Thangai VS Annan
Kangaroo Court or Katta Panchayat is one where there is an unfair trial in which the rights of the accused and precepts of justice are ignored and the outcome is usually known beforehand.
The origins of the term are obscure. Oddly, it does not seem to have originated in Australia; the first uses of the term are found in the American West in the 1850’s. None of the theories of its origin are particularly plausible. The most appealing version has it that “kangaroo courts” initially tried “claim jumpers”, and the name arose from associative wordplay.
It is a self-appointed or mob-operated tribunal that disregards or parodies existing principles of law or human rights, esp. one in a frontier area or among criminals in prison. It is also a crudely or irregularly operated court, esp. one so controlled as to render a fair trial impossible.
A kangaroo court or kangaroo trial, sometimes likened to a drumhead court-martial, refers to a sham legal proceeding or court. The colloquial phrase “kangaroo court” is used to describe judicial proceedings that deny due process rights in the name of expediency. Such rights include the right to summon witnesses,
- the right of cross-examination,
- the right not to incriminate oneself,
- the right not to be tried on secret evidence,
- the right to control one’s own defense,
- the right to exclude evidence that is improperly obtained, irrelevant or inherently inadmissible, e.g., hearsay, the right to exclude judges or jurors on the grounds of partiality or conflict of interest, and
- the right of appeal.
The outcome of a trial by “kangaroo court” is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of providing a conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.
July 13 2010- Katihar, Bihar
A 35-year-old woman was allegedly stripped and whipped after she defied the diktat of a kangaroo court in Bihar’s Katihar district to remarry her second husband. The illegal court at the Gwaltoli-Kalyannagar village summoned the woman on July 8 2010 and directed her to remarry her second husband from whom she had divorced earlier claimed SP P Kanan, quoting the FIR lodged by her.
Kanan said the woman’s first husband died four years after their marriage and then she married Mohammad Islam of the same village and the couple had a son. But, the marriage did not work and the couple divorced.
Subsequently, when her five-year-old son was down with fever, she had to call her divorced husband as she was living in penury. After the son recovered, Islam left. Kanan said Islam and his brother Samsuddin later connived in summoning the kangaroo court which was headed by a former mukhiya, Akalu.
The kangaroo court first asked her to pay money equivalent to that required for construction of a house, besides wheat and rice to the former mukhiya. As she refused she was dragged to a mangrove on the outskirts of the village, stripped and whipped.
This incident raises a question regarding India’s so-called democracy. Kangaroo courts have been the bane of India. What is a kangaroo court and how is it reigning supremacy in India?
Kangaroo Courts in Tamil Nadu
In India, despite repeated court directives to end the practice, the system of dispensing ‘justice’ through kangaroo courts continues in rural and urban places like Tamil Nadu, Haryana etc. Interaction with leaders of political parties, activists of human rights organisations, lawyers and police officials reveal that the illegal system has its pervasive influence in almost all sectors and in rural and urban areas.
A. Manoharan and his wife, Vanitha, who, along with their two daughters, have been ostracised from their hamlet, Panaiyur Periakuppam in Kancheepuram district, by the “meenavar” panchayat, a kangaroo court, over a land dispute. The Madras High Court ordered police protection to the family, but they continue to live in fear.
The Madras High Court has again come down heavily on the katta panchayats (kangaroo courts) operating in different parts of Tamil Nadu. Through an order on December 19, 2008, it directed the authorities concerned to take effective steps to curb the activities of these extrajudicial bodies.
The High Court, in its latest order, chastised the (fishermen’s) panchayat of Panaiyur Periakuppam hamlet in Kancheepuram district for issuing a fiat excommunicating a family following a land dispute. As per the court’s direction to provide protection to the “excommunicated” family, the police entered the hamlet inhabited by 255 fishermen’s families on December 20, 2008.
A. Manoharan, head of the ostracised family, claims that he lived in perpetual fear though the kattapanchayatdars were lying low owing to the police presence in the hamlet. He said that even on the day after the High Court passed its order, a gang instigated by the panchayat stormed his residence, forcing them to put up a grill door to protect themselves.
According to him, Krishnan was not only prevented from entering the village but also asked to hand over possession of a portion of the disputed land to the panchayat. They had sought an apology from Manoharan’s wife, Vanitha, for lodging a complaint with the police alleging that functionaries of the panchayat were threatening her family with excommunication if a solution was not found to the land issue. She was also barred from meeting her father.
As Manoharan and his wife did not budge, the panchayat made a public announcement to residents of the hamlet that no one should communicate with or help the family, including the children. Those who violated the decision would be excommunicated and a fine of Rs.10,000 would be imposed on them, it said. Close on the heels of the announcement, miscreants went on the rampage at the coconut grove owned by Manoharan, destroying coconuts.
