Postscript:
What is written in preceding posts must be taken with a pinch of salt. I am biased towards every accused, as I am conscious of the might of the state on the other side. Any judgment of conviction must be closely scrutinised. I am also wary of the trend the trial courts are obsessed with, i.e. to return a guilty verdict. As a matter of principle, convicting an accused should be made to be a daunting task, so that we are certain that once an accused has been convicted, he really deserved it. However, in practice, it is found that an acquittal is becoming tougher and tougher by the day, despite a lousy prosecution. To raise the conviction rate, what we need is an ingenious investigation & a sincere prosecution, but simply because they are substandard, the trial courts must not step into their shoes. It leaves nothing fair in the trial for the accused. Hence the concept- ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’. The charade of impressing society by the might of law is doing more bad than good towards 'rule of law'. And the courts have no moral, legal, constitutional backing to impress the society at the expense of fair trial to an accused. I also leave it to the common men & women of the society to wonder- in adverse times where do they think they would stand, if a celebrity of the fame of Salman Khan can be victimized like this?
What is written in preceding posts must be taken with a pinch of salt. I am biased towards every accused, as I am conscious of the might of the state on the other side. Any judgment of conviction must be closely scrutinised. I am also wary of the trend the trial courts are obsessed with, i.e. to return a guilty verdict. As a matter of principle, convicting an accused should be made to be a daunting task, so that we are certain that once an accused has been convicted, he really deserved it. However, in practice, it is found that an acquittal is becoming tougher and tougher by the day, despite a lousy prosecution. To raise the conviction rate, what we need is an ingenious investigation & a sincere prosecution, but simply because they are substandard, the trial courts must not step into their shoes. It leaves nothing fair in the trial for the accused. Hence the concept- ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’. The charade of impressing society by the might of law is doing more bad than good towards 'rule of law'. And the courts have no moral, legal, constitutional backing to impress the society at the expense of fair trial to an accused. I also leave it to the common men & women of the society to wonder- in adverse times where do they think they would stand, if a celebrity of the fame of Salman Khan can be victimized like this?
I sincerely hope that
the some of the follies committed by the trial court are corrected by the
appellate courts.
Part VII - Post-Script and Conclusion
Part VII - Post-Script and Conclusion
Note: The trial court order was set aside by the Hon'ble Bombay High Court & the appellant/ accused Salman Salim Khan was acquitted of all charges vide judgement dated 10.10.2015. The State of Maharashtra has preferred to appeal against the acquittal, which is pending as of February, 2016.
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