As we all know, Mr. Gautam Prabhu, the father of the indicted, is a leading light of New Delhi. It is a common knowledge that he was in line to get the coveted nomination to the Rajya Sabha. The sordid episode of Ms. Shanti Swaroop’s murder was a product of a diabolical conspiracy of Mr. Gautam Prabhu’s detractors out to hurt him politically and otherwise too. In the prevailing cynicism, how does it matter if hitting the opponent below the belt involves the murder of a young girl and foisting the crime on her lover? And the way the yellow journalism targeted the indicted’s mother for no fault of hers save her God given charm! Won’t that make one wonder whether it’s a curse to be born a beautiful woman? Well, who suffers from qualms anymore these days in besmirching the fair name of a spirited woman, if only to make her man bite the political dust?”
Mehrotra paused to let the woman in the judge develop empathy for the indicted's tarnished mother.
“Ms. Justice would appreciate how all this might affect the psyche of the unfortunate son,” said Mehrotra resuming his argument. “On top of it was the trial by the media, conducted by the plants of the conspirators in the fourth estate. Hadn’t the indicted stood condemned already? And sadly, the reputation of an elite family was callously colored with infamy. It is a travesty of justice that Mr. Gautam Prabhu’s adversaries achieved what they wanted. Why, his political career lay shattered and his personal image got tattered. Now it is left to this honorable court at least to salvage the indicted’s honor by setting him free forthwith.”
As though riding a tide and carried away by his own rhetoric, the redoubtable Mehrotra took on the law enforcing agencies in the same breath.
“The right thinking people ought to condemn the shady role the police played in this sordid episode,” thundered Mehrotra. “Their lazy surmises are being thrust upon this honorable court as the results of a painstaking investigation. No civilized society should feel safe under such a bunch of the custodians of law who subserve their conscience to the dictates of the powers that be to implicate the innocent. Having failed to apprehend the culprits who murdered Ms. Shanti Swaroop or out to protect the authors of the heinous crime, the police have given the color of rape to consensual sex between two teenage lovers on the verge marriage.
And the police, to either save their skin or to serve their political masters and/or both, shamelessly made the indicted, the victim of the tragedy, as the villain of the piece in this in this case. Whither went the conscience when he who had the misfortune to witness the murder of his beloved was pictured as the perpetrator of the crime itself? Thus, Ms. Justice, I implore upon this honorable court to dismiss this fabricated case foisted upon the indicted with the contempt that it deserves. Ms. Justice may deem it fit to set Mr. Suresh Prabhu free with due honor so that he could lead as dignified a life as possible under the circumstances.”