The long wait for justice

Krishnadas Rajagopal

The story of Rai Saheb Chiranji Lal and his 16.34-acre plot goes back to December 7,1953,when the Rehabilitation Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs,along with the Delhi administration,decided to acquire the piece of land to re-settle over 200 families of refugees from West Pakistan under the Resettlement of Displaced Persons Land Acquisition Act,1948. The government named the plot in Nimri village,Sarai Rohilla,Subhadra Colony,but did not compensate the Lals.

What followed was four decades of litigation,after repeated representations to either allot alternative land or pay compensation with interest evoked no response from the government.

The sole reply given to the high court by the government was that of P.T. Chackochan,Under Secretary,Rehabilitation Division,MHA,who was very vague when he stated that as per the jamabandi for 1984 to1988,the land never left the possession of the Lals. The land in question is still very much with the owners. So there is no question of restoring the land or allotting an alternative land to the petitioners,and hence no ground for payment of any compensation, the official concluded in court.

On December 5,1995,a Division Bench of Justices Devinder Gupta and M.K. Sharma found that the family was indeed deprived of the possession of the land on and from December 7,1953. The court gave the ministry six months to appoint an arbitrator to fix the compensation due to the family under the 1948 Act. The Lals were to be paid damages from December 7,1953,at an annual interest of 12 per cent.

But the high court verdict was just wishful thinking. The ministry did appoint an arbitrator who on short notice retired voluntarily from service in 2000. After that,they did not appoint another. And so,we were back in the high court the same year, said advocate Rakesh Mahajan,the familys lawyer.

Meanwhile,Subhadra Colony has transformed into a much sought-after residential hub with parks and a well-run government school.

Today,Rai Sahebs family wants a better deal from the government. P.C. Aggarwal,one of the 29 legal heirs to the family property who is spearheading the second round of litigation in the high court,said: The 1995 order failed to take into account the fact that the worth of a rupee today compared to its worth in the 1950s,60s and 70s is less than zero,that is,its negative. The property will be worth at least Rs 100 crore today. Who has lost from the unexplained delay caused by the non-payment of compensation which forced us into a prolonged litigation? Mahajan asked,seconding his client.

Today,the family has doubled the interest rate demand to 24 per cent because the award of damages at 12 per cent does not even give us what was our due had the compensation been offered at the right point of time,that is in 1953 itself. All out to drive a hard bargain,the family further wants the court to direct the Delhi Development Authority to grant them alternative accommodation to compensate for the loss of their land.

My client is determined to get what is due even if the case takes another 50 years in the high court, said Mahajan. But the family is also fighting its inner demons. Since 1973,the heirs have locked horns in a family partition disputethis too in the Delhi High Courton how to separate 26 properties that Rai Saheb passed on to his successors. The properties include four houses in upmarket Connaught Place,several across Naya Bazaar,Karol Bagh,Nabi Karim and Old Rohtak Road in Delhi and some in Mathura and Dehra Dun in Uttar Pradesh.

Even if the case of the Sarai Rohilla land is resolved,the family has to wait for a decision on the partition case because this land is one among the 26 properties under dispute, said Mahajan.

CHANDIGARH

Who moved this land? 72 years on,nobody knows

Raghav Ohri

WhATS a 45-acre land in Kharar,near Mohali,worth? Seventy two years of rancour,Rs 40 lakh spent on legal fees,35 judges who have presided over the case,around 3,500 adjournments and some 150 claimants. The disputed land,originally priced at Rs 4,500 in 1938,is now valued at over Rs 50 crore.

It all began in 1937,when Niranjan Singh,a resident of Lahore,sold his land to one Dalip Singh. Aggrieved,Niranjans childrenfour sons and two daughtersfiled a case against the sale. Leading the litigation was Niranjans eldest son,Kamakkar Singh,who demanded the land back. On April 18,1944,a Lahore court decided the case in favour of Kamakkar Singh,directing him to deposit an amount of Rs 4,500 and claim the land back from Dalip Singh. But Dalip Singh refused to part with the land and filed another case. In 1945,two years before Partition,Dalip Singh was shot dead,allegedly over the land.

After Partition,the Indian government took over a decade to identify a piece of land,which was to be offered to the two parties in lieu of the land located in Lahore. That is,a new 45-acre land to fight over. Meanwhile,Dalip Singhs son Davinder Singh entered into a fresh bout of litigation with Niranjan Singh.

Niranjan Singh died on April 14,1969. After his death,Niranjan Singhs legal heirs took over the case. While all this was on,Davinder Singh,who had possession of the land,sold it to seven more parties. So on one hand,Kamakkar Singh and his five family members were contesting the case,and on the other side were 28 people claiming their share of the land.

