And Justice For All

“Take a closer look. It was pitch black that night. How can you identify the features of these four boys, just like that?” The defence lawyer, Mr Rahul Khilnani shouted.

Sudha Kumari looked at Mr Khilnani, fearfully. He was a giant of a man, with ferocious eyes that were flashing with anger, with righteous indignation. She looked at the judge, apprehensively, helplessly. She thought, hoped, that the judge would admonish him.

The Judge did neither. He remained silent and smug.

“Speak up!” Khilnani shouted again. “You said these four boys caught you and said dirty things to you. What dirty things, Ms Kumari? Can you tell us and the Court, word for word, who said what?”

The prosecution lawyer, Mr Dinkar Dayal, sat there, grim and disapproving. His objections had been overruled several times, now.

For the past several days, since the case had broken out in the open, political battle lines had been drawn. The girl was an unknown, her antecedents even more so. She had been at the village fair and so had these boys, childhood friends, in the throes of upcoming adulthood, fathers on various rungs of their respective political ladder.

Rahul Khilnani was just the balm needed, to soothe frayed nerves. A few sweet words were followed by a few sweets and one by one, the placards started disappearing from the streets.

Every placard had a price.

 “Come on! Specific words, please” Khilnani shouted.

“They waved a book in front of me!” she said, sobbing. “It was a dirty book and it contained a lot of dirty pictures!”

“Oh, really?” Khilnani turned to the Judge “Your Honor, suddenly, out of nowhere, we have a dirty book in the picture. Earlier, it was just words. And Ms Kumari just thought that since a picture represents a thousand words, she should supply those thousand words!”

Then he turned again and screamed at her “Isn’t that right??”

He was proud of himself. The girl was cowering, shivering, stuttering, not the picture of a confident, system abused victim.

The four men standing across her, glared at her, with eyes full of hate, contrasting with the suggestion of knowing smiles, that lurked beneath.

She still had nightmares. No amount of Indian Penal Codes would drive away those nightmares.

“It was these four. I know it” she said, her sobbing breaths adding an emotional timbre to her voice.

“Oh yes?”, Khilnani adopted a deliberately silky and soft voice. “And pray to tell us, how do you know it was them? Had you encountered any of them before?”

The question was ridiculous and everyone sitting there knew it. The judge knew it. Dinkar Dayal knew it. Even Rahul Khilnani knew it. The Judge remained motionless and stoic, watching the drama unfold before him. He had been there, done that and seen it all.

Political muscle was real, one could not ignore that.

The girl looked at him again, her eyes stained with tears, lonely, beseeching as if her entire existence depended on the judge’s next move. Her eyes moved his soul, but there immediately came before him, the picture of his sixteen-year-old daughter and the bulky envelope, detailing the route she took every day from her home to college. Google Maps. Big Data. Topped up with a couple of crass calls and a deposit in his sister-in-law’s account.

And he knew that his soul had gone beyond redemption.

The room was beginning to spin for her. They had spent the entire morning and the girl was utterly exhausted. Rahul Khilnani had asked her to describe the act in graphic detail and she felt as if the entire audience was full of wolves, hungry, lusting, animals, wishing they would have been witnesses to the actual depravity. She had repeated this ordeal several times, at the police station, to her cellmates when she was incarcerated over a defamation charge, which was also part of this hearing and to her prosecution lawyer, Mr Dayal, who had asked her hesitatingly and had been uneasy all the way.

Somewhere, the Women’s Lib organization had also faded away and the women there had stopped taking her calls.

Nothing made sense anymore. She blanked out the dull monotonous voice of Mr Khilnani, as he went about extolling the virtues of those sweet, innocent young boys, in the prime of their youth and poised to have a bright future, only to find themselves honey-trapped and blackmailed by this insidious creature standing there and crying rape. Innocent boys indeed. They had been animals, hopped up on LSD, mindless, sending endless scars on her body and on her soul, scars that were now being ripped apart in this dreary courtroom.

The judge was yawning.

