New Delhi: Landmark judgements on politicians coupled with corruption cases involving corporate honchos kept trial courts here busy in 2013, which also saw four accused in the December 16 gangrape and murder case sent to the gallows.
The year, which began with setting up of fast track courts here to deal with sexual offences against women, saw all the twists and turns in trial proceedings in the December 16 case which attained finality on September 13 with the judge saying, "convicts be hanged by neck till they are dead".
Four-time former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his MLA son Ajay Chautala were convicted and sent to jail in a corruption case while Congress' Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the first lawmaker to lose his seat after Supreme Court's judgement removed immunity for convicted elected representatives.
While Chautalas and 53 others, including two senior IAS officers, were awarded varying jail term up to 10 years in the teachers recruitment scam, Masood and two others got four-year imprisonment for the medical scam in 1990. India's top corporates, including Kumar Mangalam Birla, Naveen Jindal and Sunil Bharti Mittal faced the heat from CBI and the court in corruption cases like Coalgate and additional 2G spectrum scam.
While CBI lodged separate FIRs against Birla, Jindal, also a sitting Congress MP, and others in Coalgate, Mittal bore the brunt with a CBI special court summoning him and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the additional spectrum scam case during the NDA regime in 2002. Summoning of Mittal and Ruia was seen as a stern step by the court as the special CBI judge summoned them despite the fact that their names were not mentioned as accused in CBI's charge sheet.
Besides these, the trial courts also dealt strictly with the cases of wanted terrorists, including Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal and top Lashkar-e-Taiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda, both of whom were evading arrest since decades.
The trial in the 2G case witnessed a new turn when the CBI moved a plea seeking to call Anil Ambani, his wife Tina Ambani and others as witnesses to depose before it. Despite much opposition from the defence advocates, the court allowed the plea and Ambanis had to appear before it. Attorney General G E Vahanvati and former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia were among various high profile persons who were examined as CBI witness in the 2G case. Corruption cases, like railgate, VVIP chopper scam, CWG scam, cash-for-vote scam, case involving Congress leader Jagdish Tytler and arms dealer Abhishek Verma were dealt with by the trial courts during the year.
Several cases were lodged against the Aam Aadmi Party, its convener Arvind Kejriwal and its leaders and a court here had framed defamation charges against him in a case filed by former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's political secretary for his alleged remarks against her during power tariff hike protests in October last year. The sensational 2008 cash-for-vote scam case fell flat in a court which discharged Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, L K Advani's ex-aide Sudheendra Kulkarni and three BJP leaders after observing that facts on record did not create sufficient grounds for proceeding against them.
Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was the lone politician to escape conviction with a court acquitting him in one of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases, but his party colleague Tytler was not so lucky as the CBI's closure report giving him clean chit in another carnage case was not accepted by a judge who ordered re-investigation. BJP leader Arun Jaitley's sensational phone-tapping case, which had created a ruckus in the Parliament, saw the court making Delhi Police work hard in cracking it and leading to the arrest of some policemen and private detectives.
Dhananjay Singh, sitting BSP MP from Jaunpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh, and his wife Jagriti were arrested here in connection with murder of their maid and the court repeatedly dismissed the bail pleas of the lawmaker. Later on, Dhananjay was also arrested in a rape case lodged by another woman.
The alleged nexus among cricketers, bookies and most wanted gangsters Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel shook the cricketing fraternity with Delhi Police unearthing a racket in the IPL spot-fixing scandal case. The cricketers -- S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan -- were suspended after being arrested in the case.
The ghost of the infamous 2000 match fixing case involving former South African captain Hansie Cronje came to haunt again with Delhi Police filing a charge sheet after 13 years of the scandal which had rocked the cricket world. Defamation cases involving senior politicians hogged the limelight in the trial courts with the most recent being the criminal defamation complaint filed by a former IPS officer against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Rajnath Singh and two others over attacks on him in the ISRO spying case. The complaint against Modi and three others was filed by ex-IPS officer R B Sreekumar, who had retired as the Director General of Gujarat Police.
At the fag end of the year, Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam was put on trial by a court on a criminal defamation complaint filed by BJP MP Smriti Irani for allegedly using derogatory and indecent language against her during a TV debate. Even after amendment in the anti-rape law following the December 16 gangrape of the 23-year-old paramedic student, the city witnessed another horrific incident when a five-year-old girl was raped by two youths.
The court had put both the accused on trial under the provisions of the IPC and newly enacted Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. One of the verdicts passed by a fast track court courted controversy with the judge observing that girls are "morally and socially bound not to indulge in sexual intercourse before a proper marriage".
The court also said that if girls do so, "it would be to their peril and they cannot be heard to cry later on that it was rape". Popularly known as the 'Iron Lady', Irom Sharmila, who has been on fast for over 12 years demanding repeal of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, was put on trial by a court here for allegedly attempting suicide during her fast until death here in 2006. The Manipuri activist, who had appeared before the court with her nose tube in place, had refused to plead guilty and insisted that it was a non-violent protest.
The year also witnessed some horrific incidents in which domestic servants were assaulted and confined allegedly by their employers. The court acted tough while dealing with these cases. The 2008 Batla House encounter case, in which decorated police officer Inspector M C Sharma had died, came to an end in the trial court which sentenced suspected IM terrorist Shahzad Ahmed to life imprisonment. Shahzad, 25, was convicted in the September 19, 2008 encounter when a team of Delhi Police Special Cell raided the Batla House flat in Jamia Nagar in south Delhi following a tip-off that terrorists allegedly involved in the September 13, 2008 serial blasts in the capital were holed up there.
The arrest of suspected Hizbul militant Liyaqat Shah turned out to be a damp squib for the special cell of Delhi Police. While Delhi Police claimed that with Liyaqat's arrest it had foiled a 'fidayeen' (suicide) attack here ahead of Holi, Jammu and Kashmir Police insisted that he was one of those who had ex-filtrated in 1990s and returned to India to surrender under the state's rehabilitation policy.
After the tussle between the two police agencies, the case was transferred to NIA and Shah was subsequently granted bail by a court which said NIA's probe "confirms" that there is no substantial linkage regarding his involvement in the conspiracy to carry out terror attacks in Delhi. In a separate case, NIA filed its charge sheet against Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and nine others for allegedly receiving funds of about Rs 80 crore from Pakistan for carrying out terror activities across India. The trial in the September 2011 Delhi High Court blast, in which 15 people were killed and 79 were injured, commenced in a court here which had framed charges against arrested accused Wasim Akram Malik.
