The case is over. Rajiv Gandhi was killed. His direct killers committed suicide. The indirect killers were apprehended. Case went on for many years. Supreme court delivered judgement. The case was sent for review again. The Supreme Court re-confirmed the sentence. And the sentence was capital punishment.
Then the case went to the government when the convicts appealed for mercy. The governments slept on that for many years. The file went back and forth between the Home Ministry and the President for many years.
Finally the Court seized the matter and commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
And the irony was the convicts had already served their life sentence and even have spent some more years in prison. Normally the life sentence is 14 years.
And the government has suggested freeing the prisoners as their term is over.
But is that all ? Who is to compensate for the lost time of the prisoners ? If the punishment indeed is a life term in prison, they have already completed their sentence.
So, is it not logical that, as a law abiding society, we compensate for the term that the convicts have served more than that has been mandated by law ?
Now that the LTTE, the ferocious yet cowardly terrorist group, has been eliminated, the pawns in their game – the three convicts – should they not be looked at with a pair of benign eyes?
If this is done, then there would be an impetus on the part of the stake holders not to delay proceedings, judgement and associated processes and unduly delay justice.
Are we a civilization or just a nation ? If we are a civilization, we need to act as one.
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