Acharya: Selected Questions and Answers in Thuglak:

Thuglak issue dated 29-12-2004 Selected Questions & Answers

Is it possible to drug an accused, record what he says in his drugged state and use that as evidence?

If it is proved that the accused was drugged, a statement extracted that way will not be admissible. In addition drugging an accused is an offence and it is possible to initiate criminal proceedings against those who carried out such an act.

How have the pictures of Sri Jayendrar’s confession published in various publications?

Unless the police themselves have released them, publications could not have got these pictures. Police using their enquiry for such propaganda is indeed very wrong.

Is it possible that even a statement by a lady that ‘a certain person posed a threat to my modesty’, could be a lie?

It is a fact that several courts have seen. Sometimes some women do concoct such charges in order to take vengeance against some one, for some reason.

While your article on the roles and responsibilities of the public prosecutor (Thuglak – 15-12-2004) was nice, who will ensure that the guilty is punished?

It is the duty of the police to do that. It is the responsibility of the police to ensure that the case they have succeeds, by providing irrefutable evidence, witnesses beyond a shade of doubt and present them before the court through the prosecution. It is not the duty of the prosecution to get the guilty punished even if the evidences are incomplete and the witnesses are shaky.

What do you think about the police action calling auditor S. Gurumurthy for an enquiry, just because he wrote an article in an English newspaper about Sri Jayendrar’s arrest?

The police have called Gurumoorthy because he raised some questions that could be embarrassing for them. At the same time many magazines are publishing inadmissible evidences having got them from the police. Photographs taken from the video footage captured during police enquiry appear in the publications.

So far the police have never asked them ‘How did you get these?’ When you see it in this context we can understand that this is a threat/warning. ‘If you comment on the police enquiry we will not leave you alone’ is the clear warning to the media world issued through Gurumurthy.

How will the climate created by the media, the lawyers, and political parties affect the court & its proceedings?

When you have a criminal case if the media propoganda that ‘the accused is indeed guilty’, slogans by political leaders that ‘he must be punished without fail’, rumours spread by the police that ‘the accused is not only guilty of this charge but is guilty of several other unacceptable charges’ – keep appearing relentlessly it would not be possible for the prosecution to conduct a fair trial. In such an event there will be undue pressure on the court.

Even in the US where there is a practice of conducting a trial with a jury. In some cases because of news reports in a particular state influences public opinion in a manner that people could believe that the accused is guilty, the case is transferred to another state.

Even though we do not have a jury system, shifting the case to a different state when there is an environment that could cause a bias, will ensure a fair trial.

What do you think of the writer Vaasanthi’s views that ‘Mutts, gurus etc are like brokers and middlemen. There is no need for such people between God & man’?

Those who believe that ‘I don’t need a broker between me & my education’ and therefore treat teachers as brokers, and believe that they can acquire knowledge without their help, may learn and progress by themselves. Those who have acquired the maturity and have evolved enough to think that ‘My relationship with God is a direct one. Why do I need brokers in between?’ may realise God by themselves.

There may even be those who have acquired the wisdom that everything & every one is God. It depends on their mental evolution. Those who do not have such mental maturity, believe that they do not need ‘middlemen’, it is they who will lose. Because they understand this many people approach Gurus. What is wrong in it.