Thursday, January 25, 2007

LAWLESS LAWYERS

Why bother with a trial for Moninder Singh Pandher? The media knows hes a killer. The police will ensure hes the killer and the lawyers and general public have of course given their verdict by beating him up outside the court. If Moninder Singh is guilty, show him no mercy for he deserves none. But according to Indian law he is innocent until proven guilty so lets all hang on till then!

We can't blame the police for a security lapse at the court because the police is sometimes helpless in the midst of these maniac mobs. What we can blame them for is a lack of planning and foresight. They should've expected something like this, given that in the past people have stoned Moninder's house and are baying for his blood.

But to me what stands out as truly shameful about this incident is the kind of street justice we are witnessing for a case that should be fought with science and forensics. And for lawyers, lawyers to be jumping into the melee for a few punches is the end of civilisation. This display of vigilante justice by the men who swear by the Constitution of India everyday is shocking. One lawyer appeared on TV justifying their act saying they are "human after all"?! Of course they are. We certainly don't think they are anything more or greater. And although our faith in the system be near zero, and we justify the act as public outrage against a system that failed us, can we stoop to this? Lawyers, of all people, should not.

7 comments:

HP said...

@Alaphia,

I was referring to the RSS feeds. They are currently not set to full feeds. One can set them to full feeds by going to the blogger settings->site feed and then selecting full as the option for descriptions.

Thanks!!

Cheers,
HP

Sathej said...

Hello Alaphia,
Certainly the police ought to have been more vigilant.As for the lawyers,yes,they betrayed themselves.For the common man,well,it is clear that faith in the system has declined significantly.After all,didn't the public have a huge role to play in the Mattoo case?Nevertheless,they should have shown more decent beahviour by perhaps protesting silently rather than resorting to such mindless thrashing.All said and done,we Indians are well known for our mob mentality-aren't we?
Sathej

Dex said...

Apparently you haven't heard many lawyer jokes.
But seriously... according to me, thrashing Pandher may have been the least vicious in the entire history of lawyer crimes :)

Rajaram S said...

when i started reading the first paragraph, I was appalled at what you wrote ...then the last sentence of that para kind of pointed the direction you were heading in ..i had concluded prematurely the essence of ur post !!

Bala (Karthik) said...

Bingo Alaphia!
Exactly the same attitude which rears its ugly head whenever a 'suspected' terrorist is tried. Vigilante justice. The focus shifts from the question of whether the accused is guilty or innocent to the punishment.

Alaphia Zoyab said...

Hi HP,
I'll sort this out. Thanks for telling me.

Hi Sathej,
How was Saarang?

Jimmy - I have heard many lawyer jokes... In fact some of the lawyers I have seen at the Madras High court will put some notorious criminals to shame.

Rajaram - I re-read the post after you pointed it out. And yes, it does seem like that. But of course I am sane and would never EVER subscribe to such a view.

Bala - The example of the bangladeshi model Tariq Dar comes to mind.

Sathej said...

Hello Alaphia,
Saarang was nice.But,this year,there was no Carnatic Music performance as a Pro Show.That disappointed me.The Five Point Someone show was good,but they were not able to match the racy pace of the book.Anyway,it is a massive exaggeration of what actually happens at IIT.I was not there for all the four days as I had to go out of station for a couple of days.Nevertheless,one must concede that usually Saarang is not(or rather cannot be) as efficiently organized as Shaastra owing to several reasons.Were you there anytime?
Sathej