Jan
14
High Court Criticizes “Anti-National Elements”
January 14, 2004 | Comments Off on High Court Criticizes “Anti-National Elements”
The Gujarat High Court has released its judgment explaining its dismissal of the appeal filed in the Best Bakery case. Surprisingly, the Court did not believe Zaheera’s own statement that she lied in court because she was threatened by the accused and their supporters. Instead, the Court wrote:
“There seems to be a definite design and conspiracy to malign people by misusing this witness…she can easily fall prey to anyone and play in the dirty hands of anti-socials and anti-national elements.”
This ignores the history of police intimidation of witnesses in human rights cases, from the cases filed against the accused in the 1984 pogroms against Sikhs, to the habeas corpus cases filed on behalf of the disappeared in Punjab, among other examples.
The Court even criticized NGOs for documenting the abuses that occurred:
‘‘It appears that attempt is being made by journalist/human right activist and advocates Teesta Setalvad and Mihir Desai to have a parallel investigation. We do not know how far it is proper but we can state that it is not permissible under law.’’
The Indian Express and Hindustan Times have written editorials against this judgment. The Indian Express listed four reasons why the judgment saddened them:
Two, because this case had exercised not just the apex court, but the National Human Rights Commission, which had first sent a team to Ahmedabad to study it and followed this up with the unprecedented step of filing a special leave petition asking the apex court to set aside the judgment and call for a retrial of the case outside Gujarat. Three, because this case was one of the best documented of all the barbaric incidents that had occurred in post-Godhra Gujarat and if justice is not delivered in this case, it is unlikely that others would fare better.
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