Fix accountability: Justice Verma
A day after former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma pointed to a total governmental failure to prevent rising crimes against women, that led to the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi on December 16, he said “accountability needs to be fixed” to ensure that such incidents don’t recur. Justice Verma regretted the top brass of the home ministry and the Delhi police did not own “moral responsibility” over the incident.
When asked while speaking to this newspaper if heads should have rolled afterwards, while Justice Verma stopped short of demanding the resignation of top government functionaries, he noted that “Lal Bahadur Shastri had offered to resign as railway minister in the Nehru Cabinet owning moral responsibility for a railway accident in 1956. It was not as if he was directly responsible. But it is only a sensitive individual who owns up moral responsibility”.
Justice Verma not only criticised Union home secretary R.K. Singh for publicly praising Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar for “speedy investigation” of the case, but expressed shock at their ability to “smile” while interacting with the media. “It was a very serious and sad occasion. The least they could have done was express regret or keep quiet.”
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