The long wait for justice
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 13 , 2013 -
After Altamas Kabir, who took over the charge from Sarosh Homi Kapadia, was sworn in as 39th Chief Justice of India on September 29, 2012; Supreme Court of India has been witnessing a flurry of activity like never before
Known already for his aggressive pursuit in delivering several landmark judgments including on human rights and election laws, Justice Kabir continues to live up to his reputation as well as the expectation of the people even after occupying the hot seat of the apex court
During his nine-month long tenure as the Chief Justice of India, which is due to be expired on coming July 19, people have witnessed many landmark verdicts on various cases
Apart from his area of dominant in human rights and election laws, all the other notable judgments, either passed by him or under his instruction, whether it be on medical negligence, for improvement of the existing education system in the country, protection of consumers' rights, crime against women and protection of child rights, cyber laws, media, direct taxes, electoral reforms, etc, etc, have brought smile on the faces of many a litigant coming to knock at the door of the Supreme Court to seek justice
All these landmark judgments would surely go down in the law book for references by custodians of justice who would come after Justice Altamas Kabir, and this would be to his credit
In such a scenario, the apprehension expressed by Extra-Judicial Execution Victims' Families, Manipur (EEVFAM) and Human Rights Alert (HRA) over the possibility of the apex court deliberately holding back the probe report of its own instituted three-member Committee into six different cases of extrajudicial killings committed by security forces in Manipur, out of 1528 cases listed, from making it public and then delaying from giving a final verdict on the cases should not be taken lightly
The report of the independent panel which had confirmed that all the six cases under probe were indeed cases of killing in stage-managed or fake encounters by security personnel had been submitted to the Supreme Court of India in time on April 1 last but a final verdict is still awaited even though the report was supposed to be made public on July 4
If the reason behind the inordinate delay in making the report public and giving a final verdict on the cases is indeed to shield the Assam Rifles, whose personnel were directly involved in four out of the six cases under probe, as the victims' families have alleged, then, this episode would surely come to be regarded as a dark spot in an otherwise illustrious career of a guardian of law like Justice Altamas Kabir, when he finally hands over the baton to the next Chief Justice of India
After all, he is the one who had generated such high hope for justice among the people of Manipur, when every door seems to have been shut on their faces.
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