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Perjury undermining criminal justice The Delhi High Court's order about prosecution for perjury of two witnesses should not be viewed as undue juridical indignation or vindictiveness. Soli J Sorabjee Retraction of confessions and witnesses turning hostile has frustrated successful prosecution of serious crime in several cases. In dealing with this alarming problem, two aspects have to be borne in mind: Stringent punishment of hostile witnesses and effective protection to genuine witnesses. Recently a bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and G.P. Mittal comprehensively dealt with this recurring problem. The High Court suo motu ordered prosecution of two witnesses, Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and ballistic expert P.S. Manocha, for perjury for resiling from their earlier statements as prosecution witnesses in the sensational Jessica Lal murder case of 1999 in which Manu Sharma was found guilty of murder by the High Court and sentenced to life imprisonment.
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Where does India stand in providing a safe environment to children? Child sexual abuse is a huge challenge. Even women don't acknowledge their child is being abused. It is only because of the highlighting of the issue in the public domain that some have the courage to report it. It is then found it is not a stranger who abuses a child. The government has formulated the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. It has some very radical provisions and fine elements of child jurisprudence. Some of the world's most progressive child-friendly laws have failed to protect children. There could be challenges in implementing the law, but framing the law itself is a huge success. It is new so its efficacy can't be judged, but each state government will have to do a lot to frame its own laws and make the police, child welfare committees, hospitals, nursing homes, teachers and juvenile homes aware. Institutions that come under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme Act will have to be trained. It should become a talking point in families. Many times it is thought of as a family issue or a private matter. How is the response of policing agencies? The response is tardy. There has to be greater alertness by the police to take up every case of missing child and violence against children. There was a delay in the case of the five-year-old child who was raped, even though her parents had complained. The child would not have suffered so much had the police taken prompt action. Missing children and trafficking is interrelated but the understanding reflected through a response is yet to come. The background for setting up the NCPCR was the 2006 Nithari crimes. Many children were going missing from Noida and its surrounding areas. It resulted in outrage. The issue of missing children and trafficking is profound. The National Human Rights Commission has come up with its document and the Ministry of Women and Child Development has worked on a policy note. More thought has to be given on what needs to be done at the sub-district level. There are multi-purpose health workers, aanganwadi workers and almost eight others at that level. It is important to have a decentralised system of reviewing children not going to school and finding out where they are and why they have left the village. Many states thrive on child labour. Trafficked children get trapped in the vicious cycle of labour and abuse. We have seen children in brick-kilns from Odisha, Bihar, etc. working in Punjab and Haryana. We have seen young brides coming to villages from Kerala and the Northeast. Some are forced to have multiple relationships. But certain positives are also taking place - the way the Right to Education Act has been implemented in Haryana. I have seen programmes in Mewat, traditionally inhabited by Muslims, where girls had never gone to schools, but the RTE has enabled their enrolment in schools. Have Punjab and Haryana managed to tackle crimes in institutional homes? Punjab and Haryana have shown remarkable progress in economy, but when one looks at taking care of children, you find foeticide, gender discrimination and violence against children prevail. Child development is an important indicator of progress and the states have to work seriously towards it. Children are taking to crime and many go on to become repeat offenders. These children come from homes where there has been a lot of violence and abuse. They have been discouraged everywhere and are seeking justice. Their vulnerability draws them to crime. Nobody is there to guide them. Juveniles should not be stigmatised as criminals. If trust is reposed in them, they will reform. Should the age of juvenility be reduced in heinous crimes? No, we have taken a very strong position that it cannot be reduced in relation to the crime. It should be 18 only. It is incorrect to link crime to age. All such children should be rehabilitated so they can integrate into the mainstream. What are the main gaps in the UPA's flagship child healthcare programmes such as the ICDS? The ICDS has expanded and has 14 lakh centres. The demand for centres has increased and children between 0 and 6 years have become visible. But the challenge is that even today 46 per cent of the country's children are malnourished. How do we make them child-friendly habitations? Aanganwadi centres should guarantee entitlements to children. It's a long way towards making education universal. What is the way out? The RTE has generated a phenomenal demand for education. More and more children are being enrolled, but challenges regarding teachers' recruitment, classrooms and access to basic facilities remain. It is too centralised. They have to trust the community and the gram panchayats and devolve more authority to the locals. Both the RTE and ICDS need greater decentralisation. Should the legal age of consensual sex be brought down? We argued that the age of consent should be 16 as many young girls and boys are exploring. We cannot criminalise them for what is a natural biological activity. But at the same time, there has to be a strong input of sex education, responsibility and informed behaviour in this age group. They cannot be penalised, but they have to be made aware about adolescence and sex.
