Best case scenario

Two months ago, this column recalled that in its 1999 election manifesto, the NDA boasted that the previous year recorded 8220;the lowest incidence of communal violence in the last 10 years8221;. The column went on to ask: 8220;Post-Gujarat, what will the NDA say in this regard in its manifesto for the forthcoming election? Will it gloss over the issue even though the Gujarat riots, by all accounts, marked the lowest point of Vajpayee8217;s tenure?8221;

In the event, the NDA did address the issue but only to twist facts and fit them into its 8220;feel good8221; campaign. Given its failure to acknowledge the enormity of the carnage, and given its obvious unrepentence, the NDA8217;s promise to 8220;work towards realising our vision of a riot-free India8221; hardly inspires any confidence.

The tragedy is the Opposition parties have displayed neither the political will nor the moral authority to take the NDA to task on the still-festering wounds of the Gujarat riots. None of them has had the courage to propose any specific reform, systemic or otherwise, to deter any government from engineering communal violence to derive electoral mileage. The most they could do was to fire over the shoulders of the Supreme Court when it ruled this week in the Best Bakery case that Gujarat was still not 8220;congenial or conducive8221; to a fair trial.

Justice Arijit Pasayat8217;s decision to hold a re-trial of the Best Bakery case in Maharashtra instead of Gujarat is indeed the first serious attempt since Independence to strengthen the law against communal violence. If such violence has all these years proved to be a profitable proposition to politicians, it is mainly because of the notoriously poor conviction rate in riot cases. There is no conviction yet in the Best Bakery case. But Pasayat8217;s order to change the venue, as well as his extraordinary gesture of giving the victims a say in the selection of the public prosecutor, has reduced the chances of acquittal.

In a larger perspective, this may seem to be the latest in a series of interventions the judiciary has had to make over the years in a variety of areas abdicated by the executive and legislature. But the reality is more complex. The judiciary is no monolith. The Supreme Court itself has deprecated the manner in which the Vadodara sessions court and even the Gujarat High Court acquitted all the 21 accused persons. Justice Pasayat has brought out a number of irregularities and illegalities committed by the judges at two successive levels helping the guilty get away. That they did so in a matter as grave as Best Bakery indicates the extent to which the rot has spread in the judiciary.

Quite apart from checking the rot, Pasayat has earned a place in history for the sheer timing of his judgment. It came just eight days before the poll due in Gujarat on April 20. Evidently, Pasayat did not fear the risk of being misconstrued that he delivered his verdict with an eye on the poll. That8217;s remarkable given the manner in which a bench headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare put off dealing with a very similar matter to the day after the Lok Sabha poll. The matter concerns the plea made by amicus curiae Harish Salve to transfer out of Gujarat key riot cases 8212; like Naroda Patiya and Gulbarg Society 8212; which are still at the stage of trial. Khare8217;s bench stayed the proceedings in those cases last year on Salve8217;s application. The state naturally wanted the transfer plea to be disposed of urgently so that the trial could resume. But suddenly, at the last hearing on April 2, Government Counsel Mukul Rohtagi wanted the matter to be adjourned as any media coverage of the hearing, he said, would prejudice the impending poll.

Khare complied with that request, depriving the voters of Gujarat an opportunity to know if the allegations against their Government were true. Pasayat8217;s subsequent judgment more than made up for Khare8217;s lapse.

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