Her body was hot and burning, the fever from the night before had not been tended to. The judge also called upon the defamation case to be heard and Mr Khilnani’s pitch rose even more, as he impressed upon all and sundry, to set an example. She looked at him, dully. She looked around the courtroom, the doctor who had taken the DNA samples yesterday, was playing some game on his mobile. He had been uncomfortable yesterday, then the defence lawyer had pulled him to one side and now he was relaxed and playing a game.

Her life was a game.

The prosecution lawyer, Dinkar Dayal, made a few feeble attempts to interpose with objections. The judge cut him off each time and by now, even the four innocent youths were smiling.

The arguments ended.

Dinkar Dayal made a final attempt. “Your Honor,” he said, “The condition of the girl is pitiable. She is shaking with fever, she is not able to even stand properly. She is suffering from a terrible disease. A really terrible disease. Can I request if the Court could go easy on her? Let her off with a reprimand? Drop the defamation case?”

There seemed to be the release of a collective sigh of relief on the part of the defence lawyer as well as the Judge. It seemed they were waiting for Dinkar Dayal to finally admit defeat. He had been largely ineffectual, which, given his reputation for success, was a surprise, but now a request was being made, for going easy on the girl – it was too good to be true.

The judge called both the lawyers close, for a hasty discussion.

The defence lawyer was smug. “A case should be filed against her, for defamation,” he said. The Judge told him to cool it. “If Mr Dayal makes a request, let us consider it,” he said.

Dinkar Dayal said that his client would be ready to withdraw the cases against the four youths and also tender an apology. “She is in grave health, your Honor,” he said. “She is not in a position to take this any further.” The defence lawyer looked at him, surprised. The Judge too, looked surprised, but then considered this request gravely, inwardly, he was positively beaming.

“Ok,” he said, finally, after a prolonged silence. “Go back to your stand and I’ll pronounce the verdict”.

The Court was brought to order and the Judge pronounced his verdict. Sudha Kumari did not hear it all, she was feeling giddy and the room was turning faster, she only heard a few snippets…. “innocen

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t youths…. Framed for a crime they didn’t commit…. No evidence, no witnesses….. Sudha Kumari is ready to tender an apology…. the girl is released as she has suffered immense mental trauma…. The rap on her wrist… reprimand that this should not happen again… but justice must be done…. And justice for all”

The words shook in her ears and bounced off the walls of the Courtroom.

And justice for all….. And justice for all….. And justice for all…..

She was being led outside the Court. Away from the photographers and reporters, who were gleefully clicking away, now that the case had received so much attention, they would have a lot to write about. She tried to shield her eyes from them all.

She had been discharged, but they had to complete the formalities at the police station.

As Dinkar Dayal led her out, he heard a short whisper. He turned and looked at his colleague, the defence lawyer, the gloating, triumphant, self-important Mr Rahul Khilnani, who had just got these sweet, innocent youths acquitted.

“Oh, Mr Khilnani!” Dinkar Dayal said. “Just the man I wanted to see. I want to thank you personally since Sudha Kumari is suffering from a grave disease. She can now take rest and get away from this all.”

Khilnani narrowed his eyes. “Do you take me for a chump, Dayal?” he said. “What’s your game?”

Dayal stared at him. “Game?” he said. “What game?”

“There was no request for an out of court settlement. There were no discussions from your end or mine unless the girl and these four have settled something between them!”

He winked at Dayal.

“Have you lost your mind?” Dinkar Dayal asked him.

“I just want to know why she submitted so meekly. She was ready to fight, right up to the Supreme Court and now suddenly, she’s given up!”

“I advised her,” said Dinkar Dayal. “I told her that if the case doesn’t work out, this is the best way. We tried our best, But you – you were too good!”

Khilnani felt vaguely pleased, but there was still something about this that seemed a bit off. Had she asked for an out of court settlement, he was sure his clients would have agreed, not an astronomical sum of course, but something that would be reasonable.

“What does she have?” he asked.

“I told the Judge, in your presence,” Dinkar Dayal said. “The girl is suffering from a grave disease”

“What disease?” Khilnani repeated, impatiently.

Dinkar Dayal stared at one of the walls adjoining the Court premises. Then he took out his spectacles and coughed and started wiping them with his kerchief. Graffiti had been liberally poured on that wall. Khilnani looked at where Dinkar Dayal was looking and read the caption.