Pervasive influence
With economic and social relations in the rural areas undergoing a transformation, even the traditional oor (community) panchayats in several villages have started losing their importance. In some other villages, the composition of such panchayats has changed drastically and they have been reduced to kangaroo courts controlled by self-styled village heads assisted by their henchmen. In certain places they control the village’s resources too. They continue to award punishments while settling family, civil and monetary disputes.
Functionaries of the Tamil Nadu Village Panchayat Presidents’ Federation pointed out that the katta panchayat system existed in 30 per cent of the 12,618 villages in the State.
These panchayats are strikingly similar to the khap panchayats of Haryana insofar as issuing fatwas and awarding punishments such as fines and social boycotts. Both courts mean to silence the new social forces that have risen from among the deprived sections of society, women and Dalits and are challenging status quoist forces. Predictably, women are kept away from these kangaroo courts.
Certain judges have observed that many actions taken by the katta panchayat result in deprivation of social status, access to basic facilities like food, water and shelter, denial of cultural facilities like common worship, access to religious events, etc., and denial of economic opportunities like employment, finances, etc. As such, these would constitute violation of human rights guaranteed.
In a particular case recently, an employee of the Telecom Department, along with her mother, was summoned by six panchayatdars of Valayapatti village in Tiruchi district and ordered to pay a fine of Rs.50, 000 for not complying with their direction to her to join her husband. The panchayatdars also made the victims prostrate before them repeatedly from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to reduce the quantum of fine.
The shrinking area under cultivation owing to the non-profitability of agriculture against the backdrop of globalisation, the lack of alternative jobs and the escalating problem of unemployment in rural areas have contributed in a big way to the flourishing of katta panchayats.
R. Nallakannu, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India and chairman of the central control commission of the party, is of the view that the erstwhile oor panchayats in villages have given way to katta panchayats run by persons who have close links with “dadas” and certain political bigwigs operating in cities and towns. Police intervention is totally absent whenever the kattapanchayatdars indulge in out-of-court arbitration, he says, and adds that the illegal system has percolated from the district and taluk headquarters to the villages now.
Katta panchayats in rural areas are run by a combination of the rural rich, contractors and anti-social elements. The katta panchayat is used against people’s movements even as the law-enforcing authority turns a blind eye to it. In many cases, officials have been hand in glove with those running katta panchayats.
As in any other conflict, women and the weaker sections, including Dalits, bear the brunt of the onslaught of the katta panchayat.
In urban areas, the katta panchayat has assumed an entirely different role fostered by the politician-anti-social nexus, particularly in the wake of the real estate boom in recent years. In Chennai and other cities and major towns, they are run by underworld dons, who adopt strategies such as the forging of documents to resort to illegal arbitration and the intimidation and abduction of victims to deal with cases relating to property disputes, business rivalries and money transactions.
In Madurai and its suburbs, the menace has reached a level where property deals worth more than Rs.2 crore cannot be registered unless they are cleared by certain politically influential persons, claims S. Selva Gomathi, secretary of the human rights wing of the Society for Community Organisation Trust.
In certain areas katta panchayats are also run by political functionaries, mostly belonging to the ruling party because it is they who are powerful, have the protection of political godfathers, and have the tacit assistance of officials of the law-enforcing agencies, says Anita Tiphagne, a functionary of People’s Watch. According to her, “the katta panchayat does not follow any principle of the rule of law. It is, therefore, a system of justice delivery by the powerful using their power and very often silencing the powerless.”
The most dangerous aspect of the katta panchayat relates to caste discrimination, more particularly in villages in Madurai, Ramanthapuram, Pudukottai and Sivaganga districts, according to T. Lajapathiroy, joint secretary of the Madurai unit of the Lawyers for Human Rights. Persons belonging to traditionally powerful families of the dominant communities, who run the katta panchayat, issue fatwas prohibiting Dalits from purchasing land in some areas while in some other areas tenants are forced to leave the land they cultivate.
Citing an example in a village at Melur taluk in Madurai district, he says Dalits have been prevented from participating in the auction of temple land. “If any person violates the ‘fatwa’, his/her entire family will be excommunicated.”
He claims two Dalits of Thennagarampatti village were murdered in July 1992 for violating the panchayat’s order, and the Karur Sessions Court awarded double life imprisonment against 26 persons in the case in August 2008. According to a study done by Thamizmurasu, from 1983 to 2007 a total of 27 Dalits were murdered in Madurai district alone for not honouring katta panchayat’s decisions.
The cumbersome process of disposal of cases by courts is said to be a major factor contributing to the mushrooming of katta panchayats, which yield instant results. According to official sources, as many as 3.9 lakh civil cases and 36,000 criminal cases were pending in the Madras High Court. In the subordinate courts, the numbers as on December 31, 2007, were nearly five lakh civil cases and 4.30 lakh criminal cases.
Opinions differ on the question of adequacy of the laws to curb the katta panchayat menace. Justice Karpagavinayagam, in his judgment on April 8, 2004, said that having regard to the alarming situation, which has become uncontrollable, the court found it proper to suggest to the government that it would be advisable to issue an ordinance exclusively for eradicating the evil of katta panchayats.
