The Hindu Business Line : Self defence? Prove it!

In an important ruling earlier this week the Supreme Court has stated that the right to self-defence comes into play ’the moment a threat is imminent’. The Court went on to add that in determining whether a defendant had used excessive force in the heat of the moment it would be inappropriate to adopt a stance of ‘detached objectivity’, or go by what a ‘cool bystander might think was absolutely necessary’.

However enlightened the apex court’s ruling might seem, at the lower rungs of the judicial system it could greatly aggravate the problems of people who suddenly find themselves behind bars for trying to defend themselves.

The problematic thing about entering a plea of self-defence is that you have to first ‘incriminate’ yourself by admitting that you did in fact assault the other fellow. In other words, you are guilty by your own admission; unless and until you are able to convince the trial court that it was in fact the other man who had, through his actions or evident intentions, compelled you to take sometimes extreme steps to defend yourself.

The example is not as far-fetched as it might seem. The consequences can be severe even in the case of a small thing as pulling the chain to stop a train in order to check the depredations of out-laws or, more often, in-laws who have begun to run amuck.

In one case that I am personally familiar with, the man who pulled the chain in response to such a crisis was hauled off, locked up overnight, and then produced the next morning before a magistrate who brushed aside all attempts at explanation by insisting that the only question before the court was whether or not the defendant had pulled the chain.

Everything else was secondary and, moreover, based entirely on the unsupported testimony of the man who had summarily been yanked out of the train; which had long ago proceeded on its way together with any witnesses it might have contained, even if one assumes for the sake or argument that at least one or two of them would otherwise have been willing to stand up and be counted.