Show A Candle To Law

When public outrage erupted over the acquittal of Manu Sharma, the main accused, on February 21, the cynics said it would last a week, until media and public attention shifted to the next big thing. But the Jessica case will remain much longer in public memory—because outrage has led to something more meaningful and decisive: action.

In handing out a stiff sentence to ZaheeraSheikh, who turned hostile in the Best Bakerycase, the Supreme Court appeared to be responding, in part, to snowballing dismay and anger over the miscarriage of justice in the Jessica case: "People have started feeling that criminal trials are like cobwebs where small flies are getting caught and big people are dashing through," the two-judge bench said. Its observation that in cases of defective investigation, the court needs to do more that just acquit the accused seemed directed, among others, towards trial court judge S.L. Bhayana, who based his case to allow Sharma and others to walk free on a botched-up police investigation.

The bench also seemed to be sending out a significant, larger message to the judicial community: that the judge in a criminal court must cease to be a "spectator" and a "mere recording machine" and actively participate in a search for the truth.

Before that, there was Sonia Gandhi’s intervention. Scandalised by the witness flip-flops in the case, the Congress president wrote to home minister Shivraj Patil asking for stronger steps to protect witnesses, setting off a flurry of action in South Block. The government will now introduce a bill amending the Criminal Procedure Code and other relevant laws to shield witnesses from arm-twisting and punish them for succumbing to allurements. Predictably, witness protection—one of many things lacking in the criminal justice system—now threatens to become a mantra, with a host of luminaries declaring it the need of the hour in the wake of Sonia’s intervention.

For Sonia, the denial of justice to Jessica may have also struck a personal chord. Jessica’s mother, May, a one-time teacher at the Convent of Jesus and Mary (CJM) in Delhi, taught Priyanka and Rahul after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Security threats kept the children away from school, and the CJM principal asked May, who had given up teaching by then, to tutor them at their home. When she died in 2002, the siblings attended her funeral.

However, the question that concerned citizens are now asking is: what is Sonia planning to do about Manu Sharma’s father, Venod, a Congress minister in the Haryana government, who is widely believed to have colluded in the cover-up?

The other consequence of public outrage over the Jessica case is that the Delhi Police has begun a process of damage control. It is filing an appeal in the Delhi High Court against Bhayana’s verdict—a step that may not have been taken had it not been for the outrage over the acquittal of Jessica’s killers. It has also registered a case of criminal conspiracy against unnamed persons to probe collusion between police officers and the accused to botch investigation and falsify evidence. A senior police official stressed that this second step was primarily a response to public loss of faith in the police: "This is an internal inquiry that the police needs to carry out to recover its image and reputation. That is the purpose of this particular investigation, rather than nailing Jessica Lall’s killers."

Meanwhile, blogs, e-mails and protest marches across the country continue. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam received over two lakh e-mails asking him to intervene in the case. "I am overwhelmed, amazed and exhausted by what I have seen over the last two weeks," says Jessica’s sister, Sabrina. "Friends whom I have not spoken to for years are calling me up. Strangers are approaching me to show solidarity, students are inviting me to join marches. I can’t believe how people have made this cause their own."

By Anjali Puri with Bhavna Vij-Aurora