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| DELAYED BUT NOT DENIED | | Justice, At Long Last | |
It was a long time coming. A 60 year old father had turned 71. But he had not given up the fight demanding justice for his 22-year old daughter's brutal rape and murder. The accused, the son of Delhi's second top-cop, had gone on to marry, and practice law...
A 71-year-old father summed it all up with a simple, "Finally, justice has been done."
Chaman Lal Mattoo's relentless fight for justice for his 22-year old daughter's brutal rape and murder—backed by the civil society's outrage and demand for justice—finally triumphed. Justice, much delayed—nearly 11 years — was finally delivered by the Delhi High Court which set aside a "perverse" lower court judgement and convicted Santosh Kumar Singh, son of Delhi's retired Joint Police Commissioner, and now a married practicing lawyer, for raping and murdering Priyadarshini Mattoo, a final year law student, on January 23, 1996.
Declaring that the trial court's acquittal of Santosh, a lawyer now in his 30s, in 1999 had "shocked the conscience of the judiciary", Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin, who conducted rare day-to-day hearings over just 42 days, convicted him under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code.
Santosh, who was present in the jam-packed courtroom, was taken into custody by the CBI on the court's directive. The sentence— death or life imprisonment— will be pronounced on October 30.
Way back on December 3, 1999, ASJ Thareja, the trial court judge while delivering his judgement had ruled that the "state had failed to bring home the charge of rape against the accused." More shockingly, he had said, "I know that he (the accused) is the man who committed the crime. I acquit him, giving him the benefit of doubt."
It had prompted the then President KR Narayanan to remark that "the cathedrals of justice have become like casinos"
Born on July 23,1973, Priyadarshini Mattoo migrated to Jammu from Srinagar with her family where she completed her B Com from MAM College, and then joined Delhi University for her LLB course—she was in her final year. In 1995, she and her family had complained to the Police that Santosh Kumar Singh —the son of a highly placed Police officer, J.P. Singh, then Inspector General of Police in Pondicherry—was harassing and stalking her. She had been provided with a personal security officer. And, in retaliation, Santosh had lodged a complaint with the university alleging that Priyadarshini was pursuing two degrees simultaneously. That the complaint was purely malicious had been proved when it was pointed out that Priyadarshini had passed M.Com in 1991.
On January 23, 1996, Priyadarshani Mattoo was found strangled and dead in her uncle’s Vasant Kunj residence in New Delhi. She was not yet 23. She had been raped, battered 14 times, allegedly with a motorcycle helmet, and finally strangled with a wire. Delhi Police had registered FIR against Santosh Kumar Singh, who had been spotted knocking for entrance into the house earlier in the day.
While the trial judge had acquitted Santosh Kumar Singh, he had also pointed to the "particular inaction by Delhi Police". Santosh's father, JP Singh, who had been transferred as Joint Commissioner of Police in Delhi during the trial, was clearly mentioned: "The influence of the father has been there in the matter and there was deliberate inaction". The judge had gone on to say, "Lalit Mohan, the Inspector was instrumental in creating false evidence and false defence for the accused. The witnesses of the police including a Sub-Inspector deposed falsely".
The Delhi Police, the judge had said, attempted to assist the accused during the investigation and trial. "The rule of law doesn’t seem to apply to the children of those who enforce it." He had further added that the injuries on the accused along with the helmet and wire which was recovered from the accused made it clear he was guilty. However, the evidence had all been tampered with.
That was not all. The judgement had also accused the CBI of fabricating the DNA test in the rape case as it was not obtained in accordance with the judicial procedure and could not therefore be admitted in evidence in view of Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act and had held the CBI responsible for unfair investigation. It had pointed out that the CBI had failed to even produce the witness, Virender Prasad, household help at the Mattoo residence. The police had claimed Prasad had gone missing and was not traceable; but a journalist could easily find later him in his Bihar village.
"That I know the defendant is guilty, my hands are tied. As a judge, I can only go by the evidence provided by the investigative agencies," the judge had claimed.
But the High Court in its 71-page judgement said "The trial judge acquitted the accused amazingly taking a perverse approach. It murdered justice and shocked judicial conscience."
The lower court had acquitted Santosh on the ground that the CBI failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. It had not accepted the DNA report and circumstantial evidence produced by the agency while deciding the case. But the High Court disagreed with the trial court's findings on the DNA report and said there was no evidence of tampering with blood samples or proof that the procedure adopted for conducting the test at a laboratory in Hyderabad was erroneous.
The High Court also rejected Santosh Kumar Singh's contention that there was no evidence of rape or sexual intercourse and that blood samples were tampered with, saying, "We find that there is no evidence to show that there was any tampering with the blood samples forwarded to the laboratory nor any reason for tampering with the same."
Santosh's contention that tampering of the blood sample was done to secure evidence to his prejudice failed to impress the High Court, which said that "at no stage did the accused lead any evidence to the contrary nor sought to have an independent DNA test conducted to counter the report...".
Ruling out the contention of Santosh's counsel that proper procedure was not followed in conducting the DNA test, the court observed that "there has been great effort made by the counsel for the accused to discredit the test".
The High Court ruled: "We find that at no stage has any of the expert witnesses said that the test conducted by them would have given a wrong result. On the contrary they have categorically ruled out any such possibility of such contamination or erroneous results."
The court agreed with the prosecution's contention that massive force was used and bodily injury caused to Priyadarshini when the crime was committed. The court said Santosh's explanation that his helmet— which was used to assault Priyadarshini— was damaged nine days before the incident in a motorcycle accident on January 14, 1996 "did not sound plausible". It also noted that "there was no visible signs of an accident seen on the helmet and as a matter of fact even the accident has not been proved".
Referring to the 19 injuries on Priyadarshini's body, the court said "use of blunt object to cause injury to the deceased cannot be ruled out...The use of force and injury suffered by the accused (Santosh) on his right hand show that the helmet was used with a great force as a weapon to cause injury to the deceased".
Holding that Santosh had taken a false plea that the visor of his helmet had broken in an accident, the High Court said "the only inference we can draw in the facts and circumstances of the case is that the visor was broken while he was assaulting the deceased with his helmet". "On our own analysis of the evidence we are of the view that the helmet of the accused got damaged and the visor was broken on January 23, 1996, while it was being used for assaulting the deceased and that is why on January 25 when the helmet was seized it had no visor on it."
Before concluding the judgement, the court concurred with the trial court judges' observation that some officials of Delhi Police have been unfair in order to save the accused as his father was a senior police officer in the force. "The very fact that Inspector Lalit Mohan did not record the statement of Kuppuswamy (witness and neighbour of Mattoo) on the date of occurrence that he (witness) had narrated the incident to them (police), is indicative of the softness shown by the brothers in uniform and that conduct of the policeman has been very rightly and severely commented by the trial court which we find no reason to differ with," the Bench said.
The court also expressed its displeasure that Delhi Police failed to act on the complaint made by Mattoo that the accused was stalking and harassing her. "None of the police officers to whom such complaints were made had reacted as was expected of them. Obviously at every stage they had in their mind that the accused was the son of their superior officer," the court observed. |
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