Home Ministry has to blame itself?

Soon after the video footage of Mukesh Kumar’s interview leaked to media, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has asked his officials to know who gave permission to conduct this interview. Mukesh Kumar is one of the prime accused in the gang rape case that takes place in New Delhi on December 16, 2012 and he is currently in Tihar Jail awaiting his death sentence.

Home Ministry officials have found that they themselves have given permission to film-maker Leslee Udwin in June 2013 for a video interview of Mukesh Kumar as a part of her documentary film on this gang rape case. His interview is a small part of her 16 hours long documentary film made upon this incident.

While, granting permission to her for interviewing him, home ministry has laid certain conditions to the film maker and also to the jail officials. Apart from taking consent from the prisoner Mukesh, it orders the Tihar Jail officials to watch the raw video footage of the documentary film. Film maker Leslee Udwin has contacted the jail officials and also the home ministry officials for this purpose, but they have not bothered to watch the raw video footage of the film. So, she conveyed them that she is keeping a copy of the documentary with her in case if they are interested to watch it and sold the original version to BBC, from which Mukesh interview video footage was leaked to media.

Legal experts argue that the jail manuals allow only meetings between prisoners and outsiders under certain conditions, but do not allow any personal interviews or video filming of the prisoners. Any such attempt will be treated as violating the rules and regulations. So, home ministry can’t wash its hands from this case, even though the government was changed.