Justice, At Long Last

A 71-year-old father summed itall 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 rapeand murder—backed by the civil society's outrage and demandfor justice—finally triumphed. Justice, much delayed—nearly 11 years— was finally delivered by the Delhi High Court whichset aside a "perverse" lower court judgement and convicted SantoshKumar Singh, son of Delhi's retired Joint Police Commissioner, and now a marriedpracticing lawyer, for raping and murdering Priyadarshini Mattoo, a final yearlaw 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 thejudiciary", Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin, who conducted rareday-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 trialcourt judge while delivering his judgement had ruled that the "state had failed to bring home the charge of rape against theaccused." More shockingly, he had said, "I know that he (the accused) is the man who committed the crime. Iacquit him, giving him the benefit of doubt."

It had prompted the then President KR Narayanan to remark that "the cathedrals of justice have become likecasinos"

Born on July 23,1973, Priyadarshini Mattoo migrated to Jammu from Srinagarwith her family where she completed her B Com from MAM College, and then joined Delhi University for her LLBcourse—she was in her final year. In 1995, she and her family had complained to the Police that Santosh KumarSingh —the son of a highly placed Police officer, J.P.Singh, then Inspector General of Police in Pondicherry—was harassingand stalking her. She had been provided with a personal security officer. And,in retaliation, Santosh had lodged a complaint with the university allegingthat Priyadarshini was pursuing two degrees simultaneously. That the complaintwas purely malicious had been proved when it was pointed out thatPriyadarshini had passed M.Com in 1991.

On January 23, 1996, PriyadarshaniMattoo was found strangled and dead in her uncle’s Vasant Kunj residence in NewDelhi. 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 theday.

While the trial judge had acquitted Santosh KumarSingh, 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 inDelhi 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 EvidenceAct and had held the CBI responsible for unfair investigation. It had pointed outthat the CBI had failed to even produce the witness, Virender Prasad, householdhelp at the Mattoo residence. The police had claimed Prasad had gone missing and was nottraceable; 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 investigativeagencies," the judge had claimed.

But the High Court in its 71-pagejudgement said "The trial judge acquitted the accused amazingly taking aperverse approach. It murdered justice and shocked judicial conscience."

The lower court had acquitted Santosh on the groundthat the CBI failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. It had notaccepted the DNA report and circumstantial evidence produced by the agency whiledeciding the case. But the High Court disagreedwith the trial court's findings on the DNA report and said there was no evidenceof tampering with blood samples or proof that the procedure adopted forconducting the test at a laboratory in Hyderabad was erroneous.

The High Court also rejected Santosh Kumar Singh'scontention that there was no evidence of rape or sexual intercourse and thatblood samples were tampered with, saying, "We find that there is noevidence to show that there was any tampering with the blood samples forwardedto the laboratory nor any reason for tampering with the same."

Santosh's contention that tampering of the blood samplewas 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 thecontrary nor sought to have an independent DNA test conducted to counter thereport...".

Ruling out the contention of Santosh's counsel that proper procedure was notfollowed in conducting the DNA test, the court observed that "there hasbeen great effort made by the counsel for the accused to discredit thetest".

The High Court ruled: "We find that at no stage has any of the expertwitnesses 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 suchcontamination or erroneous results."

The court agreed with the prosecution's contention thatmassive force was used and bodily injury caused to Priyadarshini when the crimewas committed. The court said Santosh's explanationthat his helmet— which was used to assault Priyadarshini— was damaged ninedays before the incident in a motorcycle accident on January 14, 1996 "didnot sound plausible". It also noted that "there was no visible signsof an accident seen on the helmet and as a matter of fact even the accident hasnot been proved".

Referring to the 19 injuries on Priyadarshini's body,the court said "use of blunt object to cause injury to the deceased cannotbe ruled out...The use of force and injury suffered by the accused (Santosh) onhis right hand show that the helmet was used with a great force as a weapon tocause injury to the deceased".

Holding that Santosh had taken a false plea that thevisor of his helmet had broken in an accident, the High Court said "theonly inference we can draw in the facts and circumstances of the case is thatthe visor was broken while he was assaulting the deceased with his helmet"."On our own analysis of the evidence we are of theview that the helmet of the accused got damaged and the visor was broken onJanuary 23, 1996, while it was being used for assaulting the deceased and thatis why on January 25 when the helmet was seized it had no visor on it."

Before concluding the judgement, the court concurredwith the trial court judges' observation that some officials of Delhi Policehave been unfair in order to save the accused as his father was a senior policeofficer in the force. "The very fact thatInspector Lalit Mohan did not record the statement of Kuppuswamy (witness andneighbour of Mattoo) on the date of occurrence that he (witness) had narratedthe incident to them (police), is indicative of the softness shown by thebrothers in uniform and that conduct of the policeman has been very rightly and severelycommented by the trial court which we find no reason to differ with," theBench said.

The court also expressed its displeasure that DelhiPolice failed to act on the complaint made by Mattoo that the accused wasstalking and harassing her. "None of thepolice officers to whom such complaints were made had reacted as was expected ofthem. Obviously at every stage they had in their mind that the accused was theson of their superior officer," the court observed.