Indian judge invokes Hindu text while sentencing Muslim men
Judge’s ruling sparks concern as verdict relies on casteist Hindu text and torture allegations police earlier dismissed as misinformation
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A local court in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has drawn widespread scrutiny after the presiding judge cited Manusmriti — an ancient Hindu text long criticized for upholding caste hierarchy — while sentencing a group of Muslim men in a 2024 murder case.
The ruling has raised further concerns because the judgment also references torture claims that police had publicly dismissed last year as baseless rumors.
Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Sharma sentenced Mohammad Sarfaraz to death and imposed rigorous life imprisonment on nine others for the killing of 28-year-old Ram Gopal Mishra during communal unrest in Bahraich on October 13, 2024.
The court’s language and reasoning have since drawn attention from legal and human rights experts, who say the judgment departs from established criminal-law standards.
Mishra, who was part of a Hindutva procession, had climbed onto the roof of a Muslim shopkeeper during the rally, removed green flags and waved a saffron flag shortly before he was fatally shot. His death sparked immediate political tensions, accompanied by social-media claims that he had been tortured, electrocuted and mutilated. Within days, Bahraich police publicly refuted those allegations, stating that medical examinations confirmed his death was caused by bullet injuries alone.
Despite the police clarification, portions of the court’s verdict appear to treat those same torture allegations as credible. This contradiction has alarmed several journalists and legal commentators, who say the court’s reliance on information that police had already ruled out raises significant concerns about the evidentiary basis of the sentencing.
Journalist Narendra Pratap remarked that the judgment seemed to incorporate “the very rumor the police themselves rejected,” a move he said risked undermining confidence in the judicial process.
The judge’s invocation of Manusmriti has added another layer of controversy. The text, which prescribes caste-based hierarchy and unequal punishment, has been widely criticized by Dalit and anti-caste activists for over a century.
Its centrality to Brahminical orthodoxy has led to longstanding opposition, culminating in Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s symbolic burning of the text in 1927 as a protest against its casteist doctrine.
Analysts note that referencing such a text in a contemporary criminal judgment is highly unusual and potentially at odds with constitutional principles of equality and secular governance.
Legal experts say the combination of citing a caste-based religious text and incorporating unverified torture claims could become a central issue during appeal proceedings.
They argue that these elements may raise questions about whether the verdict was shaped by ideological considerations rather than the evidentiary record presented in court.
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