India is usually portrayed as the centre of outsourced technology or of dazzling bollywood movies. But what the people forget is that it is primarily the centre of Human Rights abuses.

In spite of the so-called “freedom” achieved more than half a century ago, the common people in India live under constant threat of violence and torture. It becomes worse if you’re a woman or a child.

Just to enumerate a few;

Decision to arrest.
Police may arrest, without a warrant and without an order from a Magistrate, any person who has committed or is suspected to have committed a cognizable offense. Police may also arrest persons for the purpose of preventing the commission of such an offense without a warrant or order. Very few arrests are made on the basis of a warrant

The IPC divides an estimated 300 offenses into two classes. Cognizable crimes are those in which a police officer may arrest the accused or a suspect without a warrant, and includes murder, rioting, rape, kidnapping and abduction, robbery, dacoity, organized robbery, house-breaking and theft. Non- cognizable crimes are those in which a warrant is required for arrest and are generally of a more trivial nature. Crimes can be classified as "bailable" or "non-bailable", depending on their severity.

Hence the, the police is left to decide if they even need a warrant to pick up someone or not. Very disturbing. How do we know for sure the police will always make the right decision? Well then there is corruption- AT ALL LEVELS IN INDIA
If you area single women with no money to bribe the officials, you’re in trouble!!

Another interesting thought;
Pre-trial incarceration conditions. In cases where police investigation cannot be completed within 24 hours of the arrest, the accused is presented to the nearest Judicial Magistrate. If the circumstances warrant custody of the accused, the Magistrate will order a period of detention. For first-time offenders, 15 days is ordered. However, such detention periods can be extended to 90 days if the offense is one punishable by death or imprisonment for more than 10 years or for 60 days for other lesser offenses.

First you get arrested without a warrant and then you may end up staying in jail for 15 days even if the first time you are arrested. Where is the principle of ‘Innocent until found Guilty’?

And talking about interesting stuff, listen to this;
Murder. There were 39,174 murders recorded in 1991. The IPC defines murder as an act by which death is caused intentionally. Attempts are not included.
Rape. There were 10,410 rapes in 1990. The IPC defines rape as sexual intercourse by a man with a woman against her will, without her consent, or with her consent, if her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she has an interest in fear of death or harm. Attempts are not included.
Property crime. There were 10,831 dacoities recorded in 1990. The IPC defines a dacoity as a robbery committed or attempted to be committed jointly by five or more persons. Attempts are not included.

Well now, you can be woman who is striped naked and molested and fondled with in the middle of the road but that does not come under “Rape”. What does that come under?
Or if you’re living alone and two men come and ran sack your house, its not property crime, as there weren’t FIVE men. I’m thinking how convenient for the Police!!

And after all this if you do reach the court;
The victim has no role either in prosecution or in sentencing

Before you can even think of actually reaching the court, you have to stay at the police station. Can you expect the police who most probably picked you up without a warrant, to actually respect human rights?

I couldn’t have explained it better than what is written in this Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission;
“The situation is even worse at the police stations. Police stations are state-sponsored torture chambers, and police officers are criminals in uniform on the payroll from the state exchequer. Policing is a commodity that can be bought as if rotten fish from a cheap market. The modus of investigation, had it been a few centuries earlier, would have put the inquisitors to shame because of the sheer cruelty employed. The entire investigation is based on a forced confession. The term “suspect” has only one meaning in India: one will be pulverised under the iron fists of inhuman law enforcement officers. Thus, in this way, punishment is meted out at the police station. Criminal trials have become a matter of mere formality. Today there is no mechanism whatsoever to prevent this form of police rule in India”
It adds on in the same statement;
“The existing legal framework in India also in no way helps to correct this system. The police enjoy absolute impunity, and the national or state human rights commissions in India watch this brutality helplessly. Even if the human rights commissions take up a case, the commissions do not have any independent mechanism to investigate the cases. The investigation of the cases are left with the local police or a police officer deputed to serve the commission, which ultimately has to depend upon the mercy of the local police. The orders of the commissions are merely recommendations that are ignored by the government.”

I thought Police were there to safeguard the citizens and provide security from the anti-social elements. But with the custodial rapes and tortures happening in India, it doesn’t seem to be so.

We cannot forget the no. of years it takes for cases to get solved, most times the victims are dead by the time the case has a hearing. An example of the same is the famous case of Shibu Soren, where the warrants were not being served for some thirty years. In between these thirty years several of the accused as well as complainants are dead and still the case is pending. Even if the court does give a verdict, it wouldn’t be of much use.
And don’t even get me started on how the common man is treated when he reaches the court. Its difficult to even know who is presiding over the court, especially in the lower courts such as Tees Hazari.
Anand Saroop, a noted Legal personality as well as a former Secretary of Government of India, in a workshop on Judicial Reforms said that the conditions in which lawyers have to work in the Lower Courts are same with the conditions of prostitutes. He compares the scene in a bar association room and the scene in a brothel in Bhindi Bazar and Sonagachhi and concludes that both the place looks same where ‘client waiting’ is the whole thing.
As you must have guessed by now, the rich and the famous, never get convicted of any crime. They can buy the whole justice system and use it as their slave to get what they want. Cases like Jessica Lal, Tandoor Murder case, Sahabuddin case, Amarmani Tripathy, are proof of the same.

