We will forget because that's who we are.

 

Are you a woman? Well then, do you have your head covered?

A nineteen year old bride was abducted by a group of men and gang raped in Haryana. A thirteen year old girl was raped by her neighbor in Rohtak. A fifteen year old mentally challenged girl was raped in Rohtak. A fifteen year old girl was raped by nine men in Khammam, Andhra Pradesh. A known politician’s son shot a bartender for refusing him a drink in Delhi. A seventeen year old girl was raped repeatedly by her father, step father and grandfather in Kerala. A man raped his three month old granddaughter in an “undisclosed” location while his wife took solace in the fact that he didn’t step out of the house to find his prey. This Sunday, a twenty three year old paramedical student was gang raped and thrown out of a bus in New Delhi, just yards away from a police van.

Do you feel angry? Outraged? Or are you just appropriately indifferent to these cases because to you, they are just a number? While we conveniently give our two cents on these cases, these very men roam free and feel more empowered with every passing minute. While we bring down the hemline of our clothing and set curfews, these men find a way to fault us our existence.

As the urban intelligentsia scoffs at these incidents and condemns everyone from the government to the upbringing of the vile perpetrator, they still deign to question the choice of apparel of the victim, her profession, her lifestyle and even the authenticity of her allegation. Which brings me to this, where are these woman who would consider going through the trauma of public humiliation, media frenzy and judgmental questioning by the society just to scream ‘wolf’?

The fact remains that we live in a society where the rape of a nine year old girl is justified by the Deputy Director of Tourism by saying, “You can’t blame the locals, and they have never seen such women. Foreign tourists must maintain a certain degree of modesty in their clothing. Walking on the beaches half-naked is bound to titillate the senses.” We live in a society where the Delhi Police Commissioner justifies the increasing number of rape cases by saying that women cannot and should not drive alone at 2am on Delhi Roads and then claim that the capital is unsafe. Instead, they should be chauffeured around by their drivers or their brothers. We live in a society where when a sixteen year old teenager is raped by a police officer in Mumbai, a powerful leftist party spokesperson justifies it by saying that teenage girls wear revealing clothes and the man isn’t to blame.

It’s not just the offensive, uneducated, under delivering politicians that we have to deal with, it is the under informed and archaic vision of the police force. The police force from the National Capital Region is so strongly rooted in the belief that women who get raped deserve it that they take it upon themselves to harass the victim. The police officers, I speak of, aren’t the stereotypical havaldaars of the world, they are Station Heads who truly believe that a woman instigates rape and those who report against such a crime are knee deep in prostitution rackets.

I do not want to encapsulate the pain and trauma of these victims, nor do I want to establish some sort of proposed punishment for the criminals; I can’t be the girl in Kerala or the child in Haryana, I can’t be the girl who was slaughtered in Mumbai, I can’t be the paramedic from Delhi or the bride from Rohtak. I can’t be the face that speaks of their pain because I don’t understand even an iota of their suffering. I don’t and neither do the countless faces who are sitting behind their screens demanding justice. I can’t understand their pain but what I do know is that there is a lot to be done about our society’s mental health.

Our society is not only regressive, it is decaying and diseased. Women are held responsible for all this filth; either because they are believed to have provoked it or for having had brought it to life and raised it incorrectly. We don’t understand crime, we are lazy and we don’t care. We pretend to care because we want to belong, but I want to have nothing to do with this sense of belonging. We look for convenient answers – clothing, makeup, unsolicited interaction, profession. Answers that are flimsy. Answers that don’t suffice.

About this girl who is struggling for her life in Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, the one who had dreams of being a paramedic, the one who will now go from pillar to post looking for justice, the one who might not even survive – this is the girl who will be labeled as “damaged goods” by her own society. The accused might be punished but what punishment is enough for the heinous crime, for their brutality? Anything severe would get the human rights activists scurrying out of their little holes demanding for leniency and claiming mental deficiencies in the criminals. The same human rights activists who cried hoarse for Kasab but have remained mum about this case.

Maybe this is sufficient enough for you to feel outraged, maybe the perpetrators of all these crimes are punished for their deeds but the fact remains that we live in a society where the victim will find no solace, the woman finds no dignity, the girl finds no independence. Maybe the criminals are brought to their knees but who will punish us?

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SAROSH HOMI KAPADIA

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SAROSH HOMI KAPADIA

 

THE 38^th CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA

ASSUMED OFFICE – 12^TH MAY 2010

APPOINTED BY – MRS. PRATIBHA PATIL, HON’BLE PRESIDENT OF INDIA

PRECEDED BY -  MR. JUSTICE K.G. BALAKRISHNAN

HELD OFFICE TILL – 28^TH SEPTEMBER 2012

PERSONEL DETAILS

BORN – 29^TH SEPTEMBER 1947

                                                                                 SPOUSE – SHAHNAZ

Early life

S. H. Kapadia belonged to a gentle lower middle-class Parsi family from the Khetwadi-Girgaum region of Bombay. His father was a clerk in a defence establishment, his mother a homemaker. Kapadia completed his BA and LLB and immediately began working. Higher education would have been a luxury. He acknowledged his humble beginnings in a letter he wrote to Justice V R Krishna Iyer recently. “I come from a poor family. I started my career as a class IV employee and the only asset I possess is integrity...” he said. He joined Gagrat & Co, a law firm as a clerk and later, went to work for highly respected labour lawyer Feroze Damania. Soon after, the family moved to Andheri, Mumbai. He married Shahnaz with whom he to has one son and a daughter .

