You are the highest ranked minister after the PM. You send a file which has immense consequences to the nation to a State Government ruled by your own party for action. Then you discretely ask the Chief Minister of the State to sit on the file. Further, you keep on sending reminders as to why the file has not been cleared by the State Government. Finally, you brazen it out in the media claiming you are awaiting report from the State Government, and are helpless since the matter is out of your hands. For this 'efficiency' you get a plum posting as the Governor of a State. This can happen only in India.
The mystery over why it took four years for the Delhi government to clear a file related to Afzal Guru’s mercy petition finally seems to be unravelling. Chief minister Sheila Dikshit has all but admitted during an interview to a television channel that Shivraj Patil, Union home minister at the time, had asked her government to sit on the file. ‘‘May be what you are thinking is true,’’ Dikshit said when asked if Patil had told her to keep the matter pending.
Sources privy to the exchanges between Dikshit and Patil told TOI that soon after the file came to Delhi government in 2006, Patil had made it very clear that there was no hurry. ‘‘He kept saying so throughout 2007 and 2008. Even when the delay in Afzal Guru’s hanging became an issue during the 2008 Assembly elections, there was no change in the position. The direction clearly was that no matter how many reminders went from the ministry, the file should not be cleared,’’ a source revealed.
Asked why he would give such an instruction when his own ministry was sending a reminder every three months (there were 16 of these before the file was sent to the lieutenant governor on May 17), the source said: ‘‘There does not seem to be any other reason beyond the possibility that the home minister may have been reluctant to take the onus of clearing Afzal’s file on himself. That pre-poll pressure built up by BJP did not make any difference shows he was not on the lookout for an electorally beneficial opportunity to dispose of the file.’’ - source TOI
Of course, Shivraj Patil is only a stooge in this case. The decision is entirely Sonia Gandhi's and Manmohan Singh's.
Personally, I am against Death Penalty. It has never proved a deterrent against violent crime. It is better to send the criminal to solitary confinement forever, which is a much greater punishment. Imagine living in solitary confinement for 40 years, with no hope of getting even a parole. You have the rest of the life to regret what you have done.
Having said that, the law of the land provides for death penalty in the rarest of rare cases. The Parliament Attack in which Afsal Guru was convicted and given death sentence falls under that. If the attack had succeeded it would have wiped out our entire political class and would have destroyed the biggest symbol of democracy. The argument that he did not get a fair trail is specious. The Indian Judicial systems conviction rate is so low that, any case with a one in a million chance of doubt will result in a positive verdict for the defendant. Co-conspirators like Geelani were released for want of evidence in the same case. Afsal Guru has gone through the whole process and has been found guilty by the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court and in our Country, we dont run Kangaroo courts and the judiciary is very independant. Afsal Guru has been found guilty and given death sentence. Period. Full Stop. No further argument on this. He got what he deserved.
It is the prerogative of the convicted prisoner to file a mercy petition to the President. And there is no reason whatsoever that it should take 5 years for a file to move from President to Home Ministry to Delhi Rajbhavan to Delhi Home Ministry office and back.
In any other country with an iota of accountability, heads will rule. But not in India. The people involved in this 'grand inaction' charade are all rewarded. And therein lies the irony!
