AN INNOCENT VICTIM.

He was hardly seventeen but he had had more than his share of experiences for a seventeen year old. Sunny was his name and Sunny indeed was his nature for he was a boy with a pleasant disposition. Always fun to be with and very much attached to his friends. Sunny was a student of the pre-university course in a reputed college in Chennai. The pre-university course of yesteryear's has now been replaced by the new plus two system of education.

Sunny was very intelligent but did not attend classes regularly. Even if he did attend classes he would only indulge in clowning around; forcing his lecturers to send him out of class. In fact, his lecturers and professors were relieved when he did not attend classes. They would willingly grant him attendance even if he was not present in class so that they could have some peace to concentrate on teaching the other boys. One of Sunny’s teachers who was a senior professor in history once remarked that Sunny was like a sharp knife which could be used for both good as well as bad purposes.

The academic year 1976-77 sped by and soon it was time for the final examinations. While most of his classmates who had loafed around with him were not allowed to sit for the exams and were not issued hall tickets, Sunny was allowed to do so since his professors had faithfully marked him present for all their classes even though he had not attended their classes. Sunny had never touched his books during the academic year and had planned to start his preparation for the exam only the day before the actual exam.

When the day for serious studying finally dawned he found that there were small boils all over his genitals and that he was running a temperature. Sunny was very upset for his plan of starting his preparations for the exams had backfired. He could not inform his family about what was wrong for he suspected that the boils had something to do with his recent promiscuous behaviour. Sunny had fallen into bad company in college and egged on by his so called friends he had entered into physical relationships with a few girls; some who were innocent and some who were not so innocent. It was his relationships with the not so innocent that worried him. He worried that these not so innocent females whom he had slept with could have given him the clap for these were the type of females who kept changing their sleeping partners as they would their clothes.

Sunny was scared to go to a Doc for he was dependent upon his parents and did not have the kind of money necessary to get himself treated in a private nursing home. He thought of going to a Government hospital that was located nearby and getting himself checked but the stories he had heard from his friends about the humiliating treatment meted out to the victims of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by the nurses and doctors of these hospitals made him afraid. In those days AIDS was an unknown phenomenon and the most common STDs were syphilis and gonorrhea. These were indeed curable at an early stage but the stigma attached to victims of such diseases by the society of those days made Sunny hesitant.

His parents who had noticed his strange behaviour that morning wondered what was wrong and asked him why he wasn't studying when he had just a day to prepare for the exams. Sunny explained that he was feeling unwell and his mother who felt his forehead was surprised that he was running such a high temperature and asked him to immediately proceed to a nearby clinic. However, Sunny was hesitant to obey his mother for the fear of humiliation if it were confirmed that he had the clap was a major deterrent in de-motivating him from going to the Doc.

After much prodding and pushing from his Mom Sunny finally visited a homeopathic doctor known to the family. The doctor after a cursory examination of the boils informed Sunny that it appeared to be chicken pox. Sunny was greatly relieved that it was not the clap. He was  however worried that he would miss his examinations since chicken pox is infectious and the resulting boils all over the body would make his ailment obvious to the invigilators at the examination hall.

When Sunny informed the doctor that he had to appear for his examinations the next day, the homeopath gave him small packets of powder which he asked Sunny to consume thrice a day. He told Sunny that the medicine in the form of powder would arrest the spread of chicken pox and quickly dry up the boils that may appear

He went home relieved that he was not suffering from what he had feared most. By the time Sunny reached home boils had started appearing all over his body including the exposed parts of his face. Once he reached home he informed his Mom about the doctor’s diagnosis and she immediately made him get into bed. Sunny started taking the powdered medicine as prescribed by the doctor but his fever continued and his face was a terrifying sight.

Sunny felt that it was no point writing the exams with the pox and failing due to lack of preparation. He told his Dad that he would rather write the exams  at the next attempt during September  the same year but his father refused to accept this. Sunny’s parents were worried that he would loose out on a year if he did not attend the exams. They therefore told Sunny to just go everyday to the examination hall and write whatever he could and come back and rest at home. In fact  his dad sat with him that evening and read out chapters of the syllabus for the exams since Sunny was told by the doctor not to strain himself by reading.

Sunny’s exams were scheduled during the afternoons between 2 and 5 pm on alternate days with a day’s break between each exam to help the students study better. This was actually a blessing for Sunny since it gave him sufficient time to rest between the exams. The next day Sunny’s Mom went to the main road nearby and caught hold of an auto-rickshaw and brought it home so that Sunny could board the auto at his doorstep and get dropped inside the college where he was to write his exams. Sunny managed to attend all the exams in this manner and used to hold his handkerchief around his mouth and nose so that the invigilators at the examination hall as well as the fellow students who wrote the exam along with him could not see the profusion of boils on his face. Sunny some how managed to complete his exams. Meanwhile, the attack of chicken pox had subsided considerably and by the end of his exams the pustules started drying up and falling down as scabs.

