AA Edit | SC Corrects Bias In Twisha Case

The arrest and five-day CBI remand of former Madhya Pradesh district judge Giribala Singh in the murder of her daughter-in-law Twisha Sharma, who was an actor and a model, raised hopes of a delayed justice in the alleged dowry death case. The victim’s husband Samarth Singh was arrested on May 23.

The arrest of the accused, however, was not easy. It was made 17 days after the death following the intervention of the highest court of the land — the Supreme Court — on a suo motu basis deciding to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the probe. After the apex court’s order, the CBI took over this case from the Bhopal Police SIT on May 25.

The First Information Report (FIR) — the basic recording of the facts of the case — too was registered three days after Twisha Sharma’s death and there were allegations that the Madhya Pradesh police had not acted quickly enough to secure the evidence on the crime scene.

During its hearing on the cancellation of anticipatory bail, the Madhya Pradesh high court highlighted that some injuries found on Twisha’s body were caused before her death. These injuries were not from removing the body or taking it to the hospital. However, the court said that the sessions court had ignored the victim’s family’s allegations while granting bail.

If a victim has to wait for the intervention of the Supreme Court for justice, it shows the rot that has set in in the law enforcement agencies in Madhya Pradesh. These procedural violations speak volumes about the possible implicit support the accused family might have had in the Bhopal administration.

The root cause of marital harassment is the expectation that a person — in most cases a woman — must endure injustice for the sake of family bonding or saving marriage. Civil society must encourage youths to be more independent. Marriage should be the foundation of a family, but not the trap that people must endure for life.