Experts question ‘politics’ involved

Feb 10, 2013 - Ridhima Malhotra |

Age Correspondent

The execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru in the 2001 Parliament attack case evoked a mixed response from the legal fraternity. Some senior lawyers said Afzal’s hanging has proven that the law of the land is above politics and has given out a strong message to the world that India is not soft on terror.

However, many legal experts questioned the “politics” involved in delaying Afzal’s mercy petition, which they said amounted to inflicting cruelty on him.
Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal said that at the crucial stage of trial, Afzal did not have access to a defence lawyer and the amicus curiae appointed later by the trial court did not perform a satisfactory job.
“Afzal did not get proper defence (at trial stage). He told the court he was not involved in the attack but his lawyer (appointed later) said “dont hang me but give me an injection and kill me.” Wasn’t that absurd? The SC judgment itself says that there was no direct evidence against him but only circumstantial evidence. The Supreme Court itself said he was being given death penalty ‘to assuage the collective conscience of the people’.”
Former solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam, however, said, “The Parliament attack case was one of the most brilliantly argued cases from the defence side. It was conducted completely on professional lines. The evidence was properly examined and the judgement was supported completely by evidence.”
Senior Supreme Court lawyer Dushyant Dave said Afzal’s execution has sent a strong message to the world that India is dealing firmly with terror.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/222178" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f34af72523b120204c70893d2191a435" value="form-f34af72523b120204c70893d2191a435" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80725796" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>