‘I see the killers, I cry, I am helpless’

‘‘I see my brother’s killers every day. The whole village sees them every day,’’ says Mahto. ‘‘I feel like crying but I’m helpless.’’

In June 1985, Army sepoy Ram Kewal Mahto had come on leave to his village. One Sunday morning he went to the local temple to pray. The eight killers caught him and slit his throat. Mahto claims his brother was part of ‘‘the gang that murdered him’’ but he decided to start life afresh by joining the Army in 1982.

Eight people were arrested and sentenced to life by a district court. Seven of them, Kot Yadav, Sudheshwar Yadav, Shyamdeo Yadav, Anup Yadav, Lalu Yadav, Garchuni Yadav and Jagdish Yadav forged a Supreme Court order to get bail and are now walking free.

Ram Deni Yadav, the eighth man to be convicted for life, also got away but he died a few years ago. Only one man Hriday Yadav is serving out his life sentence in Beur jail.

Fifteen years later, Mahto’s life has changed for ever. The young sepoy’s wife died shortly afterwards unable to handle the grief, say family members. And since that day Mahto’s wife, two sons, their wives and six grandchildren live in fear.

At first, Mahto refused to give up. ‘‘I went up to the Supreme Court and we all appeared as witnesses in the case. The killers told me they would kill me too. I have spent all my money on court cases. But now I know nothing will happen,’’ he says.

So while for Mahto and his family, time stands still, for the convicts life goes on. Just last month, Mahto watched as one of the convicts, Anup Yadav, got his son married off with pomp and splendour. ‘‘The local policemen know these men live here but they don’t do anything,’’ he says.

At the Dulhin Bazaar police station where the case is registered, the policemen say they are aware of the case but say it’s too old to keep track. Why don’t they arrest the accused? ‘‘That is a village where even a policeman is robbed. We don’t go there,’’ said one policeman.

Mahto alleges that police parties have come but the accused are always alerted and they go under cover only to surface when the police have left. This case is among the 70 examples of fraud that have come to light in the Patna High Court and clubbed together point to a scam that subverts the very foundation of justice.

In this particular case, forgery happened not once but twice. The district court ruled that all the nine accused had conspired to murder Mahto and handed a life sentence to eight. According to a CBI chargesheet, filed in September 2001, the accused with the help of forgerer Shambu Nath Singh cooked up two Supreme Court orders.

The first order they faked was a Supreme Court bail order on which all eight got bail. This scam was detected only after the accused furnished a second fake order after conviction.

This order said that three of the accused were acquitted of the murder charges while the term of the other six was reduced to seven years. The letter was sent with another forged forwarding letter as if it was from the Registrar (Judicial) of the Supreme Court.

The documents were forwarded to the Patna High Court. Based on this order, the district judge sent modified warrants to the Buxar jail but doubts arose as the modified conviction order of one of the accused Kot Yadav was not in conformity with the first conviction order.

This tipped the authorities off and investigations revealed that the bail order was also false. Once detected, their appeal was rejected by the Patna High court. But that doesn’t seem to matter.