As the persons associated with the katta panchayat more often than not were officials of the State/local administration/police, they must be made aware of the provisions under which action can be taken against katta panchayats and that even a private party could not violate Articles 21, 23 and 25 of the Constitution and all were bound by Article 51-A, she had submitted then.
Officials feel that amendments are needed to the property registration and rent control laws to prevent the registration of forged documents. Director General of Police K.P. Jain recently sent a circular to police officers listing 14 guidelines to be followed while dealing with disputes relating to land and money matters. The circular made it clear that katta panchayats should be dealt with severely.
As per the court’s direction, the then Chief Secretary to the Tamil Nadu government had sent separate letters to all departments in November 2003 stating that government servants should not be allowed to involve themselves in katta panchayats. In pursuance of that, the then Director General of Police sent letters to subordinate officers to take effective steps against katta panchayats by registering first information reports (FIRs).
A Division Bench of the High Court said in 2005 that in its opinion, katta panchayats could not flourish in the first place without the collusion of the police and other authorities, or by their turning a blind eye to these unlawful activities. If such unlawful, extra-constitutional activities are not put down with an iron hand, there will gradually be a collapse of law and order and democracy in the State. Hence the division directed all the State authorities to take strong action in accordance with the law to put down these unlawful, hooligan activities which have mushroomed in several areas of the State of Tamil Nadu and institute criminal prosecution against those who are involved.
Katta panchayats are unofficially run, and are in fact usurped powers by rowdies, who rule and run parallel governance in India. While such kangaroo courts are present elsewhere also they are more common in India than elsewhere. In the case of Kangaroo courts practiced in India, the rowdies who pass these judgments, always award the punishments to innocent people and free the actual cultprits/criminals. Or if they punish a person, that would be for such a silly reason that it does not warrant even a reprimand or a few abuses. But in Kangaroo courts the punishments will be rapes or amputations of men´s legs. Very rarely the actual culprits or criminals would get the punishment through kangaroo courts.
Interestingly all the law enforcing agencies including police, intelligence, judiciary and the officialdom know about the operation of these kangaroo courts but none of them can do any thing to stop them. The main reason is all the government agencies are passive or active associates of these kangaroo courts and the associated criminals. For any problem, crime, issue that are small or big, constitutionally valid laws or courts are not given importance as the law enforcing agencies are there to mediate and investigate the cases.
Now the most unfortunate situation is since the highly educated experts in the legal system were of no use/could help the innocent victims, if and when they prefer to go through the proper channel (legal process) the case is much worse. Because most of the people who sit in the kangaroo courts passing the judgments do not know a,b,c,ds of the language or even the vernacular languages let alone the law. Now one can imagine what kind of judgments such people pass on the innocent people. Without going into the correctness of the judgments, the public silently absorb all the atrocities, lest their heads will roll if they protest or argue against the judgments. Who is the final authority to give these judgments? The one who passes the street-fight successfully showing strength in a fist of fury. This is the basis to become the person who can pass judgments.
A few examples wherein severe punishments are given for silly reasons by the kangaroo courts are: (i) Sitting posture of a person (even within his/her home) could be offending to some people who are desperate to find an excuse to escape from their crimes (enough for a murder or rape), (ii) A male walking on the road and a girl/woman crosses opposite and in a fraction of a second the man inadvertently might have looked at the other person or did not look also (that is enough to say that this fellow has seen the girl/woman and hence some atrocities could be committed against him or his relatives). In the above case, even if he had looked at the person who is coming in the opposite direction or somewhere along his walk, nothing would have happened to the girl/woman. But the kangaroo courts immediately swing into action to amputate the person or his relatives or rape one of the relatives of the man who walked along the road, are awarded, as it seems to be the case.
Disadvantages of Katta Panchayat (Kangaroo Courts)
The person sitting on top of the katta panchayats are mostly the ones with muscle power only. Of course they would know all the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections as they frequent jail for different types of crimes. The people of Katta panchayats are illiterate and they cannot be a match to an educated judge sitting in a High Court or a Supreme Court. The only thing that they know or their philosophy is street fights. They think that they are doing correct thing and are passing correct judgments. If the Judges, Public Prosecutors, Investigating officer could be bribed or bought, is it difficult to purchase a Katta panchayat leader or the person who is passing these judgments in the Katta panchat? For them some flimsy reasons are enough to indulge serious crimes on innocents. These Katta panchayat people have all sorts of cheating as their weapons and sometimes there will be a competition between the rowdies and the police as to who cheats the public better.
What is the remedy to prevent these kangaroo courts that run parallel government. The law of the land has to extend its long arm to chase them away and keep a watch on their activities. Anywhere, any body passing individual judgments or threatening innocent people have to be booked. The whole network of these kangaroo courts and their tenter hooks wherever they are have to be broken to restore a real democracy instead of the democracy followed now which is a farce.
Dream Dare Win
www.jeywin.com
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