[Reader-list] second posting

[chander nigam]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040425/b02c52df/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
Hi friends

sorry for delayed posting. I hope you will try to understand the peculiar situation, under which I am working. I do not get much time to write after the exhausting courts work. Koi baat nahin. I have much to share with you. While I am writing this note I have several things in my mind but I would try to concentrate myself primarily on some of the court cases, which I am following in the court after a very brief chat with Jeebesh last month. But before coming to the court cases I would like to share the general scenario in the court premises briefly. 

Right in front of the Metro Station there is gate of Tis Hazaari Courts. If you enter into the court premises between 10am to 3 pm from this gate you will see blue colored buses having very small nets (slightly bigger than the mosquito nets) on its windows. And if your eyes are ready to bear the pain you can watch how ruthlessly people are pitted inside the buses. In fact the MCD vans carry the animals better than the blue colored van. Yes, these blue buses are nothing but the Delhi Police vans and the people pitted into the vans are inmates. Delhi Police brings them for their appearance in different courts on every date. These vans stop in front of the huge gate (behind this gate there are several other gates) of ‘Hazat’ (lock up) and the inmates are kept into it. If you hardly walk two-three steps on the same side you can easily watch a large number of men and women, badly dressed up (mostly in dirty and torn cloths) spread in groups are trying to have a glimpse of their relatives and acquaintances. And the personals of DAP running behind them with their LATTHHS.

This is the usual scene of the ‘hazat’ of the court. The people, who come to meet their acquaintances, first try to sit outside the huge iron wall of the hazat, but in front of DAP’s abuse and chase they have to search other space to sit over. So, the parked scooters, the walls of parking and the backside of the Court no. 38 (CMM’s court) finally become their waiting point. The moment a blue van enters into the gate, the groups sitting at different waiting points start soughting like, “aa gayi aa gayi, char number wali aa gayi.” “aare nahin, yeh to paanch number wali hai.” Actually, this ‘char number wali’ or ‘paanch number wali’ is nothing but the jail numbers in Tihar and the van comes from every jail. Anyway, This is followed by the procedure of appearances of inmates in different courts. Holding the hands of inmates very tactfully, the Delhi Armed Police (DAP) staffs take them to the concerned courts, which is spread all over the three floors of the huge court building. Here one can watch the real scene! The interesting scene! The inmates are going along with DAP staffs, their acquaintances are running behind them for having a clear glimpse and whispering something personal or private. And doing this sometimes relatives start running with the inmates, which is generally not allowed and objected by the DAP staff. Now comes the stage of negotiation. The acquaintances start with offering 10 or 20 rupees to the DAP and finally reaching at 50-100 rupees note the compromises are made. And by the time one reach to the compromise they reach very close to courts. Anyway, the DAP staffs keeps the money very tactfully and say, “koi nahin, wapsi me baat kar lena.” And in the wapsi they say, “jaldi karo-jaldi karo, bahut ho gaya.” Here what I want to point out is that this happens only in case of poor and illiterate types of inmates, who do not have any clue of the official way of meeting with the relatives. They can meet with their acquaintances getting only an order by concerned magistrates, which they generally pass. And you know, such kind of persons comprise the biggest section of the inmates. Otherwise for the rich and affluent section of inmates such meetings are not a big deal. The hand-holders never object them. If fact the moment they came out of lock up, you can see them surrounded by their relatives and friends like they are walking in their home. Many a times I myself have seen the court appearance of king pin like Romesh Sharma and Tandoor fame Shushil Sharma freely. Anyway I think I should stop here with my descriptions, otherwise it would be detailed instead of my promise of brief. 
 
NOw. let me talk something from the court cases. Although, I am following a number of cases but I would like to discuss the legal status of one matrimonial case and one criminal case. And through these two cases I will also try to convey the procedure and behavior of courts, staff and of course of my fraternity i.e., advocate. Since these cases are on trail I am not mentioning the name of courts and concerned magistrates and counsels, even then I am requesting my friends not to quote the facts and figures anywhere otherwise I shall be made the next accused probably under the OSA. 

