August, 2012-August, 2013
Back in Goa the chemical analyst finally was
present on the fourth attempt and over four months after the first date. The testimony and cross examination took
about 45 minutes. In the cross, Peter mentioned
that there could be additives in the samples and whether the analyst had tested
for them which she hadn’t. He asked
whether it was possible whether more than 50% could be additives and she said
it was possible. Essentially he was
trying to place doubt that I was in possession of 210 grams of pure charas or
that perhaps it was even less than 100, which would then place me in the “small
quantity” of drug possession which carries only a maximum of 6 months in jail
whereas the intermediate amount that I was in (for 100 grams to 1 kilogram) can
be 6 months to 10 years. I spoke with
Peter afterwards and he seemed pleased with the results for our side.
Amazingly in September we whizzed through the next
three witnesses. The first was a police
inspector I’d never seen before. His
role was overseeing the proper handling of the case. I was nervous at first as we commenced the
testimony and not one of the six lawyers from my firm was present. Over time I would learn that this is the
normal way they operate. I guess they’re
old hats at this and know when they need to be present in the courtroom. I still found it odd that they didn’t feel
that they had to hear the testimony although almost all of it was just ad
verbatim from the charge sheet.
The next date was only a week later and this was a
scientific assistant who helps to stick handle the charas from the police
station to the Food & Drug Administration and back. And just six days later the witness was one
of the constables who arrested me.
Finally a witness I actually recognized.
His testimony and questioning by the prosecuting lawyer took almost an
hour but it was all performed in Konkani, the native Goan language. Thankfully the judge would paraphrase the
question and answer to the stenographer, albeit in a quiet voice, so I could
somewhat follow along. I was missing out
some of the action however as sometimes a question was posed, my lawyer seemed
to disagree and the judge would rule one way or another but all that transpired
in Konkani. It was interesting to watch
the officer though as since I couldn’t understand what he was saying I could
solely focus on his body language and although I’m no expert, I felt I could
tell when he was lying (which was most of the time).
I was given another two dates in the month of
September, a record five court dates in one month but these last two were
wasted as the witness, the panch witness (the phony witness from the community
paid by the police), did not show up.
The first time he was supposedly sick and no reason was provided at the
following session. Two dates in October
also had no shows. The next witness
wasn’t present until December so the steam we had gathered back in September
had petered out. No wonder the Indian
judicial system is so backed up. After
the internationally high profile case of the Delhi rape case, I read a BBC news
article online that mentioned that India has only 14.5 judges per million
people. In the western world 50 judges
per million is considered the required number in order to keep up with the case
load. However, if witnesses only show up
20% of the time as it seems to happen here, how can they process the cases in a
timely fashion? The article also
mentioned that there are 30 million open cases in India. That’s almost the population of Canada! And at their current rate they should clear
this backlog in 420 years! Although I’m
sceptical that they can ever catch up.
My next date was in December and the two panch
witnesses were present as they had been escorted by the police since the judge
had put out a warrant for them. However
there was a new public prosecutor assigned to the court and she claimed that
she had not received enough time to prepare for my trial so the judge dismissed
my proceedings for another month. In
January, now into 2013, the prosecuting advocate stated that she had mistakenly
written down that my case was in the afternoon session so she had scheduled the
witness for later in the day, not for the morning. How many screw ups can they make?!?
However she phoned the witness and by 12pm he
arrived. It wasn’t the panch witness as
I had expected but the policeman who supposedly came to Arambol after I was
initially apprehended with the weighing and sealing equipment required for a
narcotics arrest. The police claimed
that they performed the weighing and sealing on the beach, “in good light”. I’m not sure how that is possible in the dark
on a beach, but that was their assertion.
Only a junior lawyer from my firm was present during the testimony but
as usual Peter sauntered into the courtroom just in time for the cross
examination. There is a police diary in
every station and whenever the weighing and sealing equipment leaves the
premises an entry must be placed in this book.
