Long time ago, there lived one fisherman by name ‘Valya’. He used to rob passersby in a nearby jungle to eke out his living.
One day, he caught a sadhu and asked him to handover all the valuable he had.
The sadhu asked him, “ Why are you doing all this?
Valya replied, “ I am doing this to support me and my family. “
Sadhu then asked him, “Does your family share your sins which you are accruing as the result of your means to support them?”
Valya thought for a while and said, “Of course. They do.”
The sadhu advised Valya, “ Ok then. You may rob me. But please, first go home, confirm that your wife and children are willing to share your sins and then come back to take all my belongings. I shall wait for you here.”
Valya agreed to sadhu’s proposal and went home.
However, when he asked his wife and children this question, to his utter disappointment, they said him plainly, “ We are not ready to share any of your sins. It is your duty as the bread earner of the house, to feed us. It is your choice how you earn it. But when it comes to sharing your sins, sorry, we shall not.”
This transformed Valya and he later became Sage Valmiki, who subsequently wrote the epic Ramayana.
Recently, a similar incident took place in Patna where surprisingly, in a stark contrast to the above story, the younger brother was prepared to pay for the sins of elder brother. In today’s world, when everyday there are news reports of brothers killing each other for property, this comes as a refreshing breather that such people still exist.
Manohar Verma from Naubatpur in Patna had a scuffle with a villager, and villager filed a case against him. The court ruled in favor of the villager giving the verdict of a jail term for Manohar Verma. Incidentally, Manohar Verma was the only bread earner of the family. His going to jail meant trouble for all other family members as well.
He initially went into hiding to avoid the arrest. But when he realized that his arrest was inevitable, his younger brother, Guddu Verma hit upon a novel idea. He went to a court in Danapur, Patna and surrendered there as Manohar Verma. In absence of anyone who could identify him there, he was taken into a jail. He started living in Jail.
Everything was going well, till the villager realized that Manohar is still moving freely. The villager approached the court again with his appeal that Manohar is still not punished. The court investigated and found out the truth. Now, they have started a separate case of IMPERSONATION against Guddu. And in all probabilities, he may be jailed, this time authentically.
That raises a question.. should the law take into cognizance only the hard facts related to crime and not the circumstances or humanitarian factors while giving its verdict in any case? In this case, what Guddu did is actually praiseworthy rather than any sort of crime, for which he shall be punished now.
But then Law is blind. Law has to be impartial and unbiased. It should be applicable to one and all. It cannot be tweaked to suit cases based on personal preferences.
And it has to be that way. Otherwise, the courts would be flooded with fake cases to such an extent that one Guddu gets totally hidden in that quagmire, crying for justice. Remember that famous bollywood movie, ‘Andhaa Kanoon’, in which Amitabh Bachchan is falsely implicated in a murder case of a person and spends 20 years in jail. Later, it turns out that the person killed was someone else, and the person who was declared as killed was now a popular leader somewhere else. AB now kills him inside a court in front of the judge, lawyers, witnesses and challenges them to dare to punish him, as he had already spent 20 years for same crime. Law is helpless in this case.
On the flip side, just imagine what would happen, if there was a provision to send someone else to jail on behalf of the accused. All politicians would become absolute fearless in doing more and more corruption. They need not spend time inside the jail like Kalmadi and Raja, who are inside the jail, yet given a royal treatment there. The jailer of Tihar Jail was recently transferred, because he offered tea to Kalmadi in his office, and also because many 2G accused were found to be freely roaming inside the jail premises, while actually they were supposed to be under lock up.
This would reduce the national issue of unemployment, as all the employment agencies would be flooded with applications from thousands of unemployed youth, willing to go to jail on someone’s behalf.
All said and done, the ultimate truth reigns.. and that is, you cannot expect mangoes by planting a banana tree. As you sow, so you reap.
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