The rehri operator, Sube Singh, held his ground. His price, his golgappas, his terms. Words were exchanged. Then fists.
By the time the dust settled on that warm Tuesday evening in Rohtak’s Maham tehsil, a police complaint had been filed, counter-complaints were being drafted, and the wheels of Haryana’s judicial machinery had begun their long, slow turn.
On Wednesday, the Maham court acquitted all nine accused on both sides, for want of evidence. Twelve years. Fifteen witness depositions. One sessions court intervention. Three police officers are now either retired or posted elsewhere. And the proximate cause of it all: one golgappa.
The arithmetic of grievance. The case, in its early form, was straightforward enough.
Anil, accompanied by two friends, had allegedly demanded a fifth golgappa in a five-rupee plate. Sube Singh refused. The argument that followed, according to the rehri operator’s complaint to Maham police, turned physical. Anil and his two companions were booked for assault.
But Anil had his own story to tell, and his own injuries to show.
The next morning, after getting himself medically examined, he walked into the office of the then Maham Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and alleged that it was he who had been beaten: by Sube Singh, by a neighbouring rehri operator named Ajay Nehra, and by the police officers themselves. He named the then Station House Officer (SHO) Kuldeep Beniwal, chowki in-charge Ramniwas, and ASIs Dharmabir and Subhash.
When nothing came of that complaint, Anil’s father Satyawan, who worked as a foreman with Uttar Haryana Bijli Prasaran Nigam, took matters into his own hands.
On 10 October 2013, five months after the brawl, he filed a private criminal complaint before the Maham court, naming six accused, including the SHO.
The case had now officially escaped all reasonable proportions.
Three years imprisonment, then acquittal, then a decade of waiting. Meanwhile, the original case against Anil moved faster. The Maham court convicted him and sentenced him to three years in prison.
Anil appealed to the Rohtak sessions court, which acquitted him, and, in doing so, created an administrative tangle. The sessions court directed the Maham court to hear both cases simultaneously: Anil’s complaint against the police and vendors, and the assault case against him.
From that point on, the two cases moved together through the Maham court’s docket, accumulating witnesses and adjournments in equal measure.
Fifteen witnesses were examined in total before the court finally pronounced its verdict last Wednesday: all nine accused were acquitted as the evidence was insufficient on both sides.
Where the protagonists are now
The legal journey of one golgappa, it appears, is not quite over.
Anil’s father, Satyawan, says he is not satisfied with the verdict and will appeal to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Kuldeep Beniwal, the SHO who Anil’s family accused of assault, has since been promoted. He is currently posted as DSP in Guhla, Kaithal district. Ramniwas, the chowki in-charge, has retired. So has ASI Dharmabir. ASI Subhash is posted at Lakhanmajra.
It’s not known if Sube Singh still sells golgappas, whether at four or five pieces per five rupees, or even more.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)