major structural reform.

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