So how many cases are actually pending? Few thousands, few hundred thousands? No. On 4 December 2005 the Chief Justice of India himself stated that there are a minimum of 2.6 million cases pending before various courts in India.

As Dr. Shanker Adawal wrote
“Paying bribes have become too common in the functioning of the courts. It is a sad reality that if you want to give bribe to the judge one would need a facilitator and most of the time it is the lawyer who act as the facilitator. In return the Judge also help the lawyer by granting him with a number of adjournments, as the more the adjournment the more is the income of the lawyer. Now where do you find the common men in this scheme?”

You find the common man harassed and treated unjustly and persecuted in a free country. That is exactly where you find the common man in India. And I would like to repeat, it is worse if you’re a woman or a child. You can only imagine what would be worse than that.

It is no surprise that ACHR wrote ;
“The Government of India has consistently refused to acknowledge the fact that the rule of law in India has completely collapsed. It has shut its doors to any who sought accountability, either by way of domestic procedures or by way of international assistance. The long pending report to the UN Human Rights Committee, which has been due since 2001. The Government has also denied the request of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to visit the country. The request has been pending since 1997.”

There is a very long list of cases that prove all the above to be true. However I would like to site just a few;
Mr. Rajendran of Kollam District in Kerala State lost his life due to custodial torture after he was taken into custody by Kollam East Police Station for protesting at the gate of a private hospital in Kollam. Mr. Manishbhai Motibhai Vasava from Katiskuva village in Uchchhal Thaluka of Surat District, Gujarat was shot point blank in the face by a State Forest Department officer merely because the officer was drunk.
These were not people from lower casts or remote rural areas. These were educated people who knew their rights.

Another aspect of Human Rights abuse that goes unnoticed is the Rape Laws in Inida.
Instead of writing long paragraphs explaining their loop holes, I’ll just site a few cases;

In the Mathura rape case,6 wherein Mathura- a sixteen year old tribal girl was raped by two policemen in the compound of Desai Ganj Police station in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra.
Her relatives, who had come to register a complaint, were patiently waiting outside even as the heinous act was being committed in the police station. When her relatives and the assembled crowd threatened to burn down the police chowky, the two guilty policemen, Ganpat and Tukaram, reluctantly agreed to file a panchnama.
The case came for hearing on 1st June, 1974 in the sessions court. The judgment however turned out to be in favour of the accused. Mathura was accused of being a liar. It was stated that since she was ‘habituated to sexual intercourse’ her consent was voluntary; under the circumstances only sexual intercourse could be proved and not rape.
On appeal the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court set aside the judgment of the Sessions Court, and sentenced the accused namely Tukaram and Ganpat to one and five years of rigorous imprisonment respectively. The Court held that passive submission due to fear induced by serious threats could not be construed as consent or willing sexual intercourse.
However, the Supreme Court again acquitted the accused policemen. The Supreme Court held that Mathura had raised no alarm; and also that there were no visible marks of injury on her person thereby negating the struggle by her.
The Court in this case failed to comprehend that a helpless resignation in the face of inevitable compulsion or the passive giving in is no consent. However, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1983 has made a statutory provision in the face of Section.114 (A) of the Evidence Act, which states that if the victim girl says that she did no consent to the sexual intercourse, the Court shall presume that she did not consent.

In Mohd.Habib Vs State7, the Delhi High Court allowed a rapist to go scot-free merely because there were no marks of injury on his penis- which the High Court presumed was a indication of no resistance. The most important facts such as the age of the victim (being seven years) and that she had suffered a ruptured hymen and the bite marks on her body were not considered by the High Court. Even the eye- witnesses who witnessed this ghastly act, could not sway the High Court’s judgment.

Another classic example of the judicial pronouncements in rape cases is the case of Bhanwari Devi, wherein a judge remarked that the victim could not have been raped since she was a dalit while the accused hailed from an upper caste- who would not stoop to sexual relations with a dalit.
And I thought cast system was legally abolished a long time ago.

I think I have said enough. Everyone can make up their mind on what actually India is.

References
1. WORLD FACTBOOK OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS
INDIA, R.K. Raghavan, Indian Police Service
2. Statements by the Asian Human Rights Commission
a) INDIA: Failure of the justice system means impunity for torturers
June 23, 2005
b) INDIA: Open letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to mark International Human Rights Day
December 7, 2005
c) INDIA: Indians still to receive true independence
August 15, 2005
3.Human Rights and Criminal Justice System
by Dr. Shanker Adawal
In Search of Justice
April 2, 2006