A Bihar court today sentenced three persons to death and 20 others to life imprisonment in connection with the kiling of 21 Dalits at Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district in 1996. Additional District and Sessions Judge A K Srivastava announced the quantum of punishment today. On May 5 the court had found the accused guilty of killing the dalits at Bathani Tola under Sahar block of Bhojpur district on July...
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Khap panchayat: signs of desperation? by Jagmati Sangwan
The number of cases in which the totally unconstitutional caste panchayats have openly defied the law of the land by issuing illegal diktats has increased manifold. In Haryana today, rapid capitalist transformation is accompanied by a regressive feudal consciousness. As education and political awareness spread among Dalits, women and backward sections, alongside there is a massive consolidation of caste (khap) panchayats in defence of the status quo. The number of cases...
More »For proximate and speedy justice by KK Venugopal
While the Supreme Court should become a Constitutional Court, the setting up of Courts of Appeal, each comprising 15 judges divided into five benches, for the four regions of the country will prove to be a real boon to litigants. Things had come to a pass in the Supreme Court of India, when Justice E.S. Venkataramiah in P.N. Kumar v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi, (1987) 4 SCC 609 relegated the...
More »See No Evil Hear No Evil by Tusha Mittal
A MARRIAGE hall in Kolkata is packed with 1200 of India’s poorest citizens. They have trekked here from all over West Bengal, from remote forests and dingy alleyways, from Howrah, East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas. They have come because there is a story to tell, a brutal story that may otherwise never be told. Finally, there are people willing to hear. These people may never bring justice; may never be...
More »Six to be sentenced today for ‘honour killing’ by Mandakini Gahlot
In what is being hailed as the “first ever honour killing conviction” in Haryana, the Karnal Sessions Court on March 25 held six residents of Karora village guilty of a gruesome double murder. The sentencing will take place tomorrow. In April 2007, Manoj, 24, and Babli, 18, had drawn the ire of Karora’s khap panchayat for eloping to Chandigarh and getting married. They belonged to the same gotra, Berwal, and...
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