EDITORIALS

Grinding Wheels of Justice

The judgments in the Katara murder and Uphaar fire cases show that justice delayed is justice denied.

hirteen years after 25-year-old Nitish Katara was killed,

the Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction of
his killers. Judicial delays, unfortunately, are only too
predictable in India. Just days after the Katara ruling, the apex
court gave its final ruling in the Uphaar cinema hall fire case
that had killed 59 people (23 of whom were minors) in New
Delhi, 18 years after the event.
The responses to the two judgments, however, were vastly
different. In both cases, the mothers and parents of the victims
who were predominantly middle class had waged a long and
tedious legal battle against rich and influential opponents. But
while in the Katara murder case, the Court said that it was a
classic example of how the rich and powerful people try to influence the justice delivery system, the other ruling was seen as
punishing the theatre owners, who are real estate tycoons, too
little and too late. They were asked to deposit Rs 60 crore with
the Delhi government to be used to build a trauma centre. The
two Ansal brothers (one had earlier spent five months in jail,
and the other four months) were free.
In their different ways, the two cases and their rulings raise
a number of issues pertaining to police investigation, witness
protection or the lack of it, the role of the mainstream and social
media and, of course, the perennial one of judicial delays forcing
litigants to face an intolerable strain on their emotional and
financial resources.
The son (Vikas) and nephew (Vishal) of ex-Rajya Sabha
member D P Yadav were convicted in 2008 for killing their
sister Bhartis classmate and friend, Nitish Katara, in 2002.
Yadav senior is often described as a don of Ghaziabad District
and had a reputation of being a kingmaker in politics of
Uttar Pradesh. Incidentally, Vikas Yadav was one of the accused
in the Jessica Lal murder case too. Witnesses, including Nitish
Kataras friends, turned hostile during the trial to the extent
that the Supreme Court was moved to comment upon it, the
public prosecutor was changed, allegedly to suit the powerful
family of the accused, and the two accused made 85 medical
outings in less than two years even though they were serving
a life term.
The murder was acknowledged to be an honour killing by
the Court and more significantly showed the stranglehold of
patriarchy even over a well-educated young woman. The Yadav
brothers were quoted as saying that her close friendship with
Nitish was harming their family reputation. Not only did she
end up denying the relationship with Katara when her brothers

were in the dock but was also sent off abroad to study even
as every effort was made to ensure that she did not return to
depose in court (she did in the end).
Neelam Kataras saga with the judicial system called for
extraordinary courage to withstand the immense pressures
exerted by her opponentsa fact acknowledged by the Delhi
High Court in its 2008 ruling. She has said that, apart from
becoming the single all-consuming centre of her life, it also
drained her financially.
In the Uphaar fire case, the litigants formed the Association
of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) to fight opponents
who had immense financial staying power. After the recent
court ruling they told the media that they felt cheated not
only by the judiciary but also by a government that had refused
to pull up those who were responsible for turning a blind eye
to the deliberate disdain for safety rules by the theatre
owners, the staff of the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking and
others involved.
In both the Katara murder and the Uphaar fire tragedy cases,
the mainstream media largely stood on the side of the victims.
The experiences of middle-class mothers fighting the moneyed
and well-connected on behalf of their dead children caught the
medias attention. This was all for the good of course but it also
raised questions whether this kind of selective prominence to
some cases by the media was due in large part to the obvious
class location of its readers and viewers (as well as the victims),
or was it truly an exercise in media activism in a democratic
society. The earlier social media campaigns in the case of the
Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo murder cases and the
resultant convictions are part of this same trend. Alas, these
issues, including that of how the media chooses the case it will
espouse, have not really been debated fully.
The Katara murder case and the Uphaar cinema fire case are
both testimonies to the indomitable spirit of the litigants who
fought long and hard for justice to the victims. But they also
show the lack of a strong witness protection system (in the Katara case the apex court told the accused that witnesses resiled
because you made them resile) and of professional police investigations that help get convictions for serious crimes. More
significantly, they show the ability of the powerful to ensure
that legal proceedings drag on interminably to grind down the
morale and resources of those taking them on. Whether the
judgment is welcomed or not, even these high-profile cases
show that justice delayed is justice denied.
AUGUST 22, 2015

vol l no 34

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly