Raped nun gets right to re-examine judge

(February 10, 2012) A Catholic nun gang-raped during anti-Christian violence in eastern India’s Orissa state in 2008, has won the right to cross examine a lower court judge in the country’s Supreme Court for “misrepresenting facts”. A magistrate who had conducted an identity parade to identify the accused in the case is alleged to have wrongly recorded that one of the accused only slapped the nun but had otherwise not assaulted her. The nun was attacked, raped and paraded semi-naked through the streets on August 25, 2008 in Kandhamal at the centre of the violence. The bench headed by Justices Altmas Kabir and J. Chelameshwar posted the matter for hearing on February 13. “We had to file the special leave petition before the apex court to challenge the Orissa High Court’s dismissal of her plea to cross-examine Prashant Kumar Das, a sub divisional judicial magistrate,” said Manas Ranjan Singh, one of the lawyers of the nun.
The Supreme Court has also asked the standing counsel of the Orissa state government to be present during the hearing. Sister Justine Senapati, human right activist in Orissa capital, Bhubaneswar, welcome the ruling as the state government is not ready to even file before higher judiciary. She said that justice has become a dream for the victims of the communal violence.