The wheels of justice grind far too slowly

It is said that the arm of the law is long, that justice delayed is justice denied. It is also contended that the wheels of justice grind slowly. There is much that is rotten about India’s criminal justice system that acts expeditiously in favour of the rich and powerful and works at an excruciatingly tardy pace when it involves the poor and the underprivileged. But the system sometimes acts in a discriminatory manner even against a person with some influence, one who is not exactly down-and-out. Such indeed is the perversity of the country’s legal system.
When it comes to complaints against those who are the representatives of the people, a familiar refrain is that these are “politically motivated”. But here’s an instance of a fellow journalist based (not in some remote rural area but) in the National Capital Region, against whom a criminal case was lodged more than eight years ago in an apparently “politically motivated” manner who is still being “har­assed” — that’s the appropriate word — despite the assurances of important individuals in positions of power and authority.
The evidence against this investigative reporter is tenuous at best. What is especially unfortunate is that after having spent six-and-a-half months in jail, he has had to appear in court once a month every month over the last six years, just to register his presence and establish that he is no absconder in a ca­se where trial is yet to begin. The complaint against this journalist was lodged — and continues to be pursued — by India’s premier po­lice investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
On June 26, 2002, ironically the 27th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency, the CBI raided the offices of tehelka.com. The website had a few months earlier conducted a sting operation that had not just exposed corruption in the defence services and had sought to implicate associates of the then defence minister George Fernandes in corrupt deals, but which had also caught on a hidden camera the then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Bangaru Laxman accepting wads of currency notes.
The way in which the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)?government went after Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal — who were then heading tehelka.com and had masterminded the sting operation — has been well-documented. What is less well-known is that on the day the premises of tehelka.com were searched, CBI officers raided the residence of another journalist who worked for the website, Kumar Baadal. He was then 29 and his son two-months-old when cops “barged in and ransacked” his home.
He was arrested and lodged in prison after first information reports were lodged with the Biharigarh police station in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in May 2002. The police registered a case under the Wildlife Protection Act accusing Mr Baadal of abetting poachers to illegally trap and kill leopards for the purpose of videotaping. The case was then transferred to the CBI.
Mr Baadal was released on bail from judicial custody in January 2003 on the intervention of the Supreme Court. The person who argued his case before the apex court was none other than Kapil Sibal. The bench of the Supreme Court that rejected the CBI plea to keep Mr Baadal under detention comprised Justice N. Santosh Hedge (now Lokayukta or the people’s ombudsman of Karnataka) and Justice B.P. Singh who told the CBI lawyer that if the agency wanted to finish its investigation into the case, it could have done so in 24 hours and if it really did not want to pursue the case, it could let it drag on for 24 years!
The journalist has written evocative accounts of the time he spent in jail: the pitiable conditions of prisoners, how he was stripped naked, how he became popular by writing a 100-odd applications for other inmates and how his fellow prisoners wept with joy the day he was granted bail. His son is now eight-years-old. He and his wife have another child. It appears strange but Mr Baadal started his career in journalism as a tentative freelancer writing on — hold your breath — fashion models.
In April 2004, the CBI filed a supplementary affidavit against him, adding a new list of witnesses, after the special CBI court had finished cross-examining most of those mentioned in the first list of witnesses. The magistrate hearing the case then got transferred. Mr Baadal’s lawyers contested the CBI’s supplementary complaint in the high court at Allahabad and obtained a stay the following year. At least one important witness, a forest conservator, who said Mr Baadal was the wrong person identified by the CBI, was allegedly pressurised to change his testimony and this has been formally recorded in court. Another witness summoned by the CBI was abruptly asked to discontinue deposing.
In July 2003, S. Jaipal Reddy sa­id in the Lok Sabha that the manner in which the NDA government had treated Mr Baadal was “clinc­h­ing” evidence of its “fascist character”. In December 2004, Mr Ba­a­dal received a letter from an of­f­­­icer of the National Advisory Cou­n­cil (NAC) stating that Sonia Gan­d­hi had noted the contents of a re­p­r­esentation he had sent the NAC. Veteran journalist Inder Mal­­h­otra spoke about Mr Baadal’s case to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who reportedly said that “grave injustice” had been committed to him. Mr Sibal has said that he had spoken to Prithviraj Chavan, minister of state for science and technology,?about the case. Congress spokesperson Jan­ardan Dwivedi too has sounded sympathetic towards Mr Baadal’s predicament.?
Last Friday (September 24), the Delhi high court quashed criminal proceedings against two journali­s­ts, including Mr Baadal’s former colleague Mr Bahal, who had conducted a sting operation in the cash-for-questions scam against members of Parliament. But the CBI has given no indication that it wants to close the criminal case ag­­ainst Mr Baadal whose fate ke­e­ps him in contact with criminals mo­­re than six years after he wal­k­ed out of the gates of Dasna Jail in Ghaziabad. He rubs shoulders with them once a month when he has to register his presence in the special CBI court. He’s lost count of the number of visits he has ma­de to the court. Is it 70, or is it 72?

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator