Feb
22
Bringing Laws on Course
February 22, 2004 | Comments Off on Bringing Laws on Course
In his article, Bringing Laws on Course, Dilip D’Souza discusses how investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) tend to end in dead ends:
[T]o my knowledge, it [the CBI] has never succeeded in bringing about a conviction of a single significant Indian politician.
And despite that admirable achievement, too often we find ordinary people who demand and get a CBI inquiry into some crime that has touched them. Who are satisfied when such an inquiry is announced. Who later feel impotent fury when such an inquiry withers away, as it invariably does.
D’Souza discusses the use of inquiry commissions to satisfy people clamoring for justice, and the constant dichotomy in India between paper (the laws on the book) and reality (the implementation of the laws):
As for inquiries, they have come and gone by the dozen. By my count, there have been at least eight official inquiries into the 1984 massacre of Sikhs alone; yet a ninth, headed by Justice GT Nanavati, is inquiring on as you read this. (If that doesn’t seem perverse enough to you, try this: Justice Nanavati is also simultaneously inquiring into the bloodshed in Gujarat in 2002). But in punishing the guilty named in inquiries, we have been consistently lax. What purpose, then, do they serve? Why do we demand them, and why are we satisfied when they are instituted?
The CBI is currently investigating issues of culpability regarding the illegal cremations matter in Punjab, although its progress reports, if any, have been kept confidential. The CBI is also investigating or has investigated prominent cases of disappearances in Punjab, such as those of Ropar advocate Kulwant Singh and his family.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.