Within two weeks of completing the exams Sunny was fully recovered and free from the pox. He was able to enjoy the summer holidays with his friends. Two months later the results were announced. Sunny went to the college notice board to check his results. To his surprise he found that his roll number and the number subsequent to his were not on the list. On closer scrutiny he found that both the numbers were mentioned at the bottom under the head of "Results withheld". Sunny rushed back home to inform his parents about this and his Dad consoled him that the university authorities may have goofed up with totaling or some such error and that the results for these two numbers would be announced shortly.

The next day morning Sunny was greeted by the post man who delivered a brown coloured registered envelope on which the seal of the university was found. When Sunny opened it he found a memo stating that his results had been withheld since the examiner who had corrected his English - II paper answer sheets had found both his answers and the answers of the neighbouring number to be identical.

The memo served to Sunny asked him to respond to the charge within seven days or else face debarment for three sittings. Sunny was horrified for he had never expected something like this. Sunny drafted his response with help from his father and sent it to the university by registered post the very next day. While all his classmates who had passed the examinations were busy seeking admissions for professional courses or their humanities bachelors’ degree Sunny spent his time moping around wondering what to do.

Within ten days of responding to their first memo Sunny received another envelope from the university with a letter mentioning that since the controller of examinations was not satisfied with his response; his debarment for three sittings was being confirmed. Actually the boy who was also debarred along with Sunny and whose number was next to Sunny’s roll number was not even known to Sunny and was a student from a different batch or group who had been sitting next to him for the common language papers.

Sunny was totally shattered. His father called him aside and asked him to speak out if he had really copied. Sunny was all the more devastated for his own father did not believe in him. Though Sunny was not a studious kind of boy, his skill with the English language was one of the very few skills that he had displayed from childhood. His father then agreed to stand by Sunny and immediately filed a writ petition in the high court with the assistance of a lawyer known to him.

When the petition came up for hearing Sunny went to the high court and met the lawyer to explain the facts of the case to him. When the petition was taken up by the honourable judge Sunny waited at the back of the court room hoping that his innocence would be proved. The university’s council explained to the honourable judge that it was an open and shut case and the guilt of both the parties who had been debarred was proved by the identical answers. After hearing both the councils the judge declared a recess for lunch and requested the two councils along with Sunny to meet him at his chambers after lunch.

When Sunny went along with his lawyer to the judge’s chambers, the learned judge requested the counsel for the University to produce the two answer sheets for him to peruse. When the university counsel did so the judge gazed at both the papers in silence for about ten minutes. He then looked up and said it looks like an open and shut case. On hearing this Sunny requested his lawyer to seek permission from the judge to have a look at the answer sheets himself.

The judge obliged his request and Sunny spent five minutes carefully comparing the two answers. On doing so he found that there were small differences in both the papers. Sunny was given to undecipherable handwriting and had a rather strange way of writing the letter “r” in a running hand. This made the “r” appear like an “s” and his neighbour had used the word “s” in all the places where Sunny had written “r”. Let me give you an example of how Sunny’s answer sheet looked in contrast to his neighbour’s answer sheet. While Sunny had written “India is progressing rapidly” as part of his composition exercise his neighbour had written “India is psogsessing sapidly”.

Sunny immediately pointed this out to the judge. He also informed the judge that he had been suffering from chicken pox during the exams and since he was left handed he had been using his right hand to hold a handkerchief to his face, thereby making it convenient for his neighbour who had been sitting to his right to peep into his paper. The judge did not accept Sunny’s logic. He replied, “if you knew English better you could have corrected the other boy’s mistakes while copying from him”.

Sunny looked into the judge’s eyes and burst out, ”Sir, this is my English second paper and if I knew English better as you have mentioned, then there would be no need for me to copy from my neighbour.” Having said this he walked out in disgust leaving his lawyer to receive the verdict later that afternoon.

Later that evening the lawyer phoned up to say that the judge had reduced the debarment from three sittings to two sittings. This really did not make much difference for ultimately Sunny had to loose two years of his life and thereby his chances at a good higher education and a good profession. As a result of this judgment passed by a learned judge who did not apply his mind to the case on hand, Sunny turned out to become another disgruntled element in society. Sunny lost all interest in life and developed all kinds of vices.

This story may not have a dramatic ending but it is a true story that happened to someone I know. This incident has left me wondering about the lack of fair play and the innocent victims whose lives are destroyed by this lack of fair play. What did Sunny do to deserve this? Why does this society make things difficult for those who are really innocent but whom the judiciary considers otherwise? While thousands of criminals and scamsters go scot free every year why is it that people like Sunny are victimised?

This piece is a tribute to such innocent victims.