The diary has 8-10 columns for various pieces of data but each entry is
chronological and all data should be entered before the next entry is started. However one column for the entry in my arrest
flows into the next one that was made six days later. Peter pointed out that this signifies that
more data was written down at a later time, which is not in accordance with
proper procedure. This seemed to be a
notch in the win column for my side.
One month later I returned to court for the panch
witness but there were many other cases scheduled for that morning
session. My witness was present but
another case with four Nepalese who were being held in custody received
priority. I was okay with that as one of
the accused was an octogenarian with a hunched back, a cane, glasses perched on
the end of his nose and a woollen cap.
Poor dude. Being in jail,
sleeping on the cement floor in a barren cell must wreak havoc on his decrepit
body.
Three lawyers from my firm were present, the second
senior Caroline, a mid level guy Salil and a junior Namrata. Caroline got up to leave and as she passed by
me she said that it was unlikely that although my witness was present, it was
unlikely we would get to his testimony. We
did in fact get to the witness. I
couldn’t hear most of his testimony as I sat on the opposite side of the
courtroom, sitting on the “accused bench” while he was standing in the witness
box. It was easy to perceive that he was
nervous at times and although I tried to maintain a neutral facial expression,
I couldn’t help but feel that I occasionally reverted to a “What the fuck?”
expression. Who are you? And how much did they pay you to come and
commit perjury? When it came to the
cross examination, Salil stood up and
told the judge that we were not ready for cross examination. What?
Is this because Caroline didn’t have the patience to wait around? A new date was set for over a month later, in
late March.
Not surprisingly the panch witness did not show up
for the next date. In mid April I went
to the court to watch the judgement for a Scottish National James who I had
befriended back in September. I had seen
him in court in Panjim a year before and had asked Caroline whether she would
pass on my phone number to him so I may be able to talk to him. She didn’t seem to know why I wanted to make
contact with him. To me it was simple, I
wanted to share stories and perhaps learn from his experience with this messed
up system. I got the impression that
most Indians who land up in court put full trust in their lawyers and don’t
care or feel like they need to know what’s going on. Well I think it’s a different story for
Westerners. Information is power...or
at least we like to think. At the
minimum, it’s nice to have an inkling about what’s happening with your fate.
James had been coming to Goa for years and in 2004 his
brother had been murdered back in his homeland.
This had rocked James’ world and he had kind of gone astray since. He was selling charas in Goa and like me he
had been charged with a lot more than he actually had in his possession. When he was arrested, he was in possession of
400 grams but he was charged with 2.75 kilograms. This put him into the “commercial quantity”
which meant that he was to remain in custody while his trial proceeded. He spent an ugly year in a couple of
different jails in Goa. Peter had been
successful in removing him from custody once the primary cops in his case were
themselves placed in jail for illegally planting drugs on another foreigner. By the third year of being stuck in Goa,
James had raised a stink back home in Scotland about his demise and his Member
of Parliament brought the issue up during the Prime Minister’s question period
in London. I saw the YouTube video of it
and in it David Cameron replies “Yes, justice delayed is justice denied. I will get the Foreign Minister to look into
the issue.” Well, nothing happened. I had many foreigners ask me whether I had
talked with my embassy, which I had done numerous times, but since I was
technically in India as a British National, how much more could I achieve than
James had? I kept in the back of my mind
that a guy I went to high school with was now President Obama’s personal
assistant, however I hadn’t talked to this guy for over 20 years and couldn’t
really imagine giving him a call out of the blue to see what he could do.
James’ verdict was scheduled for the afternoon
session which began at 2:30. Almost
immediately he was told to return at 5pm, after the session, to receive his
judgement. I went with James and his
friend Louise to have a chai while we waited.
It must have been nerve wracking for James. Back in the courtroom James was summoned to
enter the judge’s chambers. I had
figured that the decision would take place in the courtroom but this turned out
not to be the case. After a nail biting
20 minutes, James reappeared but he wasn’t smiling. Shit.
