Justice is Maya

The nation could have, possibly, put the Babri Masjid demolition issue behind it, if justice had been done and was seen to be done in the criminal case it threw up. Unfortunately, that has not happened. Today, ten years after the demolition, very little progress has been achieved in bringing the guilty of December 6, 1992, to book and indeed acquitting those deemed innocent. Even related processes like the Liberhan Commission hearings, with its interminable sittings, follow the same glacial pace.

The problem, of course, is obvious 8212; the legal and the political have got hopelessly entangled in this instance and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati8217;s refusal to issue a fresh notification on the Ayodhya case reflects this. The lady may maintain that 8216;there was neither any justification nor necessity for issuing a fresh notification8217; and that the CBI, which she characterised as an 8216;independent8217; agency, is free to pursue the case in an appropriate court. But as this newspaper has already pointed out, such a recourse would mean that the CBI would have to start all over again, from the stage of framing fresh chargesheets onwards. In effect, then, this endless postponement of bringing the guilty to trial amounts to having ensured their acquittal.

What makes Mayawati8217;s decision extremely suspect is the fact that some of the country8217;s top leaders 8212; including Home Minister L.K. Advani, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, minister for coal and mines 8212; are involved in this case. Already the opposition has raised the darkest suspicions over the UP CM8217;s motives, even alleging that it is a deal struck to ensure BJP8217;s continued support of her government. If for this reason and no other, care should have been taken to ensure that justice was allowed to run its course. The issue, after all, was just the correction of a technical hitch and no other. Credible politics cannot be divorced from the letter and spirit of the law and this is the one lesson that emerges from Mayawati8217;s blatantly biased decision. We can only repeat here what has been said before: that, ultimately, the ends of justice are served only when the courts have heard all aspects of this important case with national ramifications and pronounced upon it. Motivated attempts to derail this process diminishes the nation.