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Recognition and awards came thick and fast in 1990s after he toiled for 50 years in the US, including three decades in the only job he ever held at the IMB. The organisation had so many Indian scientists working at its facility that it came to be known as “India-born migrants company”. It was here that Dr Srinivasan discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser could etch living issue in a precise manner with no thermal damage to the surrounding areas. He named the phenomenon ablative photodecomposition (APD), and in the years to come, ophthalmic surgeons have refined it to arrive at the corrective eye surgery generically called Lasik. Dr Srinivasan and his co-workers collaborated extensively with surgeons from 1983 to 1991 to find potential applications to the APD in surgery. The one field where the invention has succeeded impressively is in reshaping cornea to correct problems in vision such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. For this, they were awarded the Russ Prize for 2013. Later, the APD became the method of choice to drill polymers such as polyimide, which are used in the packaging of chips and in the nozzles of ink-jet printers. Dr Srinivasan was not thinking about eye surgery when he began the work that led to the invention. He was simply looking for new things made possible by laser. Polymers share certain chemical features with skin and other human and animal tissue. Dr Srinivasan and his team speculated about using it on human tissues that required to be cut during surgery. Perhaps, they could use a laser to make a precise cut without causing collateral damage. “It was a wild guess, but it worked,” he says. This idea became a reality a few weeks later. In the beginning of this year, US President Barack Obama presented the prestigious National Medal for Technology and Innovation to Dr Srinivasan for his groundbreaking work. Established by a statute in 1980, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation was first awarded in 1985 and is administered for the White House by the US Department of Commerce Patent and Trademark Office. Congratulating scientists and inventors, President Obama said if there was an idea that set this country apart, an idea that made it different from every other nation on the Earth, it was there in America. Success did not depend on where one was born, or what his or her last name was. “Success depends on the ideas that you can dream up, the possibilities that you envision, and the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears you are willing to put in to make them real,” he said.
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Guest Column
The High Court suo motu ordered prosecution of two witnesses, Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and ballistic expert P.S.
Manocha, for perjury for resiling from their earlier statements as prosecution witnesses in the sensational Jessica Lal murder case of 1999 in which Manu Sharma was found guilty of murder by the High Court and sentenced to life imprisonment. The High Court after going through the facts on record dismissed the perjury charge against 17 of the 19 prosecution witnesses, except in the case of Munshi and
Manocha.
It was contended on behalf of Munshi that action under Section 340 (perjury) was not legally tenable because had not made any statement on oath from which he may have resiled. The High Court rejected this contention and ruled that action under Section 340 of the CrPC was prima facie warranted against him because on the night when the murder took place, in his original statement, Munshi identified the accused Manu Sharma. Thereafter, in court he said that his statement which he narrated in English was recorded in Hindi and he did not know Hindi at all. Furthermore, during the trial he took a somersault and came out with the version that there were two gentlemen at the bar counter. The High Court found the explanation unacceptable and called Munshi a liar. As regards ballistic expert Manocha, the Bench said his retraction was suspect. The Bench rejected his contention that he being an expert witness could not be held liable for difference in opinion, particularly when the expert opinion in his report had helped accused Manu Sharma make out a case of a two-weapon theory that was accepted by the trial court, leading to Manu's acquittal. The Bench was at pains to highlight the seriousness of perjury, which is evident from the increasing trend of witnesses turning hostile, leading to acquittal of offenders in a large number of criminal proceedings. The Bench deplored that the legal regime in India did not recognise the underlying causes for this malaise that had plagued the criminal justice system. The Bench was emphatic that those who turned hostile for monetary or like considerations should be dealt with severely and made to stand trial. On the other hand, the Bench was conscious of the need for witness protection and its importance in the administration of criminal justice. It stressed that witnesses who needed to be supported and protected from threats of harm to themselves or their family members, or even their business interests, should be given full protection. To that end, the court issued far-reaching directions requiring agencies such as the police, CBI and the National Investigation Agency to conduct threat assessment of witnesses and their family members. If they found that threats were serious, then the witnesses should be provided assistance from a witness protection fund, which it asked the government to create. The court directed that in the event of any change in the identity of the witness, the State must ensure that knowledge and details of such an event be restricted to the barest minimum number of people. Taking a cue from the Supreme Court judgment in the Visakha case concerning sexual harassment of women at workplace, the Bench ruled that its directions would bind the Delhi government till those were replaced by suitable legislation. Thereafter, the Bench directed the Registrar General of the High Court to file a complaint before a court having jurisdiction to take action under Section 340 of the CrPC against Munshi and Manocha for perjury. The Delhi High Court judgment is another example of judicial intervention to cleanse the malaise plaguing the criminal justice system in contrast to the inaction of the executive in this important sphere. Judicial activism has come under severe criticism on the ground of judicial overreach and judges taking over the administration of the country. However, the judgment of the Delhi High Court is a commendable example of much needed progressive judicial activism in light of the conditions prevailing in our country and its lethal effect on the criminal justice delivery system. The court's order about prosecution for perjury of those two witnesses should not be viewed as undue juridical indignation or vindictiveness. It was impelled by its keenness to cleanse the system of the malaise that has plagued it for long and which brooks no further delay. The spirit of the judgment needs to be emulated and judges of the Delhi High Court deserve full credit for their holistic vision. The writer is an eminent jurist and former Attorney-General of India.
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OFF THE CUFF
Hamid Karzai, afghanistan president Sushma Swaraj, leader of the opposition in
the lok sabha Omar Abdullah, j&k chief minister Vijender singh, boxer Brad Pitt, hollywood actor
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prof Shanta
Sinha
once
Retraction
You are the citizens of India, one of the greatest civilisations on earth. Keep progressing, and at the same time, remember your culture and use your energy for the country's welfare.
Manmohan Singh is the PM, but he's neither the leader of the country nor his party. His colleagues sit with him in the Cabinet and look towards the UPA chairperson for directions.
Imagine if Pakistani forces had come 19 km inside the LoC. How would we have reacted? I understand comparing our ties with Pakistan and that with China is like comparing chalk and cheese. 
I won't be casual friends with anyone. I won't ever leave my car keys or my mobile phone with anybody. I have become wary of people. It was a very painful experience for me.
I hate the void when the kids are not at home. I want chaos in the house. There's constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging.