Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Civilised Society the world over, including India, may have welcomed in no certain terms the voluminous justice J S Verma report on “crimes against women” but the authority that appointed the inquiry committee, the Government and its lead partner, the congress party, seem to be having second thoughts about the entire exercise. Willy nilly, it appears to believe that the committee’s report is staring it in the eye as a Frankestine. Justices Verma and Leela Seth and Mr. G Subramaniam the leading lawyer, who produced report all of a sudden appear to have become unwanted monsters appeared not to have bargained for.
For one thing, soon after its formation the enquiry committee discovered that it had been denied the kind of secretarial assistance it would need. It was allotted just one room in the Vigyan Bhavan complex, forcing the horde of brilliant young volunteer lawyers from as far away as London, the US etc. to repair to the Jorbagh offices of Mr. Subramaniam to assist the committee.
For another, the committee’s appointment was conveyed to Justice Verma at midnight not by the Home Minister but by Mr.Chidambaram. Twenty nine day later, thanks to the diligence of the committee and its team of lawyers helpers, when the report was ready for submission no one in the Home Ministry or any other minister was on hand to receive the report, no even the Home Secretary.
The report apparently was considered to be of not much use to the Government and the ruling party ; it was received by joint secretary in Home Ministry. And, do I have to remind you of the bevy of cameramen and fawning officials who are usually present whenever a major inquiry report (not do mention dividend cheques presented by public sector enterprises) is presented to the government, particularly a report from committee appointed by it as was the Justice Verma committee.
No fanfare for the Verma report which probably was justified since it involved a most brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old Para medics student and which led to her subsequent death. Her death in Singapore hospital, days after her failed treatment in Delhi’s Safdarjang Hospital , is by itself a story that illustrates the callousness of our political establishment and its readiness to play politics even in the grimmest of situations. That’s the only way you can describe the move to shift her to the high speciality hospital in the Island State. If you ask me it bordered on gimmickry. A Singapore doctor said as much when he mentioned the long delay in shifting her and that, too, after having undergone three surgeries in Delhi.
A week after the submission of the report that seems not to have made much impression on the Delhi Darbar, Justice Verma was on his way to Colombo to head a team of The International Bar Association jurists to inquire into the case of the first woman chief Justice of Sri Lanka , who was successfully impeached by the arrogant Rajapaksa dispensation and dimissed . The octogenarian judge must have felt much relieved at getting away from the murky shenanigans of the political class in Delhi as he winged his way to the Sri Lanka capital . He can be sure that president Rajapaksa will be equally indifferent to the report of his team there.
I can imagine the exasperation of Justice Verma when at midnight of Jan 5, approximately a fortnight befor his committee filed its over 600-page report, Janarhan Dwivedi, the media incharge of of the congress party chose to knock on the former Chief Justice’s door, forgetting that 80-year olds repair to bed much earlier than that.
The Congressman, a feared hatchet man of Sonia Gandhi and her party , armed her man with a missive from his boss. Family members woke up the former Chief Justice who asked that the messenger be told to deliver the letter in the morning or later that day at the Committee’s vigyan bhavan room.
In Justice Verma’s own words “Around midnight on January 5, I was woken up by my family and informed that somebody from the congress was at the gate, insisting on personally handing over the party’s suggestions to the panel to me. It was actually past midnight. The person claimed to have been sent by Dwivedi . Naturally, I refused to accept it, asking my staff to tell that man to either leave the letter at the gate or deliver it the next day at the Committee’s office at Vigyan Bhavan. The next day I brought the incident to a senior Congress Leader’s notice and expressed my anguish. How could anybody, particularly a representative of a national political party, behave in such a flippant manner?”
Verma adds that Sonia did apologise to him the next day for thr misbehavior by her party representative.
After submitting the report Justice Verma has repeatedly spoken of the total indifference of the Home Minister and his Ministry. Sushil Kumar Shinde, the Minister, had not bothered to interact with the committee nor had any of his representatives. What must have hurt further is that neither Shinde nor the Home Secretary was present to accept his committee’s report …. ” I am not complaining and only hope the Government pays more attention to the report and in implementing it:.
Justice Verma must be an optimist. For, I did hear him on one of the TV channels stating that no one from the government had contacted the committee even after more than a week of the submission of its report. He should have known better about the arrogance and insensitive behavior of the ruling class. In fairness to the Government, Home Minister Shinde had made it clear by having the message about the appointment of the committee conveyed to him by his colleague P. Chiambaram and not by Shinde and his Ministry, the appointing authority.
Justice Verma is on record saying that no Home Ministry officials nor the Directors General of Police from the Stated had chosen to offer their views even after they were requested to do so. The total governmental indifference to the inquiry committee should have been obvious to him given manner of is appointment .
For his part Justice Verma has paid handsome tribute to the band of young lawyers and to others, including his own grand-daughter, an Oxford law graduate who more than made up for the lack of support from the Government. They were a highly motivated lot and the committee did well to recognise their willingness to work almost round the clock to help it complete its task a day ahead of the 30 days given to it by the Home Ministry.
He can be sure , though, that even 30 months after the submission of the report it will be gathering dust in some Home Ministry official’s cupboard. Assuming for a moment there is a change of Government in the near future can we expect our politicians MPs and state legislators to act on a report which damns them for having among their ranks people accused of murder, rape et al.? At the last count the number of such criminally-tainted MPs and legislators hovered around some 500, give or take a hundred either way.
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