New Delhi, Jan 21: The Supreme Court today upheld a life term awarded to Dara Singh, the key accused in the Graham Staines’ murder case, saying “though Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death while sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur, the intention was to teach him a lesson to about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals into Christianity”.
A bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan rejected a CBI plea to enhance his life term to death. Life term is the rule, death the exception in the “rarest of rare” cases, the top court said, weighing all evidence against Dara Singh and fellow convict Mahender Hembram, who has also got a life term.
Both Dara and Hembram had challenged their conviction in the apex court. But the court, while rejecting the evidence against the other accused, held against them saying that “even in the midst of uncertainties, witnesses have specified the roles of Dara Singh and Hembram” in the incident.
Eleven others, acquitted by Orissa High Court, got away for lack of evidence pointing out their role in the conspiracy to kill Staines and his sons, aged 10 and 6 respectively. “…In absence of definite assertion from the prosecution side, about their specific role and involvement… it is not safe to convict them,” the bench said.
While acquitting them, the bench observed that all of them were “poor tribals”.
In observations likely to stir up a controversy, the bench frowned upon violence in the name of religion, but in the same breath added that there could not be any justification for interfering with someone’s belief by “conversion”.
“In a country like ours, where discrimination on the ground of caste or religion is a taboo, taking lives of persons belonging to another caste or religion is bound to have a dangerous and reactive effect on the society at large. It strikes at the very root of the orderly society which the founding fathers of our Constitution dreamt of,” the bench said.
“Our concept of secularism is that the state will have no religion. The state shall treat all religions and religious groups equally and with equal respect without in any manner interfering with their individual right to religion, faith and worship.”
The bench referred to President K.R. Narayanan’s remarks that “Indian unity was based on a tradition of tolerance, which is at once a pragmatic concept for living together and a philosophical concept of finding truth and goodness in every religion.”
It also expressed the hope that Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of religion playing a positive role in the multi-religious Indian society would be realised by the way of paying equal respect to every religion.
“It is undisputed that there is no justification for interfering in someone’s belief by way of ‘use of force’, provocation, conversion, incitement or upon a flawed premise that one religion is better than the other,” the bench said.
Staines, who worked among lepers in Orissa, and his sons were burnt to death on the midnight of January 22-23, 1999. The CBI took over the investigation after an international uproar over the deaths. On the basis of the agency’s chargesheet, 14 accused persons were put on trial. Apart from these accused, one minor was tried by juvenile court. The prosecution examined 55 witnesses, whereas in defence 25 witnesses were examined.
All the accused were convicted by the sessions judge, Khurda, on September 15, 2003. Dara Singh was awarded death and all others got life terms. On appeal, the high court commuted Dara’s death to life and confirmed Hembram’s life term, but acquitted others.
The high court in its judgment had concluded that the witnesses were not trustworthy and no credence could be given to their statements. It had observed that their confessional statements were procured under threat and coercion, in a statement reflecting on the way of working of the CBI. Today the top court largely concurred with the high court reasoning. Dara and Hembram were defended by senior lawyers K.T.S. Tulsi and Ratnakar Dash.