On January 22,1976,a lower court in Kharar decided the case in favour of Kamakkar Singh but two years later,the decision was set aside by the Additional District and Sessions Judge. After several more rounds of litigation,in 1978,the case finally reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court and was admitted. It was after a decade that the case came up for hearing for the first time. Taking note of the technicalities,the High Court referred the case to a division bench on August 14,1987.

Of the seven original litigants of Niranjan Singhs family,only 87-year-old Sher Singh is alive. He is the younger brother of Kamakkar Singh,who died at the age of 94 in 2004. We have sold over 40 acres to save these 45 acres. We will take our case to the Supreme Court if we have to but wont give up, he says,from his house in Ludhiana.

The old man can barely move,his vision is failing him and he is hard of hearing. But a mention of the land gets him all agitated. Why should I give up the land? It is a prestige issue. Kamakkar Singh and I were charged with the murder of Dalip Singh but I was acquitted after two years in jail, he says proudly.

Sher Singhs son Daljit Singh jumps in,all machismo. If it were in my hands,I would have burnt the entire record. With so many judges around,is there no one who can decide this case? he asks.

One of the players on the other side of this dispute,Amrik Singh,son of Surta Singh,who was sold a piece of land by Dalip Singh,says he and the other shareholders in the property have already spent over Rs 10 lakh. Why should we enter into a compromise with them? The land is in our possession,we are cultivating it,we will win the case, says Amrik Singh.

A former advocate,who had contested the case on behalf of Dalip Singh and others,says,Courts are to be blamed for this. There is nothing extraordinary in this case that it should have been allowed to linger on for so many years.

MUMBAI

10 years on,father says,I am fighting a lost battle

Sukanya Shetty

On August 4,2009,sitting in his house in Chalakkudy,a small town in Trissur district of Kerala,C.L. Anto once again pledged to seek justice for his daughter,something he has been doing for the past 10 years. But this time,he was unsure how long he would continue fighting as he had slowly begun to grow wary of the justice system.

Ten years since his 16-year-old daughter,Indu Anto,allegedly became a victim of a ragging incident in Mumbais elite Sophia College,the tired father still continues to knock at the doors of the courts,hoping to find justice. My fight has entered its tenth year but the courts are yet to make any progress on the case. I travel every week from Kerala to attend the court hearing. I must have written at least 100 letters to the government and the courts to expedite the case. The maximum relief I got is a confirmation from the lower court that my only child was murdered and that it wasnt a suicide, says Anto.

According to the police and Sophia College management,on the morning of August 4,1998,Indu allegedly jumped from the terrace of her two-storey college hostel building. The post mortem report,though,showed Indu had sustained 27 injuriessomething both the college and the police could not explain.

Indu,a promising student,moved to Mumbai to study at Sophia College,one of the citys most coveted colleges. But the promise was apparently short-lived as she was allegedly tortured almost every day by unnamed seniors,according to entries in Indus diary. Indu also claimed to have been sexually harassed. Two seniors,Melissa DSilva and Greta Colaco,were referred to as raggers in her diary,which became a crucial piece of evidence.

Surprisingly,it took two years for the police to produce this diary before the court. The police never sealed the room where Indu had lived. The college management had access to the house until the High Court asked them to surrender the keys. Only when I complained to the court was the diary made public. Sixty four crucial pages were missing from it, claims Anto.

Until I approached the then President of India K.R. Narayanan,my case papers were a bunch of dormant files. Only when the President intervened and directed that a thorough and close investigation be carried out,did the court hand over my case to the state CID. A 700-page chargesheet was filed against the two students who killed my daughter, recalls Anto. While DSilva managed to dodge arrest by securing anticipatory bail,Colaco remained in custody for 90 days in 2001 before her family bailed her out. Colacos trial is being conducted before the juvenile court.

The Bombay Ragging Act of 1999,which came into effect after Indus death,has not had the desired result,says Anto. I am waiting for the court to nail the culprit. I feel agitated when I stand before the court,begging them to conclude my case and ensure that my childs soul rests in peace, says the emotional father. Anto says he has made peace with the loss he suffered,but his wife is yet to come to terms with it. She is ailing,and has a lot of mental and physical complications. I have been multi-tasking for over a decade. My body is also slowly wearing away, says the father,who had to be hospitalised last week for hypertension.

Every time Anto learns of a ragging case in the country,he contacts the family and tries to counsel and provide legal support to them. I recently heard that an 18-year-old boy was brutally assaulted in the name of ragging. I called the family,contacted the Superintendent of Police and ensured a case was registered, says Anto,referring to the case of Bhagath Rehman,who was assaulted by four of his seniors in Alathur,in Palakkad district of Kerala,last week.