“Pal Bhar Ki Khushi. Do Minute Ka Naata. Kuch Nahi Hai Rehta. Jab Aids Lag Jaata”

Khilnani read the caption again and paled visibly. He stared at Dinkar who was wiping his face with his kerchief. His mind had gone numb, the words seemed to have frozen on his mouth.

“Dayal Babu!” he stuttered, “Is this… uh… is this…?

Dinkar Dayal said nothing. He heard the girl calling out to him.

“I need to go,” Dinkar said and hurried away.

“Dinkar Sahab, wait!” Khilnani’s agonized cry was in vain as Dinkar reached the girl and gently took her hand.

Khilnani stood there, watching, stupified, eyes round with terror and reading the caption again, with a sinking heart.

The boys’ fathers had asked him about the exchange between the lawyers and the Judges. And they had asked him to check out with Dinkar Dayal, they didn’t want her to collapse and die on them, they would be ready to foot any hospital bill, even anonymously. A small price to pay, for the freedom of their sons. He knew their political careers would be on the line if it got out because he knew the truth. And this wasn’t something one could hide.

This disease was like that.

Oh, the infamy, the degradation, the social boycott, if….. He couldn’t bear to think…

Headlines in the newspapers, three weeks later

We bring you a sensational twist in the Sudha Kumari case! The four boys, accused and acquitted in the Sudha Kumari case by the trial court, for lack of evidence, attempted suicide, today afternoon. They consumed a lot of pesticides and rat poison. Two of them died instantaneously and the remaining two, who were in serious condition, succumbed on the way to the hospital and were declared dead on arrival. The police are investigating. Join us as we take you through this breaking story.

Six months later

Rahul Khilnani paused and peered at the shabby chamber housed inside the High Court. It was more like a cubbyhole, where Dinkar Dayal sat, typing away. Dinkar Dayal was always old fashioned and seemed to have made it his life’s purpose to not submit to the winds of change. He was having tea. He looked up.

“Khilnani Sahab, do join me for tea!”

Rahul Khilnani had no mood to do that, especially because of the turn that case had taken, but the tea was inviting. And this was, after all, a case. No sense bearing a grudge towards Dinkar Dayal, the poor man had actually lost the case. Khilnani came and sat down and took the tea proffered to him. 

“So, how are things? You became very famous after my client’s case”

Khilnani looked up, sharply, but Dayal was sipping his chai serenely. There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice. Khilnani shrugged.

“What’s the big deal?” he said. “I won the case for them and the assholes then went and committed suicide!”

“Hmm!” Dinkar Dayal said.

“It’s good that you did not make that girl’s disease, public. It would have been an admission of guilt!” Khilnani said. “Though why you didn’t do that – I have no idea!”

“Hmm!” said Dinkar Dayal, again. The sound was beginning to get on Khilnani’s nerves.

“So, how much longer does she have?” Khilnani asked.

“Well,” Dinkar said, complacently “if she eats right and stays healthy, she can live for another fifty years, maybe!”

Khilnani stared at him. “Fifty years?!”

“Why, yes! Exercise and eating right always help. She had TB and it was grave at that time, but now she’s ok”

Khilnani paled and his face lost colour.

“TB? But… But… you said….” And he stopped, dead.

Like a kaleidoscope, the events of that fateful afternoon went through his mind. Graffiti. Dinkar Dayal wiped his face with his kerchief. Hurrying away. The caption. A picture. A thousand supplied words. He stared at Dinkar Dayal, stunned, as the enormity of the subtle deception dawned on him.

Dayal continued to sip his tea, benignly.

Khilnani stood up, like a man in a daze. Numbed. Without a word. He turned, went to the door woodenly, and opened it.

“And one last thing, Khilnani Sahab” said Dinkar Dayal.

Khilnani turned and looked at him.

Dinkar Dayal raised his cup of tea in Khilnani’s direction. “The Hon’ble Justice was right about one thing in his verdict, after all,” he said and smiled.

“And Justice for all!”…..