Nirbhaya - the aftermath

Ever since the nation struggling from price rise and corruption adopted girl and prayed for her life - the unanimous cries for death for the perpetrators of the heinous crime has been getting louder. For this case as it is the most heinous of heinous - hang them till they die.

But arent we being a bit trigger happy when saying that all rape should be met with the same end - death by hanging for the guilty?

More punishments over and above what already exists?
Are we proposing these as deterrents?
So am I to presume that the existing provisions (vast and very stringent) are not working? - these new provisions are going to work?

The issue as usual has been masterly sidetracked by  the media and completely missed by those who represent "public opinion on TV".

If anybody heard the boys version of what happened - the key issues are:
1. No public came forward to help!! - That's because we have cases that go on for 100 yrs+ and nobody has the time to be a witness for that long - come on we all have a life - so the first issue is that the witness is to be treated like royalty, he will be taken at govt expense to the court, ONCE.  where he will sign an affidavit in the presence of the magistrate and leave. In the course of the hearing if he is to be cross examined - the court at its expense will provide video conferencing (skype is free) and he can be crossed on his affidavit - nothing more. (we also have cases where the idiot judges have held witnesses in contempt of court for not being present for the 100th + hearing!!)

2. 2nd issue was that of the jurisdiction fight between the 3 PCR's who responded to the 100 call - the jurisdiction is always the place of the victim in such cases and where the victim comes to the station that police station!!

3. No cop as well as anybody in the hospital gave any clothes to the boy and girl who were naked. SHAME. This is the criminal act - where is the punishment recommendation to justice verma for this?

4. The FIR was lodged after the case was taken up by the media and the girl was adopted by an anguished nation. where's the punishment for this - existing or proposed?
If FIR's are lodged online and the investigation has to be completed within say 72 hrs - THEN the rest of the issues will sort itself out.

The criminals do what they do as the public is apathetic to the cause of justice due to reason 1 above and also the harassment at the hands of the police who take money from the guilty party and harass the complainant and his witnesses.(eg ruchika gehrothra case etc).

 Trust me - we dont need more laws - existing ones if they are made humane are more than enough - the public will support it and that is the biggest deterrent to a criminal NOT the current demand for tougher punishments.

FCCB scam

Picture this:

Company A does a Zero coupon FCCB - INR/$ = 40

Amount raised = $100Mn

Fee allowed = 6%

Tenure - 4 yrs

Conversion price is set at 300/-

CMP - 180/-

Gain for the $ lender - he gets an upfront interest of 6% which translates into an annualised yield of 1.56% over 4 years which is 156 basis points more than any competing product in the $ world of Fixed income!!

Result : People start buying the share as there is confidence shown in the company by FII's

Reality : Shares held by the management is sold continuously ERGO the price just doesnt rise BUT falls continuously.

Company A then says that it is not able to repay its FCCB and the price crashes all the way to 10-15/- a share. It is here that the same people who sold the shares at 180 come and buy back the shares.

Suddenly on the appointed time for redemption the said FCCB's are miraculously redeemed and the share makes a stratospheric rise back to levels of 200+. 

Considering the total loss to the company is the forex loss of say INR15/$ ie 150Cr, all they have to do for  the above is to net a profit for them from the price manipulation on the average traded volume of shares to be  in excess of 150Cr. For a company with market cap in excess of 2000Cr this is but a 7% of its total shares outstanding for the price manipulation of 90%. In reality more than 35-40% of the shares are "spread" on gullible investors.

The break even for this works at even higher levels of 20% of shares outstanding.(lower the breakeven - higher the payout as managements with lower shareholding can also engage in this)

Of course where the intent is not to have a business going forward then with all the shares being "spread" the management can one fine day file for a CDR and make a comeback if the sucker bankers give them a break OR just file for bankruptcy and walk away to start the next scam all over again.

The list of shares that are caught in the FCCB mess makes interesting reading. The epitaph on the scheme can be only written when the last of the o/s FCCB's are closed successfully or otherwise. Watch out for those which show a miraculous repayment not supported by any operating flows. In other words the FCCB money was never deployed for what it was meant to do BUT the same was diverted to subsidiaries worldwide to make these illegal trades on the company's share where the real money making lies for the promoters.

Once this is done successfully the next time would be only easier!!

How to nail these cases?

1. Trace all those who bought the shares in 2 years prior to the FCCB announcement

2. Trace all those who sold this company's shares since the time of the FCCB became public knowledge

3. Find the quid pro quo between these seemingly unrealted parties and the management

4. Trace all those who are currently buying the shares prior to the miraculous repayment of the FCCB

5. Find the quid pro quo between these seemingly unrealted parties and the management

Caveat:

There is of course the very simple reality of coincidence making its presence felt as each of the above event is a buy low sell high event - followed by any self respecting investor - the only difference is that the size of the bets in relation to their remaining genre of investing is the give away.

it will happen again and again..

The events of 16th night will go down in infamy - but what contributed for the same will never be debated nor addressed. It is this separation between responsibility and action that will make these incidents repeat again and again.

If the politicians are really serious - first hang the guy who shot jessica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jessica_Lal

hang the guy(s) who forced a minor to commit suicide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruchika_Girhotra_Case

hang the guy who walked into a house, abducts the girl just because she caught his fancy
http://punjabnewsline.com/news/Faridkot-abduction_-Shruti-backtracks_-says-police-threatened-her.html

If the above is done then we know it will NOT happen again BUT we all know the odds of that ... and i am not even a betting man..

Final note - shame on the wife of rathod for defending her husband, shame on the mother of manu sharma for defending him, shame on the mother of nishan singh for helping him abduct the girl ..

NOW lets take a look at the calls for the death penalty.

In the present case it is a no brainer - the 6 of them should hang as this is the most heinous of heinous BUT the above listed are also in the same category and hence the political class will have to show they mean business by first acting on the above old cases.

Should capital punishment be part of the statute for rape cases? One has to understand that already there are a lot of acts which protect the woman just on her recorded statement without any proof - adding the death sentence will only make it more one sided and easier for women to blackmail the men. I think the rule should be if there are more than 2 or 3 perps then the death can be invoked - if only one man rapes a woman the current law (however incompetent ) should suffice. THE bigger issue is of the trial time - there should be a clear 15 day rule. 7days judicial custody - 15 days trial and then the judgment. in cases of appeal - verdict by the higher courts shall be delivered in 7 days. THIS is the only effective deterrent.

Finally in the current there are men who are sexually abused by women - where is the law for them?