BW Communities

Case Study: Hauled Over The Courts

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<div>Jnanesh Rathod Singh, an ex-army officer, walked into the verandah of the High Court, and placing his folder of papers on a bench, aired himself before a huge industrial fan. Jnanesh was here for the fourth time in two years, for a hearing of an accident case where he was more than an active bystander. It had been six years since that day in December when he was driving his family to a birthday party. Those days, Jnanesh was with the Indian Army. A crowd of people right in the middle of the road made him slow down his car only to see a most grisly sight of a young man flung across the street, bleeding, people standing and watching from the kerb side and cars and cyclists swinging around his body and carrying on... Jnanesh stopped his vehicle, stepped out, and asked if anyone had called the police. Silent stares greeted him in response. So, he called the police and told people to back out so there was air for the injured man. When 20 minutes had passed and no cop arrived, Jnanesh asked his family to go home while he drove the victim to the hospital. On reaching the hospital, the young man died. The formalities were completed, cops asked questions, Jnanesh answered and the matter ended. Or at least for the time being. For four years, nothing happened. Meanwhile, Jnanesh got posted to the North-east. Four years later, the case came up for hearing and Jnanesh was summoned. He travelled 26-27 hours — first 8 hours by road then 14 hours by train and the rest by air, he came into Delhi, went to the court and the defence asked for adjournment for two weeks. Jnanesh had to go and come back all the way, doing the 26 hours journey, only to find that the case was adjourned yet again for two months. Today six years after the accident, Jnanesh gasped at the crowds thronging the court corridors. As he passed by a hall, he saw a proceeding going on. He visualised himself in such an intimidating dock and four people practically leaning over him. Jnanesh wondered if real courts were exactly as they showed on TV.   When he turned to go, he collided into a middle-aged Sikh gentleman, with dancing eyes. In his native jolly style, he asked Jnanesh if he was the accused or the victim. Jnanesh was unwilling to engage but the man was way ahead, talking, “Myself, Kuldeep Singh, surprised by court talk?” And presently Jnanesh had told him why he was there. Kuldeep: You please do not think you did wrong by helping the victim, no matter how tough the going is. Waheguru notices everything. I believe people are good at heart, of course, people do stop and look at the accident, but they don’t know what to do. There is no external information, body or voice that is telling them what to do or what they should not do. No voice that legally celebrates the help they are giving. If anything, the simple act of helping someone bleeding, dying on the streets is criminalised by the police. If the victim dies then the liability on the person helping is much, much more — because then he becomes a suspect! Look at me! I have come again and again and again and the same questions are being asked by different people and sometimes by the same people — did you pick him up? Was he alive? How do you know he was alive? Did you take help? What did the victim say to you? How can he not have said anything?  And so on. Jnanesh: I only wonder about the inconvenience of all this. I have come four times already and have to travel 26 hours one way. I am only wondering, if somebody thinks about all this. Kuldeep: Our court system is a very unfriendly. People avoid filing cases in order to avoid court processes and prefer an out-of-court settlement to save themselves a few years of peaceful living. There is a chap here, Idris. You must meet him. He has a hearing today. Hear his tale. He merely saw what happened and he could have chosen to keep out, but he got involved out of an angry sense of fair play. Idiot, now he has lost his job because he has more court hearings than working days.  </div><div><a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessworld.in/news/case-studies/analysis-the-fault-in-our-system/1509690/page-1.html">Read Analysis By Suhaan Mukerji</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessworld.in/news/case-studies/analysis-a-fractured-system/1509656/page-1.html">Read Analysis By Piyush Tewari</a>  </div><div>break-page-break</div><div> </div><div> I attended his last hearing and he told the court, “This confidence that what I am doing is not wrong, is destroyed when that action is humiliated, insulted by the system. This is why India is a country of growing chaos. When good is killed, bad takes charge. Damn good kiya!” Idris (when he joined them): It is not just helping an injured man, it is the insensitive accusations! Ok, so I brought the victim to the hospital, but they were saying to each other, ‘Iseene maara hoga!’ Worse, they wanted to wait till the police arrived, they demanded money for initiating treatment, ... all this is in contempt of the Supreme Court Order of 24 August 1989 (in Pt. ParmanandKatara v. Union of India) where the SC specifically stated that no hospital can deny first aid to an injured person, regardless of their paying capacity and without waiting for police formalities. Every doctor, no matter who, has an obligation to extend his expertise to protecting life. But often, hospitals deny entry and refer the victim to government hospitals! I have nothing against government hospitals, but if a private hospital is nearest why should we risk that victim’s life going further to a government one? And now you want me to shift him even if he is losing blood? Is not the hospital also fundamental to consumer safety then? I am a consumer of Indian roads and I have a right to an environment that assures me safety. This was the crux of my argument. Jnanesh: Then, by that argument, is not the court also fundamental to consumer right to road safety? I don’t mind the Rs 8,000 I spent to save Birju, the pizza delivery boy. I am happy to go and depose, no problem, but what I have a problem with is being dragged to the court for the next 6 years! Why is the governance not sensitive to a simple issue that I have to travel 26 hours to go to another city to depose? Why can the law not allow this to happen in one day in one city? If this is the experience with courts then why will bystanders stop to help? Idris: Bad luck, brother, had your victim not died you would not have had this problem. For then he would tell his tale. Kuldeep: But why should my dignity hinge on that? I have been through so many hearings where, your dignity is taken away! See, there is a strategy and a game plan that lawyers follow. You need to crack it. The lawyer’s intention is to intimidate you and he will do so successfully. You have to be hard as nails. Jnanesh: What is your crime? Why are you here? Kuldeep: Me? I was a bystander. That was my crime! I saw the car in front of me meet with an accident. Some parties to the case were trying to make it out to be a case of drunken driving. So, I went to the cop station and told them it could not be as I had been behind this car for over 20 minutes and could see their conduct. They were four people of the same group or family laughing and talking... Ok, this is what happened. I was on the highway at 10 p.m., before me was this car — an Aloysius-Spectra. We were both driving at over 100, steady, peaceful. The road was practically empty and poor lighting. Now, at one point, on the road, there is a 2-feet high divider in concrete with markings — the typical yellow black lines; left to go to Geeta Market area and thereon to the city; if you chose to stay on the right, then you continue on the highway. <img width="600" height="353" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=3a5fbd23-09c4-4731-9e6c-a979e7284c1f&groupId=222861&t=1409659828199" alt="" /> The Aloysius chose to go to Geeta Market,  took the left and then boom! Within seconds it hit a massive wall of rocks placed there to close the exit, would you believe it! Within seconds, within seconds! I didn’t see it coming either. It was rude, sudden, like an insult. Unbelievable. One minute I was reading their ‘Baba on Board’ sticker, and grinning at the Punjabi humour, and the next minute the car was a pile of metal. I stepped on my brakes, which was a challenge because we were all doing a 100. But when the Aloysius shifted gears to swing left, I had slowed down, if not I would be with them at the Pearly Gates. Jnanesh: But the Aloysious does not have air bags... ? Kuldeep: They don’t, sadly! But the impact was phenomenal; you took the hit so forcefully because you are doing 80 at least when you swing into the diversion lane, and in seconds, the concrete rocks piled up to 3 feet high, smash into you! Also, if you read the reviews of the Aloysious, they say the quality of the metal used for the front hood is low grade and their tyres too are not skid free. I really wish I had a dashboard camera like they have in Russia; that could have recorded what happened and I would prove that it was barely 3 seconds between turning into the left slip road and hitting the blockade. Jnanesh: There weren’t any reflectors on the boulders? And why boulders really. I thought they used those orange cones. Kuldeep: Boss, my question was, why no reflectors or red light on the rocks? And air bags? How are we allowing cars without safety mechanisms? The police filed an fir — for in India, road accidents are filed as criminal cases, where the rule of evidence and procedure are far stricter. Kuldeep did not know this when he went headlong into this case. “Now, when this accident took place, I was the one who called the cops and the families from the mobile phones of the passengers. As luck went, a police patrol vehicle was in the vicinity and they arrived in 10 minutes,” he said.  </div><div><div><a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessworld.in/news/case-studies/analysis-the-fault-in-our-system/1509690/page-1.html">Read Analysis By Suhaan Mukerji</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessworld.in/news/case-studies/analysis-a-fractured-system/1509656/page-1.html">Read Analysis By Piyush Tewari</a>  </div> </div><div>break-page-break</div><div> </div><div> Two days later, Kuldeep learnt that the accident was being made out to be a case of drunken driving — naturally by the road authorities wishing to deflect the blame. He contacted the distressed families and told them that the boulders having been placed immediately after the diversion was unfair and no one had seen it coming. Kuldeep: Arre, I forgot to tell you. Just a kilometer before the divider, there was a huge road sign that said, ‘Take left bypass for Geeta Market!’ Now you tell me? So I pointed that out to the family. But when we went there, the sign had been removed! It is crazy how the road block was placed so close to the diversion. By day, you would have seen them, but these boulders were also dark coloured. And you know Indian roads, so badly lit...! Chalo, so family complained and raised a hullabaloo. The cops said to me what proof you were there. I said brother, I called you, remember? So, they had to put me on the FIR as witness but they are not going to let me win. They have already insulted me, cast aspersions on my intention, questioned my integrity, I was reprimanded by the judge for not speaking clearly... arre, baap re! Kuldeep recounted how the defence lawyer had said, “How could you have seen the car hitting the boulders? If you were in another car, then maybe it hit something else first?” And when Kuldeep said, “No, I know it hit the boulders,” the lawyer retorted, “Oh, so, if you saw the boulders how come the Aloysious driver did not?” And Kuldeep had said that since his headlights were on he had an objective view and even a distant view — he was at least 30 feet away from the boulders. But the lawyer hammered at Kuldeep’s patience, discrediting him. Kuldeep: Now, you must ask me why it takes two years to call me again... Jnanesh: You mean, it’s not over yet? Kuldeep: Arre, kahaan! It seems later someone else filed information that those were not boulders but something else — can’t recall what term he used. So, they sent me summons again after two years! See, we have very rigorous rules of procedure but lawyers interpret it to be even more rigorous than they are. I had to be examined again in the light of this new information! It was so frustrating for me... My sister’s wedding had been fixed and I am her father, brother, mother, everything... what do I do? Run to the court or attend to my sister’s wedding preparations? But the Indian Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code say that in order to have a fair trial you can question the witness as much as you wish to. Fair trial in India is given a high standing! But it is not fair to the accused or the witnesses. It is only a means to prolong, sap your energy, break your will that is all. Acha... now adjournments can happen for any excuse. The lawyer can have a family emergency or he is involved in another case where he is stuck; so most adjournments happen because of the lawyer, not because of the client. Idris: Then, there is also a mountain of paper work that can be piled onto these cases. Say, you want to file an additional document. Like that new man who came in and said those are not boulders, those are X. It is not a simple matter of handing in a paper. There is a whole damn process. You file it with an application, a technical declaration that defines what the new term is, then certified by some engineer...that means you will take time from the court, a month, to file it. Then he will say, it needs to be attested, I need another one month. What happens is, one month is never one month in Indian courts. It will be three months. Because our courts are so overburdened (naturally, since the largest community of law breakers we have) so, they cannot fix the date and say come back in exactly a month. When you go back you will realise that the date is shifted by another 2-3 weeks. And that you will have to find out on your own. There is no intimation that will come to you. There is a call list that the court releases. Often it is because there are urgent demands which they have to attend to immediately — like death row petitions, anticipatory bail, mercy petitions, so, those get the ‘urgent’ status and accident cases for instance, get moved behind. Jnanesh: How then do they expect ordinary citizens to help accident victims? For six years, I have this hanging on my neck. I have spent a lot of money... not that I regret anything, but it’s such a strain! And for no fault of mine! To be continued.... (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 22-09-2014)</div>