Former Union minister Ram Jethmalani speaks to Mihir
Srivastava on the Parliament Attack case
 |
Ram
Jethmalani |
| |
The President has the
power to disagree with the Supreme Court on facts and in law |
Afzal’s
confession, the backbone of the prosecution story of who attacked Parliament,
has been set aside.
The court has said
that Afzal’s confession is not admissible. It was not recorded
under the proper guidelines of POTA. Otherwise also, a confession given
to the police is irrelevant and can’t be admitted.
This confession
was used to bring the involvement of the Lashkar and Jaish into the
picture.
The confession
only binds the maker of the confession. It does not bind anybody else.
Let me say, if I have committed this offence with you, it does not affect
you.
Now the
whole judicial process is over, what do we know about the Parliament
attack, who did it?
We know that five
men who attacked Parliament were killed. They were suicide bombers trained
to attack Parliament.
Since there
is no direct evidence, the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence
mentioning the collective conscience of the society…
They have found
them guilty on the basis of evidence on record. Having found him guilty,
the question of a sentence arose. They sentenced him on collective conscience…
It is assumed that their conscience reflects the conscience of society.
It is another way of saying that the offence is so monstrous that people
will be happy (with capital punishment).
There are
a lot of loose ends in the investigations.
The police case
was that the information about where the car was purchased from etc
was given by Geelani. They have tried to implicate Geelani, how can
they turn around and use the same evidence against Afzal. If the police
have already received information from some other source, you cannot
say that the disclosure came from Afzal. They used it against any one
they thought convenient.
LK Advani
is saying that if the hanging is delayed we will appear like a soft
State.
A State that does
not obey its own rule of law does not follow its own constitutional
obligations; that makes it a soft State.
Afzal did
not get legal support..
The man was very
poorly defended, there is no doubt. My concern is that the Indian bar
did not perform its obligation. When a man is facing the death sentence,
the request of the man should be complied with. He asked for four lawyers,
the judge asked two, the remaining two he didn’t even ask. Then
a lawyer was more or less thrust upon him. Amicus is the friend of the
court; amicus and being a defence advocate for an accused are inconsistent
things.
The mercy
petition is with the President and public opinion is divided.
It’s a misnomer
to call it a mercy petition. It leads to total misunderstanding of the
constitutional power. The constitutional power is that the President
has the power to disagree with the Supreme Court both with its findings
of fact and law.
The police
used the media to cause prejudice in the minds of the people in this
case.
To cause prejudice
in the minds of the public against the man who is standing trail is
the worst kind of contempt.
