A great opportunity to show that India is ready to toughen up and treat criminals as they should be has been lost. The national outrage felt over the rape is now a wasted emotion.
The kid glove treatment is not for him. He is not a rapist who will reform by going through the Borstal system. The Juvenile Justice Board may be somewhat justified in going by the letter of the law.
It is the spirit of the law and the matter of effective justice delivery that has been betrayed by such a pedantic approach to the cruellest instance of bestiality perpetrated on a helpless woman.
What lies forgotten behind the delivery of the first verdict in the sensational Delhi gangrape is the victim was also set upon in such an uncivilised manner as to have caused her death. In not making a distinction between a most heinous crime and petty thievery or juvenile delinquency, the justice system has only stoked more anger in not only the kin of the deceased but also in the mind of the greater community as a whole.
Democratic countries with a well-defined criminal and civil procedure code tend to differentiate between adults and juveniles. But, there is a discretionary power that the judiciary exercises in not making such a distinction absolute and without exception. If ever there was a clear case for overturning the distinction, this gangrape was it. A crime beyond ordinary imagination was committed by a few and it was freely acknowledged that the juvenile offender was the most sadistic of the whole criminal lot.
To add insult to injury, the juvenile offender, who cannot be named as per law and on which point too bureaucratic and judicial red tape will be adhered to, will be enjoying his television time and a generally relaxed routine in a correctional home, that too only for a short period considering the eight months spent already will be part of the sentence. And however ironic this may sound, he may even get some time waived off for good conduct. This must rank as the worst instance of official India being a stickler for the rule book in history.
How this judgment could be expected to stand out as a severe warning to intending rapists, particularly those below the formally defined age of adulthood of 18, is beyond comprehension. To go by a birth certificate, which in Indian history has been known to be as genuine as a 30-rupee note, is even more pedantic a procedure unless, of course, the criminal was made to undergo bone density and other tests that can determine age more accurately.
A great opportunity to show that India is ready to toughen up and treat criminals as they should be has been lost. The national outrage felt over the rape is now a wasted emotion. While there is no need to hang such criminals on decision-making by kangaroo courts, the least we can do is to define from now on at least that the perpetrators of heinous crimes need no protection on the count of their being below the legal age.
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