VADODARA

After 35 years,schizophrenic undertrial to be free

Hitarth Pandya

As Barkiya Ramji Gimbhal,declared a chronic schizophrenic patient,looks out of the iron bars of his locked room at Vadodara Hospital for Mental Health VHMH,a State Reserve Police jawan walks in and escorts him to the canteen,where he would be served tea and snacks. Charged with a murder he committed 35 years ago,Gimbhal,who has spent the last eight years at the hospitaland many more in various jailsis all set to be free now,after the Silvassa court passed a judgment on July 15 to this effect. As per law,once the judgment of a release is pronounced,the undertrial has to be released within 24 hours. Gimbhal,however,is still behind bars at the hospital,and is likely to be taken home to Belugaon in Silvassa by his relatives next week.

Criminal charges had been lodged against Gimbhal for the murder he committed in Velugam,a village near Khanvel in Dadra and Nagar Haveli,in 1974. Though declared a chronic schizophrenic patient,he has been considered an accused all these years due to legal wrangles. It is true that he is a chronic schizophrenic. We have been asking the investigating agencies in Silvassa to drop the criminal charges so that we can treat him as a civil patient, Rakesh Shah,superintendent,VHMH,told The Sunday Express.

At Khanvel police station,Sub-Inspector K.B. Mahajan,who has been handling the case for over a year now,said that on September 29,1974,Gimbhal,a farmer,killed his mother Gangiben with a sharp-edged weapon. According to the FIR registered at Surangi outpost,he had killed her after an argument about serving food.

Gimbhal was arrested for the crime and taken to Silvassa jail. The chargesheet was filed the same month. A month later,he was taken to Chief Medical Officer C.J. Bhatt in Silvassa for a check-up and on December 26,he was declared mentally disturbed. He was then released on bail and his cousin Deval Vartha was given custody and also asked to produce Gimbhal before the court as and when required, Mahajan said,adding that there was no question of producing him in the court since he had lost his mental balance.

Tired of taking care of Gimbhal and fed up of frequent court appearances,his cousin finally washed his hands off the case and Gimbhal was sent to the Surat jail on May 15,2000. He was sent to the psychiatry department at Surat civil hospital and to VHMH for treatment, Mahajan said. After a short spell of treatment and medication,Gimbhal once again landed at the Silvassa jail in August 2000 and spent three years there,till the Silvassa Sessions Judge issued an order on November 27,2003,saying that the accused should be shifted to VHMH. Since then,the hospital has been his home.

After Rakesh Shah wrote a letter to the Union home minister,requesting the withdrawal of murder charges against Gimbhal,a National Human Rights Commission team visited VHMH and observed that given Gimbhals condition,the charges should be dropped. Mohinder Singh,director Judicial Cell,Ministry of Home Affairs,New Delhi,wrote back on September 3,2008,asking for a detailed report.

Gimbhals nephew Vilas said,After you The Indian Express visited our village,we collected some money and visited our uncle in Vadodara in November last year. We would love to bring him home.

AHMEDABAD

He inherited a 33-year-old battle from his father

Parimal Dabhi

Apart from 250 bighas of family land,Pola Sutreja inherited a 33-year-old legal battle from his father Merag Sutreja,who died in 2007.

The man he is taking on is the present Director General of Gujarat Police,S.S. Khandwawala,who had allegedly subjected Merag to custodial torture in 1976.

The Sutreja familys appeal seeking harsher punishment for Khandwawalawho was deputy superintendent of police when the incident allegedly occurredis still pending with the Gujarat High Court.

We are disappointed that even after a prolonged legal fight of 33 years,we have not got justice. My father died waiting for it and our wait is not over yet, says Pola,from his home in Sutrej village in Keshod taluka of Junagadh district. My father felt insulted at the way he was treated by the police and he wanted to restore his self-esteem at any cost. Otherwise,we would have given up the fight by now, says the farmer and trustee of a high school.

In September 1976,police had raided Merags residence and recovered an unauthorised weapon. Khandwawala had allegedly taken Merag along with him to Porbandar and tortured him in custody where,Pola says,Merag sustained a fracture on his left foot which never healed despite five surgeries. Later,Merag filed a criminal complaint against Khandwawala and three other policemen.

It took the police almost six years to file even a First Information Report FIR against the accused cops,which they did in 1982. The trial on Merags complaint went on for 21 years and in 2003,the Sessions Court of Junagadh convicted the accused policemen and sent them to prison for five years. Challenging this,Khandwawala filed an appeal in the High Court. Not satisfied with the punishment,Merag and the state government filed a revision application and an appeal in the High Court.

Pola now knows most of the counsels of the Gujarat High Court. Not surprising,since the family has changed their lawyers ten times since the case first reached the court. Till date,we must have spent about Rs 3 crore on this legal fight. With Gods grace,we have enough land and money to afford the expenses, says Pola who,along with his mother Raniben,filed an application in the High Court to carry forward Merags case after his death in July 2007. Though the division bench of the High Court dismissed the petition on technical grounds,Pola challenged the HC order in the Supreme Court,which recently ordered the High Court not to dispose of petitions related to Khandwawala before hearing Pola Sutreja.