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DENYING JUSTICE After the Genocide
India's
CBI: How it trashed own officers to deny justice to the Sikhs?
WSN Bureau
 Who
is more powerful: The Joint Director of the CBI or the Reebok
sneaker of journalist Jarnail Singh? In a complete expose of the
ways in which India's top sleuthing agency, the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) worked in denying justice to the Sikhs and
bringing to book those guilty of a most horrible pogrom in 1984, it
has now been revealed that the investigators had indeed recommended
a strong case against Jagdish Tytler in another case known as Bara
Hindu Rao genocide killing case, but the director of the CBI,
Ashwani Kumar gave a clean chit to the Congress politician.
Clearly, the
politics was at play in the labyrinths of
India's justice
dispensing machinery, and Sikhs could hope little. If Jarnail Singh
threw a shoe at the entire Indian establishment, it was a step fully
justified by the systematic and systemic ways in which justice is
denied to the minorities, the poor, the have nots and the
marginalised. One reading of the expose, led by a leading Indian
daily The Indian Express, makes one wonder why not many more shoes
are being flung in the face of Indian politicians all across the
country.
Now, it has been
conclusively brought ut by sections of the media that the Joint
Director and the DIG clearly recommended, in writing, that Jagdish
Tytler was guilty of murder, rioting and damage to property in the
Bara Hindu Rao pogrom case but the CBI director Ashwani Kumar signed
on the clean chit to Tytler.
After the shoe
controversy sparked outrage and Tytler and fellow accused Sajjan
Kumar were told to withdraw from the electoral race, both the
Congress and the UPA said the Government was unaware of the clean
chit to Tytler.
 However,
records also show that the CBI clean chit came after its Director of
Prosecutions S K Sharma, who reports to the Law Ministry, also
opined that the evidence against Tytler was too weak.
On April 2, CBI
filed its final investigation report in the Bara Hindu Rao case (one
of the seven the CBI registered after the Nanavati Commission report
in 2005) despite this sharp division within.
Also, in
December 2008, even after the CBI took the unprecedented step of
sending a team to the
US to question
two crucial witnesses Jasbir Singh and Surender Singh on directions
of the court and although it had secured testimonies indicting
Tytler, it chose to pick holes in their version of events.
This is evident
from status reports submitted by the CBI to the Ministry of Home
Affairs, which directed the agency to register cases against Tytler,
Kumar and Dharam Das Shastri after the Nanavati report was tabled in
Parliament.
The CBI informed
the Home Ministry that both witnesses had reiterated their
allegations and the agency was trying to verify their statements and
trying to trace one Sucha Singh, with whom Jasbir Singh claimed to
have stayed during the riots.
The two
testimonies — and details therein which the CBI was finding it
difficult to corroborate after a gap of 25 years — were hastily
processed within the CBI. Eventually, the Investigating Officer
(IO), Superintendent of Police (SP) and the Deputy Legal Advisor (DLA),
among others, recommended closure of the case, citing contradictions
in the statements of witnesses.
 A
contrary view was taken by the DIG and the JD.
In a three-page
opinion, Joint Director Arun Kumar discussed the merits and demerits
of the evidence against Tytler at length. Kumar acknowledged that
Surinder Singh had done several flip-flops in his testimony against
Tytler. For example, he told the Nanavati Commission in January 2002
that Tytler led the mob and incited it to “burn the Gurudwara and
kill Sikhs,” but he retracted this and filed a second affidavit in
August 2002 denying the first.
He reaffirmed
this affidavit in April 2006 but then in an interview in December
2007, he claimed he had seen Tytler inciting the mob, a charge he
repeated when he was examined in the
US.
“The cases have
been politically used and misused time and again. If one relies upon
the statements of witnesses, their changing statements will be
quoted to prove them unreliable. On the other hand, the other side
will argue that accused persons are so influential that nobody can
depose truthfully in
India. Both
important witnesses are presently in
USA.
If they are insisting on certain narration of facts, it will be
difficult to ignore only by citing contradictions...Given the
circumstances of these cases, it will not be appropriate to totally
deny the present statements of Jasbir Singh and Surender Singh
regarding the incident. It will be appropriate to finally leave the
decision in the hands of trial court. Hence, I tend to go with the
opinion of the DIG and recommend prosecution of Jagdish Tytler under
Sections 147, 149 and 109 IPC read with 302, 295, 427 and 436 IPC.”
CBI
officials handling the case claim that faced with such
“contradictory” advice, Director Ashwani Kumar sent the file to
Sharma, the CBI’s Director of Prosecution (DoP). He, too, said that
the evidence showing presence of the accused on the scene of crime
was weak and the director then signed off the file disregarding the
value of the testimonies recorded in the
US.
Sharma,
incidentally, is the bridge between the agency and the government
and this isn’t the only case in which opinions of senior law
officers have changed the direction of the probe.
Indian media
contacted Jasbir Singh in
San Francisco.
He said he was shocked to learn about the CBI’s attempt to close the
case. Although he said he was not given a copy of his statement, he
said he had told CBI investigators how on November 3, 1984, he had
heard the Congress leader telling an assembled crowd near Teg
Bahadur Hospital that, “I had assured you that you kill Sikhs and
nothing will happen to you. I had given a promise to the Centre.
Despite this, by killing least number of Sikhs you have lowered my
prestige.”
“The CBI
officers before whom I deposed told me nothing will come out of the
case and I was wasting everyone’s time,” claimed Jasbir Singh. “I
gave clear evidence against Tytler. Should my evidence be
disregarded because of the inefficiency of the CBI?”
 Says
Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, the attorney who was present when the
statements of Jasbir Singh and Surender Singh were recorded in San
Francisco and New York respectively: “If the CBI wanted to
strengthen their case they would have also recorded the statements
of Resham Singh and Giani Chain Singh, both of whom were available
and ready to give evidence in the same case and about whose presence
I informed the CBI before the team landed here. But they were not
interested and obviously only wanted to give a clean chit to Jagdish
Tytler before the elections.”
CBI Director
Ashwani Kumar did not respond to written questions on the case by
the Indian media which exposed the contradictions within the CBI. In
fact, the shamelessness hit rock bottom when the CBI spokesman said
that the newspaper should not discuss the Jagdish Tytler case since
it was sub judice and that in view of the guidelines issued by the
Election Commission, they could not reply to questions on cases
which have political overtones.
29
April 2009
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