EDITORIAL
Since forever probably, there are different yardsticks to determine crime and punishment for different sets of people in our country. This is not peculiar to India but is somewhat prevalent across nations and even in international relations.
However, people had seen some hope in the sentencing of movie superstar Salman Khan to five years in jail for killing a homeless man by driving his vehicle into a group of people sleeping on the pavement in Bombay in 2002.
The sentencing, it was felt, had signalled a change and that seemed to herald in an era where now even the rich and the powerful would not always be able to avoid the long stunted arm of the law.
This sense of justice being served has been quickly smashed. The high court’s ruling that the sentence will stay suspended until an appeal is heard effectively means that the actor will not serve any time behind bars, at least not now.
The suspension of the sentence by the Bombay High Court has led to massive disappointment among those who sought justice and a single yardstick for judging crime and determining punishment. This in no way should be construed as we being any inferior to anyone else in appreciating the acting talents of Salman.
However, that things were headed that way had started becoming clear when the actor was granted interim relief on Wednesday itself, barely three hours after he was convicted in the hit-and-run case. When he went home that very evening showed the world what money and influence could most likely achieve. The actor had turned to Harish Salve, one of the most expensive lawyers of the country, and was ready with a course of action in case of an adverse verdict.
Friday’s ruling has cheered Salman’s family and friends and his millions of fans. It has also brought smiles to the faces of the people in the industry with as much as Rs 200 crore riding on just two of his films.
What is appalling is the mindset of some supporters who have made it clear that they blame the people sleeping on the road for the accident and not the actor for running over them. The most obnoxious was the comment made by singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya. “If a dog sleeps on the road, it will die a dog’s death. The poor and homeless must not sleep on roads… I too was homeless once, but never slept on the road,” the singer said. “Roads are meant for cars and dogs, not for people sleeping on them,” the singer had said.
This is the kind of mindset that leads to different yardsticks being applied to different sets of people while deciding whether or not people are guilty and if they are what the punishment should be.
Had a person who is not a celebrity been at the wheel, without a driving licence and under the influence of alcohol as in the case of Salman and run over and killed people, he would have been tried for murder under Sec 302. He would have got no interim relief after being convicted of homicide.
Had the people who had been mowed down that fateful night in 2002 not been nameless people but been celebrities, the star would have been dealt with much more harshly.
There are numerous cases of people at present languishing in jail for years for crimes less than culpable homicide in cases where the court has yet to reach a verdict. Our legal system has no time for doling out justice to them.
The logic behind suspending the sentence till the hearing of the appeal is not apparent. One reason could be to ensure that movie financiers, who are already flush with money, do not suffer any loss. Another reason could be that the outpouring of support from Bollywood has indicated a need for a separate yardstick for celebrities. Whatever the reasoning, it fails to be convincing.
The only impression such a suspension of sentence and the superfast interim relief gives is that some people are above the law.
There should be more concern for punishing those who have been proven to be guilty than for going out of our way to ensure that the convict does not face any discomfort because he is a celebrity.
Sentencing must be realistic but cannot in the name of being real give undue relief to a person just because of the celebrity tag.
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