SS Rathi, the suspended ACP sentenced to life in the Delhi shooting case, arrives for the hearing on Wednesday. Picture by Prem Singh

New Delhi, Oct. 24: One after the other, the blasts went off in packed rooms. The heat sent 60 persons to a life of confinement, but none died.

None could have, really. After all, the blasts came — not from merchants of terror — but from deliverers of justice.

Lower courts across the country handed down life terms to 60 people today for crimes like murder, rioting and triggering explosions in what legal experts said could be the beginning of a new “judicial assertiveness” in the country.

It seemed as if no one was above the law — among those punished were a former minister, policemen, fundamentalist ideologues, contract killers and even a lawyer.

In Coimbatore, 31 people loyal to the banned Al Umma, including founder-leader S.A. Basha and general secretary Mohammed Ansari, were sent to life in jail for conspiring to eliminate BJP leader L.K. Advani in February 1998 by triggering a series of blasts.

At least 58 people were killed in the explosions that also wounded over 250.

One of the accused, the outfit’s propaganda secretary Abdul Ozir, was given four life terms — though they will run concurrently — plus 138 years in jail.

Another accused got three life terms while 10 were sentenced to double terms.

In Delhi, 10 policemen, once part of a fabled encounter team that eliminated gangsters, got life for shooting dead two businessmen in a fake encounter 10 years ago.

Rioters also did not escape the long arm of the law.

Fifteen people — including a lawyer — got life for burning nine persons of a Muslim family to death during riots in Kanpur in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.

Even those with influence bit the dust.

Being part of the legislature did not help former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering young poet Madhumita Shukla, who was carrying his unborn child.

Amarmani’s wife Madhumani and two others were also jailed for life for the May 2003 murder.

Legal experts said the convictions could be a turning point in the country’s criminal justice system. “It’s a trend towards convictions. Everybody is affected by what has been happening (public lynchings and images of people taking law into their own hands),” said Supreme Court lawyer Sushil Kumar.

Lawyer K.T.S. Tulsi said the 60 life terms could be a “mere coincidence”, but added that courts were “concerned about the consequences of the low rate of convictions on society”.

Most agreed that the media publicity over acquittals in several high-profile cases and the recent instances of public beatings have made a difference.

“There’s a lot of media glare and everybody is conscious,” Kumar said.

Rani Jethmalani, however, struck a more cautious note. Maybe, it is judicial assertiveness, she said. “But one would have to look into the evidence in each case.”

Supreme Court lawyer Kamini Jaiswal said trial courts have no discretion in cases of murder and can only give life or death if the crime is proved.

“I am sure there are many more such cases. Just because the media plays it up, it does not become extraordinary.”

Former law minister Shanti Bhushan also played the verdicts down as nothing exceptional and agreed with what Jaiswal said.

But most welcomed the trend, though how many of these sentences would stand the test in superior courts is anybody’s guess.