In a recent judgment the Supreme Court of India, in the case of Masooda Parveen versus Union of India, rejected a writ petitionunder Articles 32 (Right to Constitutional Remedies) and 21 (Protection of life and personalliberty) filed by the wife of one Ghulam Mohiud-in Regoo who died in Army custody, on theground that the deceased was a militant. In the teeth of an admission that the death tookplace in Army custody, numerous contradictions and inconsistencies in the state versionof events that led up to the death, compoundedby the “loss” of the original file containing the inquest report and documents, the SupremeCourt chose to believe the assertion of the statethat the deceased was a militant and his death was accidental. This judgment is not only aquintessential example of the unwillingness ofthe legal system to deal with excesses committed by the armed forces in disturbed areas, italso represents a benchmark in the strugglefor justice by the people of Jammu & Kashmir before the Indian legal system. The presentreport attempts to analyse this case and thejudgment delivered by the Supreme Court ofIndia and its implications for the struggle for justice and self-determination of the people ofJ&K.

The Masooda Parveen case is interesting, therefore, for more than one reason. The petitioner-widow chose to place her faith in theIndian Supreme Court and expressed her lack of confidence in the J&K High Court by allegingthat the J&K Bar Association was “politicizingit”. Whether this was a legal strategy toconvey the impression that she was non-politicalor to underline the fact that justice wouldnot be done to her case if it was taken up inJ&K, are a moot point. But it is equally likelythat she moved the petition for compensation for the custodial death of Ghulam Mohi-ud-dinRegoo before the highest court in India believingthat India’s Supreme Court is not as helpless as the Courts have been made in J&K.