Had he been found guilty? There
were a couple other friends of his present so we all gathered around him as he
relayed that he was acquitted. Phew! However the judge stated that he would have
to stay for another six months instead of the normal three months, in case the
prosecution wants to appeal. “Aren’t you
happy James?” I asked. “You’re
free.” All he could respond was that he
just felt numb. I didn’t understand this
response at the time, but later I would.
At the end of April I went to court again, hoping
to finish the cross examination of the panch witness. I was pleasantly surprised when James and Louise
appeared at my next date. I guess we
have to band together as we’ve been put in the same boat. This time the witness was present, but the
judge wasn’t. “Come back June 25th
please.”
The next time in court there was yet another new
judge, Desmond D’Costa. This was the
third judge in my case. Unlike the previous
judges who would wander in at 10:20 or 10:30 for the morning session which is
supposed to start at 10:00, this guy was punctual. My panch witness was sitting in the back of
the gallery whereas I always sat in the front row by the window, so I could
attempt to hear what was going on and I could get some fresh air. Everyone else always tries to sit as far away
from the judge as possible. I figured
this might give me some brownie points with the judge too. The same inspector who was the second witness
in my case took the stand for another case.
I wondered how many times and how routine it must be for this guy to
return to court time after time and provide testimony of his minor role in all
of these arrests. Another case with four
people in custody was next but to his credit, my lawyer Peter tried to impress
upon the judge that my matter would not take long and that it should be next. However, he lost his argument and I was
rescheduled for a little more than a month later at the start of August.
So what happened the next time? Well the panch witness showed up. I’ll give him some credit, he had now shown
up five out of eight times that he’d been summoned. He definitely was having to work hard to earn
his couple thousand rupees from the cops ($40).
But this time, what surprise was in store? Well the judge had decided to take a “casual
day”. How nice of him.
Eleven days later, we finally completed the cross
examination of the panch witness. It
only took nine attempts over the course of almost 300 days from the first time
he was summoned. The usual process that occurs in a court session
is that each case is called up. If it is
a simple matter of custody approval or a permission to be granted, that is done
and a new date is set. If a witness is
present then the parties involved are instructed to sit back down in the
gallery until all of the other quick matters are dealt with.
I always had a backpack with me with a change of clothes
for afterwards (as I had to wear pants in the courtroom but wanted to switch to
shorts for the ride back to Arambol). I would
leave the backpack where I was sitting in the front row of the gallery when I
was called up front. When my case was
initially called up I stood by the accused bench while the panch witness stood
in the middle of the courtroom by the wooden railing separating the gallery
from the judge, the witness stand and where the lawyers sit. We were told to sit back down and by chance
the witness sat down at the start of the row where my bag was. So what to do? Should I sit elsewhere in the gallery? I opted to pass in front of the panch witness
and sit by my bag. While passing by him
he had to pull in his knees to let me pass and I couldn’t help think that I
should ask him: “Hey, do I know you? Oh
no, I don’t, I’ve never seen you before!”
Remember, he is supposed to be the one who the police asked to watch as
I was being searched when I was first arrested, but he wasn’t there.
The cross examination took an hour and once again
the proceedings were in Konkani. This
time I found it very difficult to hear the judge paraphrasing the question and
response to the stenographer but afterwards Caroline told me that everything
had gone well. She had asked the
witness how many times he’d been a panch witness for the police and he couldn’t
quite remember but he said probably at least five times. Hmm, on the payroll are we?
Although there were ten police witnesses in my case
and we had just completed number six, we were skipping straight to the star of
the show, the Inspecting Officer Sachin Navekar who had inflated the amount
that I was apprehended with and also claimed that he was the hero who had caught
me standing suspiciously near a restaurant on the beach. We were skipping the other panch witness
along with the other two out of three constables who had arrested me. The reason?
Well simple, two guys lying about the same story is much more obvious
than just one guy lying. And well three
guys bullshitting the same story is blatant.
Okay, we’re finally getting near the end...or are
we?
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