Rediff On The NeT: Mayawati's decision puts Phoolan Devi in a spot

Mayawati's decision puts Phoolan Devi in a spot

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's decision to withdraw the special leave petition moved by Governor Romesh Bhandari's administration before the country's apex court in Phoolan Devi's defence has brought renewed problems for the bandit queen-turned-MP.

"The chief minister felt the state must abide by earlier verdicts of the sessions court and the high court that quashed the decision by an earlier government to withdraw all the 55 criminal cases pending against Phoolan Devi in different UP courts," a UP government spokesman told Rediff On The NeT.

Then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh issued the order in 1994 which came as a reprieve for Phoolan Devi who had by then spent 11 years in a Gwalior prison without trial. Mulayam Singh held that jail term as sufficient ground for withdrawing all the cases, including the one relating to the Behmai massacre, where Phoolan Devi's gang allegedly gunned down 20 men in February 1981.

Phoolan Devi later joined Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party and was elected to Parliament last year from Mirzapur, India's second-largest parliamentary constituency which is home to the country's carpet manufacturing industry.

However, with the quashing of Mulayam Singh's order by the sessions and high courts late last year, the trial court was free to go ahead with the cases against Phoolan Devi. The proceedings were, however, stalled because of Governor Bhandari's decision to move the Supreme Court in February against the lower courts's verdicts via a special leave petition. Bhandari is said to be close to Mulayam Singh.

The trial court in Kanpur summoned Phoolan Devi on several occasions, but she refused to respond,following which the court issued a non-bailable warrant against her. However, she continued to elude the police which appeared equally reluctant to track her down. Later, just as the state government moved the Supreme Court, her counsel Nand Lal Jaiswal prayed for withdrawal of the warrant "until the special leave petition was disposed off."

With the withdrawal of the UP government petition, Phoolan Devi will now be forced to appear before the Kanpur trial court later this month and seek bail, or else face arrest.

Says a jubiliant V N Singh Sengar, counsel for the Behmai victims, "it is divine retribution for Phoolan Devi. Hats off to the Mayawati government for refusing to give the bandit queen shelter, as was accorded to her by the governor in the absence of a popular government when Mulayam Singh ruled the state by proxy and did not allow the police to execute the non-bailable warrant issued by the trial court."

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