I was in college in 1985 when the news of Man Singh had hit
the newspapers.
Newspapers were largely the source of information and which I avidly followed.
Though his name sounds like a dacoit he was a former royal of the former state of Bharatpur who had won
every election he had stood for and was still treated as royalty by
his erstwhile subjects. In the interests
of brevity I am just jumping to the end skipping the details. He was shot down
quite cold bloodily by the Rajasthan police over a dispute and it was
attempted to pass of his case as encounter. His popularity can by gauged by the
fact that there was a complete shutdown of the area and the chief minister was
forced to resign. (Yes such things used to happen).
The news had some morbid fascination for me which is why the
incident remains in my mind.
I was recollecting the incident a few weeks back but could
not find any reference since I had forgotten his name and the state.
A few days back I
read in the paper that the trial court finally found 11 policemen guilty of murder and were all sentenced to life imprisonment. Some of the accused had
already died. So it took 35 years to complete a trial. Assuming the culprits
were in the age group of 25-35 they would now be 60 to 70 years old !!!. This trial was not allowed to go to cold storage on
account for the persistence of the victims family else it might have languished
in courts for longer.
Now there are still 2 levels of appeals possible for the convicts which could take anything upto 10
years more by which all involved would have met their maker the final dispenser
of justice.
So now we can understand the oft repeated phrase “The law will take its own course”
#law-will-take-its-own-course
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