HVK Archives: The presumptive order - An editorial
The presumptive order - An editorial - The Indian Express
Editorial
()
7 September 1996
Title : The presumptive order
Politicised hawala cases warrant speedy verdict
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Indian Express
Date : September 7, 1996
Special Judge V. B. Gupta's exhaustive judgment that
criminal conspiracy and corruption charges be filed
against L. K. Advani is bound to have a demoralising
effect on the BJP. Apart from ruling Advani out of the
crucial Gandhinagar by-election next month, the order has
deprived the BJP of a valuable plank which could have
been used to telling effect in the UP Assembly election.
Although the judgment steers clear of the question of
Advani's alleged guilt, the pronouncement that there is a
prima facie case for the BJP president to answer bolsters
Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda's assertion of moral
equivalence - that no one can claim to be holier than
thou. Certainly, Judge Gupta's observation that
"corruption has eaten into the nation's material fibre
and rectifying this should be the top priority and a
beginning has to be made" may well be interpreted by the
public as yet another indictment of all politicians
tainted by charges of having received hawala money from
the Jain brothers. Moreover, coming on the day of the
arrest of the three former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs on
charges of having received bribes for voting with the
Narasimha Rao Government in 1993, Judge Gupta's order is
certain to add to the prevailing anti-politician mood in
the country.
There is, however, a major snag. While it is laudable
that the judiciary has taken a lead in confronting
corruption in public life, it must take exceptional care
that its judgments are rigorous. In the Advani case, for
example, the Judge appears not to have taken into account
the failure of the CBI counsel to respond to 15 questions
asked by him, which were at the heart of the allegations
against the BJP president. Since Advani's name never
featured in Jain's diaries and cropped up incidentally in
a loose summary sheet, it may have been pertinent for the
Judge to have dwelt on the actual evidence which prompted
him to conclude that the CBI chargesheet was not
"frivolous". Judge Gupta admitted that this was not the
occasion to assess whether or not the evidence warrants
conviction. If so, was it necessary to have had such an
exhaustive hearing in which counsel dealt with the actual
evidence presented by the CBI? Since this is a
designated court and Judge Gupta will be presiding over
the trial after the charges have been framed on September
26, the distinction between pre-trial and trial hearings
is somewhat academic. Nothing substantially different
may well emerge from the two sets of hearings presided
over by the same Judge.
If on the basis of what he heard, Judge Gupta was
convinced that Advani is guilty, he should have said so
and sentenced him. Likewise, if he felt Advani is
innocent, he should have acquitted him honourably. His
plea of the court having to form a "presumptive opinion"
is likely to be either misinterpreted as giving the CBI
the benefit of the doubt or attacked on the ground of
encouraging dilatoriness. The intensely political nature
of the hawala trial demands that all doubts are set at
rest and the country knows which politician accepted
bribes and who was unfairly charged.
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