Dalit rape victim: Gujarat orders cases against judges,MLA,prosecutor,cops

Days after The Indian Express first reported on a Dalit rape victims 11-year-long wait for justice,the Gujarat DGPs office has forwarded an...

Days after The Indian Express first reported on a Dalit rape victims 11-year-long wait for justice,the Gujarat DGPs office has forwarded an order from the IG of Police Gujarat SC/ST Cell to the Superintendent of Police Vadodara Rural,asking him to register a case against two Sessions Judges,Savlis Congress MLA Khumansinh Chauhan,a court registrar,a public prosecutor,a Deputy Superintendent of Police DySP,and a Police Sub-Inspector PSI under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Scheduled Caste amp; Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.

The order,issued yesterday,cites the complaint lodged by the victims uncle,Suresh Gohil Vankar with IGP P C Thakur. Gohil lodged the complaint with the help of an Ahmedabad-based voluntary organization,Council for Social Justice,against the eight who have been accused of either criminal negligence or criminal conspiracy or both.

Gohil alleged that PSI,N D Baria,in connivance with MLA Chauhan and his supporter Virendra B Solanki who carried Chauhans letter to Baria refused to register an FIR against the accused. The complaint also states that one of the two accused in the case,Ramesh Baria,was a relative of Chauhan.

The DySP,D M Nayak,was the Investigating Officer IO in the gangrape case. And it was because of his alleged criminal negligence that the chargesheet of the case was submitted directly to the Sessions Court instead of the court of Judicial First Class Magistrate.

Consequently,the Sessions Court had,in 2007,after completing the trial,sent the case papers back to the IO asking him to submit the chargesheet to the other court.

The two Sessions Judges have been named as accused in the complaint as they forwarded a case of gangrape for compromise in the Lok Adalat,against legal provisions. The complaint stated that the action of the two Sessions Judges in putting and hearing the case for compromise in Lok Adalat was in violation of The Legal Services Authority Act.

The then registrar of Vadodara Sessions Court and Public Prosecutor in the case,Prakash Bhatt,have been named as accused as they let the trial proceedings go on despite being aware that the Sessions Court could not take direct cognizance of the case. The two,the complaint said,did not draw the courts attention that the chargesheet had been submitted directly to the Sessions Court.

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Talking to The Indian Express,IGP P C Thakur said: The complainant had lodged the complaint with supportive evidence. So the order to register cases is in the spirit of the Criminal Procedure Code.