Firstly I would like to discuss the facts of ASMA AND OTHER VERSUS IQBAL. According the case the petitioner ASMA was married to the respondent IQBAL on 21-06-1997, at Balia, UP. After marriage the petitioner’s family came to Delhi and settled here. Asma’s family had spent a lot of money, even beyond his limit in the marriage and met all the demands of the respondent’s family. In fact they had given some cash and kind also in the dowry. But the respondent’s family was not satisfied with items brought by the petitioner. They all started taunting and harassing the petitioner that she did not bring adequate amount of dowry. They insisted her to ask her parents to bring Rs. 10, 000. But Asma refused to act according to her in-laws by saying that they are not in a position to give the said amount, they gave merciless beatings to her. Even the petitioner was given beatings at the time of her pregnancy. Petitioner gave birth to a male child in the March 2000. After some time see fell ill but she was not given medication there. Finally she wrote to her parents about her illness and the ill treatment of in-laws. After that father of Asma came to Balia and took her back to Delhi for her treatment. The moment her husband knew that see got well, came and took her to his home in Balia. And the same harassment and beating things started happening again. Again she wrote to her parents in November 2002. Her father again came and brought her to Delhi. But through different sources her in-laws continiously pressrised her to come back with the asked amount and threatened her that if filed any case against him and his family members then he would kill her son. Now, petitioner is living with her son in her parental house since 14-11-2002. She filled the case for maintenance through her counsel on 10-9-2003. Next date of hearing was given as 5-11-2003 for appearance of respondent. But he did not turn up to the court on the above said dated. Neither court nor the counsel knows what happened to the first three summons issued by the court. Only the last summon i.e., the fourth one returned with the remark of postman, “BAAR BAAR JANE PAR BHI KOI NAHIN MILTA”.  The next date of hearing was 9-1-2004 but again he did not turn up. The court again issued summon through the registered post and DASTI (Actually, dasti is a process of serving notice to someone, in which any person who has acquaintance with the respondent are send with the process server or individually to delver the court notice) as well and fixed 17th March as the next date of hearing. The registered summon went through its own way but no body from petitioner side became ready to go with the dasti summon and the reason they said that, “unka bahut logon se wahan par jaan-pahchaan hai, kahin kutch karva hi diya to kaun guarantee lega? vakil sahab lenge?” Anyway, the next date came and same thing was repeated again. The court again issued summon and gave the next date of hearing, which is 31st May. This time the advocate requested for summon through the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of District Balia. Summon via CJM is another way of issuing notice to the respondent, in which the summon goes through the court under which jurisdiction the respondent resides. 

The petitioner is a poor woman. Apart from the counsel’s fees (which is not less than Rs. 5000/-) she has to spend Rs.200/- on every date of hearing for filling the process fees and the charge of registered post (PF & RC). Without filling the PF & RC summons can’t be issued. The economic and social condition of her in-laws is much better than her. Their every refusal of getting noticed cost her too much. Most interesting story is this that the courts issued summons five times but only one summon returned. Let us see what happens to the next date of hearing, which is almost after one month. More than seven months have already passed but service of notice is still considered to be effective by the court. While in the court’s functioning and procedure after 21 days of serving notice it is assumed that the party has already received notice and on the basis of that the magistrate can pass the order, and in such cases it can be ex-party (in favor of the petitioner) decree. But what I want to highlight here is that the process of summoning someone is so lengthy that the petitioner starts loosing his/her patience. In this case petitioner’s family has started saying that VAKILSAHAB KUCH KARO, KITNE DIN AUR LAGENGE. And this is the perfect case where the slogan, “ justice delayed is justice denied” deems fit. 

Now let me share something about another case, which is quite different from the former. This is related to a bad character (BC) of a police station in North West District. Actually the BC is a character, who in case of any robbery or theft or any other criminal occurrence in that locality which he belongs to, made responsible for that by the local police station. Or in other words he is supposed to be well connected and well informed about any crime in his/her locality and with that assumption police try to nab him first as the main source of crime. The story goes like this, a robbery case occurred in his area, which followed by the midnight knock at his door by the local police as usual. The police personals called him by their own way. Hearing the knock his wife walked to the door and tried to have a glimpse of the callers. It was police. She replied from inside, “woh nahin hai ghar me”. Policewallah asked that they wanted to search her house. She refused and said that if she was saying that he is not in the house then why they were insisting for search. But they continued with their demand. Finally she said, “agar aaplog nahin manoge to main khud to khatam kar lungi.” Police has its own way of interpretation of any subject. They thought that she is speaking lie and simply threatening them. So by saying  ‘koi baat nahin’ they again asked for search of her house. Finally she went to her kitchen and after pouring kerosene on her body came near the door and said, “maine mitti ka del urel liya hai apne upar agar ab bhi nahin mane to main aag laga lungi. “Main matchis dun kya” was the reply from outside. She opened the door and police wallah ‘badhaoed’ the matchis to her and finally she burnt herself. Looking the burning body the policewallah left the place appallingly. Since her husband was afraid of his arrest he also fled from the scene. Anyway, after a few days her husband was arrested in the previous case and sent to Tihar. Now, for the last two months he is struggling for getting bail. Neither he nor his family members has any idea of how to act in this case. They do not know the prose and cons of the legal affairs. However, it is a clear case of abetment of suicide under section 306 of IPC against the police personals and under this section punishment is imprisonment of either description for a term, which may extend to 10 years and the accused shall also be liable to fine. This offence under section 306 is cognizable, non bailable and non compoundable. But who will fight for this case? Who will help them in getting justice? No one knows after his release whether he will fight for his wife or not. His counsel says that he is paid only for bailing him out so why he should bother about the suicide. If I will be paid for the next case that is section 306, I will fight for that also. I am not a social worker. Let the social workers do their work. 

This is the status of only two cases but in number of other cases situation are more or less similar. Apart from following some of cases, I am also trying to collect the statistics of cases in Tis Hazari both in terms of civil as well as criminal cases. I want to collect the number of cases come into the court yearly. And in this regard I have started looking at criminal cases of two of the police stations and trying to find out the statistics of last 2-3 years. Actually the main purpose of doing this exercise is that I am interested in understanding the pattern of crimes and its trends in the last few years. My experience speaks that this is a very tough kind of job to get such data, especially in terms of criminal matters. Anyway I have collected some data from one of the police stations, but since it is not substantial, I am not writing about that right now. But I will try to write the detail in this regard very soon. You are most welcome with your suggestions and comments.

Thanks and regards
Chander