The Law is not for Man, but the Law is for Man

Mr. Aurobindo said, ‘Law is not for man, but law is for man.” Malati Choudhury, a revolutionary feminist who is a member of the Constituent Assembly, went on to say, ‘It is not possible for a caste to rise to a higher level if it looks at the face of the law and hopes for a change in society. ‘Justice J. S. Burma once said that our country’s justice system is suffering from a five-star disorder, where whoever has the most money spends as much as he can and prolongs the criminal case against him.

Our holy constitution has given us the right to equality. It is said that all are equal in the eyes of the law and the law goes its way. However, many times the influential people bend the law according to their own preferences. In many cases, the common man is deprived of getting justice. On the other hand, powerful rich people take advantage. By perverting our system, it is said that powerful people oppress and exploit material inequality by giving people false ideas of equality in the magic of words.

At various times, many judges and former judges of our country and also concerned people are expressing concern about inequality before the law and emphasizing on speedy justice. In this article, few examples of how our political system is protecting the convicts and releasing them easily and with dignity are presented in this article.

Amarmani Tripathi, a former minister of Uttar Pradesh, and his wife Madhumani were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI court in Uttarakhand for the murder of female poet Madhumita Shukla. The Uttarakhand High Court upheld the sentence. Later, Amarmani Tripathi and his wife were transferred from Uttarakhand to Gorakhpur Jail in Uttar Pradesh. Not only that, the tripartite couple stayed for almost 10 years in two air-conditioned comfortable cabins of Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur instead of jail.

After leaving the hospital, they used to go around the city in expensive cars and went to other places as well. The Uttar Pradesh government released the triplet couple who were convicted in the Madhumita Shukla murder case and who were in the hospital outside the jail last August. Due to the fact that Nidhi Shukla, the sister of deceased female poet Madhumita, has filed a case in the Supreme Court, a notice has been issued to other parties, including the Uttar Pradesh government. There are other criminal cases against Amarmani.

A case of kidnapping a businessman’s son has been pending against him for a long time. The case is pending in a special court of MPs and MLAs. A senior politician and former minister like Amarmani is not appearing in the court. The court has asked for information regarding which disease and how long he has been undergoing treatment in the hospital. Would an ordinary day laborer have been given special privileges like Amarmani and instead of being in jail for years in a military hospital and easily released by the government’s order?

On August 15, 2022, the Gujarat government released 11 criminals. They were sentenced to life imprisonment instead of hanging after they were found guilty of serious crimes such as rape and murder. These terrible criminals killed her 3-year-old child in front of a mother and tortured her. They were accused of killing 14 people, but the dead bodies of 7 people were found. A woman named Bilkis Bano was accused of being raped by them in the CBI court in Mumbai.

The Bombay High Court also upheld their sentence in 2017. After their release by the government, these criminals were declared as high-caste reformers and were given a promotion. The victim Bilkis Bano has approached the Supreme Court against their release. What message does our system send for equality and women’s safety by acquitting those accused of rape and murder while many accused of minor crimes are languishing in jail for years?

Another example is that of Siddharth Bastha, the son of an influential politician known as Manu Sharma. He shot and killed a model named Jessica Lall. After he was acquitted by the lower court, the High Court convicted him and his life sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. But finally the attention of the Delhi government fell on these criminals.

He has been released from jail on the recommendation of the Delhi government. While the courts have punished such heinous criminals, the government has let them go. Or Laxman, a tribal youth of Mayurbhanj who was hanged last in Odisha, was not treated equally by the system. Because there seems to be a different perspective and scale of law for the rich and the poor.

Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad was convicted in the Jacob Gokhadya scam and sentenced to 5 years in jail by the CBI court. Lalu lived sometimes in jail and sometimes in hospital or bell. Jharkhand High Court has granted him bail and now Lalu is very active in the field of politics.

There was a District Collector in Bihar An IAS officer was shot dead by an influential MP named Anand Mohan Singh. While Anandmohan was in jail for this murder, Nitish Kumar’s government showed mercy and released Anandmohan with a royal pardon. In the last few years, several MLAs of our state have been arrested and jailed on various charges. Now they are on bail. However, these honorable MLAs spent most of their time in hospitals instead of jails.

Is this facility available to other general remand prisoners? “All Animals Are Equal, Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others” mentioned in Judge Orwell’s Animal Farm novel is very relevant in these cases. A Union Minister’s son was shot and killed by riding a jeep on the procession of farmers. He was arrested with great difficulty and released on bail easily. After this matter came to the attention of the high court, the minister’s son returned to the jail.

Now serious allegations have been made in the name of Vikas Kishore, the son of Union Home and Urban Affairs Minister Shaikh Kishore. Gambling was going on at the minister’s house and due to some reason, another party leader Vinay Srivastava was killed in a shootout. The Union Minister immediately issued a statement saying that his son was not at home at that time. However, the license of the pistol that fired was in the name of the minister’s son.

What can the law do in its own way in this matter? Such violence continues in most states of the country. Among the many criminal incidents in our state, the Pithra Rani gang rape and murder case and the Parshuram Shetpathi murder case are well known. It took about 24 years to complete the case of Pruthi Rani, while it took more than 40 years to punish the accused in Parashuram Shetpathi murder case. The main reason for this is that criminals are involved in power politics. Still billions of criminal cases are going on in our country.

Where influential accused are shooting lawyers inside court and where witnesses and victim/victims are being killed or threatened. According to the EDEAR report, only one-third of the members of the assembly and parliament have criminal cases against them. When the accused gets the support of the government party, the police weakens the case from the ground up and then drags the case through the courts of law for years and finally they get away with it. Not only that; If the accused is effective, a special court is arranged for them to be granted bail even in the middle of the night.

When crime is on the rise due to violence, drug addiction, unscrupulous politics, unemployment, underemployment, greed for capitalists’ money, ill-culture, corruption, corruption, prejudice, delayed trial and low conviction rate, how can we keep the accused and criminals in jail without much thought on how to control it? Many officials from top to bottom are busy in our constitutional system for immediate release.

In this context, the open statement of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan’s call to the judicial system on the issue of corruption are worth investigating. If everyone was equal before the law and if the law followed its own path without being dictated by anyone, if the grievances of the common people were resolved immediately and if all the pillars of the democracy carried out their responsibilities with determination, then many problems of the country could be solved easily. Where the guard eaters decorate and eat the fenced fields, the system is bound to break.