SC Asks Convict To Beg Girl For Mercy As Punishment. What’s Next, Saying Sorry?

Justice in India can be described with different adjectives…and not always the good ones. Sometime back, we got an example of a shocking justice in a rape case, which left us stunned and agitated.

In a country like ours, justice is delayed, twisted, shocking, denied, controversial, actually everything but real and true. Today’s morning news brought up a new face of justice, something ‘weird’ (at least to me).

10 years back, a man fell in love with a girl in his neighbourhood and he was almost obsessed with her. He followed her everywhere, even to her coaching classes. He was warned against this, but he was ‘blinded’ by love. This made him do something, which can be categorized as a ‘punishable offense’. He entered her bedroom one day, and tried to propose her. The girl retaliated and when, he tried to hold her hand, she fell and hurt herself.

The man was convicted and was sentenced for 5 years with a bail of Rs. 1000. When contested against the decision of the trial court, HC reduces the term to 2 years. Today, in a another session of justice, the Supreme Court suspended his sentence and granted him bail for a bond of Rs. 20,000.

However, that is not all. The bench declared that ‘if he falls to the feet of the girl and seeks forgiveness and she decides to forgive her, then his sentence will be completely terminated’. He has been given a deadline till October 6 to get forgiveness from the girl.

A crime committed 10 years back, sentence given of 5 years and another 1 month to ‘forgive and forget’.  When the man entered the girl’s bedroom and forced her to marry him, it was surely an offense against the modesty of the girl and if not reported, it might have led to grave consequences.

But, years later, asking him to fall at her feet and ask for forgiveness is a weird example of ‘forced justice’ in my opinion.

Will this help the man mend his ways of expressing love?

May be, he truly loved the girl, but his ways were definitely not right.

Will the girl forgive him for entering her bedroom without permission?

If asking for forgiveness like this, just enough, or just too much? Will it stop him from doing something similar in the future?

What if the girl decides not to forgive, even if the man is truly repenting his actions? Can she be pressurized to forgive?

Holding someone’s hand needs to be compensated by falling to her feet, that too ten years later?

So many questions arise from this unexpected justice. Is the SC trying to pass on their work to the common man now? Why will justice have to take a turn like this, when one man’s fate is put into another man’s hand and not the law. How does falling to someone’s feet makes someone guilt-free?

How grave was the offense or how the man felt is a separate discussion, but will the SC just end the case by letting ‘us’ do the justice? Then, why doesn’t it let us do that in many other cases, which happen across the country.

“If she pardons you and you can convince her for a compromise, only then we can permit the sentence to be limited to the period already undergone by you,” the bench said. (Source: Held hand, now fall at her feet: SC to suitor)

Well, whether the girl will compromise or she is made to compromise is not the lookout of the court, I guess. The bench has given out the verdict, a quick justice has been done, the aftermath is not their problem.

In a country, where justice is a farce, hope the victim does the ‘real justice’ and if the man has been convicted beyond his crime, hope he gets the ‘real justice.’

“We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Let’s hope it to be a win-win situation and triumph for the LAW and not for the lawmakers.