Conviction of former IGP

The conviction of former IGP in the killing of Naxalite leader Varghese, after forty years of the incident, goes to prove that criminal jurisprudence is still effective in this country despite some flaws. Mr Varghese was shot and killed at point blank under the orders of the then SP and the DySP. The settled principles in law is that nobody should be allowed to take law into his own hands and nobody should be punished without giving him/her a reasonable opportunity to defend himself. In the instant case jungle law was imposed on a youth who was waging a political struggle, of course in a deviant way.That is no justification for the officers vested with the authority to maintain law and order to decide punishment on their own and execute it. The fact that Varghese was caught alive and was unarmed raises the gravity of the offence. This shows that the culprit was biased and had criminal intention to take the life of a citizen. Hence deserved the maximum punishment that law enjoins.