Author: Special Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: August 1, 2008
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080801/jsp/bengal/story_9631273.jsp
Lack of education and poverty sustain shalishi
sabhas in the state, economists and sociologists said in the wake of the beheading
in Murshidabad.
Most of the disputes that are brought before
the kangaroo courts, being held for decades, have to do with marriages and
property disputes.
On July 14, a shalishi in Murshidabad pronounced
the death sentence on a 30-year-old man because he had married a girl from
another community and the groom had hidden his religion from her family. He
was beheaded.
The poor and the illiterate in villages want
to stay away from the legal apparatus, said sociologist Baishali Sinha.
The Murshidabad village of 1,200-odd people
had one primary school, one graduate and eight or nine villagers who have
cleared Madhyamik.
The government had introduced the West Bengal
Block Level Pre-Litigation Conciliation Board in the Assembly in 2005 to settle
disputes before moving the judiciary. Through this step, the government wanted
to put a legal stamp on shalishi sabhas.
But the bill was withdrawn after the Left
parties and the Opposition failed to reach a consensus.
Asked today about the continuation of kangaroo
courts in villages, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said: "Shalishi
sabhas have been operating for several years in our state. What else can I
say?''
Economist Kalyan Sanyal said shalishis continued
in the state because of economic reasons and also because the Left did not
want to interfere with the practices of village communities.
"In Bengal, the government is allowing
shalishi sabhas as it wants the parallel system of customs and pre-modern
society to continue," Sanyal said.
CPM leader and land reforms minister Abdur
Rezzak Mollah, however, found nothing wrong with shalishi sabhas. "Village
people care for others and believe that a shalishi sabha will render proper
justice. Even courts had at times paid respect to decisions taken by such
sabhas. If an inter-caste marriage can be settled through a shalishi sabha,
what's the need of a poor family to spend money in court?" Mollah said.
Lakshmanpur, the village where the 30-year-old
man was beheaded, has witnessed many shalishi sessions. People there feel
shalishi sabhas help establish the "rule of society''.
"We encouraged shalishis to keep people
from defying societal norms
. We may be less educated but our village
society has to be kept intact through informal courts. We had lots of such
sabhas," said a resident of Lakshmanpur.