Hazards For Abuse Survivors Both Timid and Bold
Posted by Barry Pittard on November 6, 2007
Many abuse survivors are afraid to speak out.
Sai Baba’s proxy defenders on the Internet and elsewhere make the most of this difficulty. They say there have been no prosecutions of Sai Baba. Yet it often takes years or decades before survivors can come to terms with what happened to them.
Hazards Of Brave Abuse Survivors
Even those few ready to face the public with the facts can often be in no position to litigate. This is because of lack of funds, time, energy, or family or close friends to support them in an intelligent and genuine manner.
In one case (See 1. under Further Resources) which should never have failed, a pro bono lawyer let his client down badly and was not proactive enough to field excellent witnesses who stood ready - indeed at various kinds of personal sacrifice - to testify.
Problems of Litigation Acute
In any case, litigation is always an uncertain, costly and often extremely drawn-out process, especially in sex abuse cases where the success rate is still far lower than in most other common crimes.
Sai Baba Heavily Protected In India.
Added to these huge obstacles, Sathya Sai Baba enjoys (as he has done for many decades) powerful protection from the Indian Government, judiciary and other power echelons from any prosecution, as attempts to bring him to book in the Supreme Court of India and High Court of Andhra Pradesh have amply demonstrated. (See 2. 3. and 4. below)
Further Resources
2. Sai Baba Protected By The Supreme Court Of India
The archive at this link contains a document with court proof - contrary to assertions of Sai Baba’s proxy defenders on the Internet - that a case was in fact brought. One of India’s top advocates, Kamini Jaiswal, took the case on behalf of Hari Sampath, and she and her assisting Counsel Prashant Kumar and Gaurav Agarwal and their client had to suffer the ignominy of a kangaroo court presided over by the profoundly compromised judges: S.P. Barucha, A.S. Anand, G.B. Patnaik (or G.B. Pattnaik), and R.C. Lahoti. Each one of these went on to become Chief Justice of India. Their CJ at the time was P.N. Bhagwati, a very active member of the Sathya Sai Central Trust, well known for keeping a damper on Sai Baba scandals over many years. As a number of us know personally, when the legal notes for this case are shown in eminent legal quarters where mature democratic principles much more cohere, the lawyers are disgusted! We shall share the as yet unpublished details of this case with responsible media, legal authorities or academic researchers.
3. See my Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall Case Vs Sai Baba. In 1986, a case B. Premanand brought in the Andhra Pradesh High Court shows a judge’s clear violation of India’s secular legal system. Judge Y.V.Anjaneyulu (who just happened to be a Sai Baba devotee!) pronounced,
“An article or ornament materialized from air in a split second by the use of spiritual powers or otherwise cannot be said to be made, manufactured, prepared or processed within the meaning of section 11 of the Gold Control Act”
See also, Satya Sai Baba and the Gold Control Act, by B. Premanand, 1986
4. My reader may be curious (or could simply guess) as to the outcome of the following. The news article is from the Deccan Herald, May 11, 1999:
“Hyderabad Nov 4: Justice G Raghu Ram of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday admitted a writ petition seeking initiation of criminal prosecution against the doctors of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi in Anantapur district alleging malpractices regarding the transplantation of kidney”
For the kidney donation scandal, See material HERE
December 1, 2007 at 2:56 pm
[...] Silence he answers the question, “Why are they not standing up for themselves?” and in Hazards For Abuse Survivors Both Timid and Bold he looks at the reasons why “even those few ready to go public can often be in no position to [...]