The young Sarosh may not have been rich but what he did possess was ambition and determination to become a judge. He became counsel for the income tax department in 1974, aged 27. He also appeared for the then Bombay Municipal Corporation in matters concerning rateable value and octroi. He represented the Maharashtra government and several public sector undertakings (PSUs) until he was appointed a high court judge. As a judge of the Bombay High Court, he decided matters ranging from environmental to banking, M&As, industrial disputes, taxation and so on, but developed a reputation for his expertise on commercial and tax law.

The best thing that ever happened to him was the stock scam of 1999 involving broker Ketan Parekh. He was appointed judge of the special court established under the Trial of Offences Relating to Transaction in Securities Act in 1999. He played an important role in the proceedings of the Joint Parliamentary Committee constituted to investigate the stock scam.

On August 5, 2003, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court and in December of that year, he was elevated to the Supreme Court, thus serving only a very short tenure as chief justice of a high court.

In the Supreme Court, Kapadia delivered some landmark judgements which included a decision relating to succession of property in April 30, 2005 in which he ruled out the possibility of conducting the DNA test.

He was part of the three-member Bench that decided income tax case of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad. The verdict went in favour of Prasad but Justice Kapadia gave a dissenting judgement saying the income tax department should have filed an appeal against the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) order.

There are some controversies that, however, are inexplicable. Justice A P Shah of the Delhi High Court (who was part of the bench that gave the judgment on homosexuals’ rights) was to have been elevated to the Supreme Court. Kapadia was the chief dissenting voice in the five-member collegium that decides who should or should not move up to the Supreme Court. Some say this was because of rivalry from the days when he and Shah were judges in the Bombay High Court. Others say Kapadia was disapproving of two judgments Shah had delivered as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.

Now, the biggest professional challenge for the man who has spent his entire life working towards becoming a judge is to decide who should scrutinise the Chief Justice of India and whether he should come under the purview of the Right to Information Act. This has far-reaching implications for both law and justice.

Kapadia is conscious that he has to uphold both equity and fairness. On the issue of honour killings, he has said justice by khaps (local communities) is a social not a legal matter. On the other hand, throughout his life, he has ruled in favour of tribals and the dispossessed.

India’s legal establishment is weighed down by work, and central issues like police reform have temporarily taken a back seat. Crusading judges have their drawbacks, but Kapadia has the advantage of being utterly focussed. Hopefully, the legal system will benefit from this.

Career

S. H. Kapadia started his career as a class IV employee. He later became a law clerk with a lawyer's office in Mumbai. Kapadia joined Gagrat & Co, a law firm, as a clerk and later went on to work with Feroze Damania who was a highly respected "firebrand" labour lawyer . However his zeal to achieve inspired him to join the legal profession and he became an advocate. He joined as an advocate in the Bombay High Court on 10 September 1974.

He was appointed as an additional judge of the Bombay High Court on 8 October 1991 and on 23 March 1993 he was appointed as a permanent judge. On 5 August 2003 he became the Chief Justice of the Uttaranchal High Court. On 18 December 2003 he was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court. On 12 May 2010 he was sworn in as the Chief Justice of India by the President Pratibha Patil. He is due to retire on 29.09.2012 (F.N.)

Personal life

S. H. Kapadia is married to Shahnaz and has a son who is a Chartered Accountant and a daughter. He has keen interest in Economics, Public Finance, Theoretical Physics and Hindu and Buddhist Philosophies.Sarosh He also has many hobbies, one of them is going for walks. As a young man, Kapadia used to drag his younger brother (now a retired banker) all over Mumbai for walks that would, almost invariably, end at Narayan Dabholkar Road, the breezy avenue off Napean Sea Road where high court judges have their apartments. The two brothers would look at the buildings and young Sarosh would say: “One day, the name on that nameplate will be mine”. His wish was granted in October 1991, when he was made a judge of the Bombay High Court.

Notable judgments

On March 3, 2011, the three member bench headed by Kapadia, quashed the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner , P.J. Thomas, made by the High Power Committee comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj (dissenting). The judgment caused severe embarrassment for the Government and made Manmohan Singh admit the error in appointment. While the judgement was welcomed by most media pundits , some experts have expressed concerns of miscarriage of justice. Former IAS officer, S. M. Murshed writes, 'the ratio decidendi of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is a bit difficult to comprehend, for, in the last analysis, the entire case against Thomas rested on a solitary, misconceived FIR which was filed as an afterthought and which should never have been filed. Given the facts, Manmohan Singh did no substantive wrong and he did not commit any error (in appointing Thomas).


He was part of the three-member Supreme Court bench that decided a PIL filed by two NDA leaders seeking the cancellation of bail of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and his wife and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi for their interference in the judicial process in the disproportionate assets (DA) and Income Tax cases against them. The verdict went in favour of Prasad but Justice Kapadia gave a dissenting judgement saying the income tax department should have filed an appeal against the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) order. On the issue of promotion of judge Munni Lal Paswan, he said, while competence and suitability of two other judges, who were promoted to the post of Special Judge along with Paswan, were determined on the basis of annual confidential report (ACRs) and inspecting the judges' reports, the criteria was not applied while promoting Paswan who had been found to be slow in disposing cases.
Justice Kapadia delivered a landmark judgement relating to succession of property in April 30, 2005 in which he ruled out the possibility of conducting the DNA test.