A young girl is molested by a cop and her friend is the only witness. When she tries to take legal action against him, he and his cronies in the system wreak hell on her family. They implicate her brother in an auto theft case and parade him half-naked in the neighbourhood. Anguished, the girl commits suicide. The families of her and her friend continue to fight the case, but almost 20 years later there’s still no justice.

I’m talking about the Ruchika Girhotra case.

Recently, her family said that they won’t be contesting the case anymore, and the CBI now wants to close the case. In any civilised country, this travesty would not be allowed to happen. But this is India. What’s worse is that most news channels didn’t think it was important enough to dedicate anything beyond a two-minute report on the news. Only one channel covered the news on prime-time for almost an hour. And that was Times Now.

The channel had earlier looked at the story in great detail in 2009, as Arnab Goswami reminded us. They had given the crime renewed media attention when the accused cop, SPS Rathore, was given just a light six-month sentence.

On Monday night, Arnab held a discussion with six panelists on CBI’s closure report on the case. The CBI had allegedly ignored the statement of a key witness – a neighbour of the Girhotras -who had said that he was witness to Ruchika’s brother being harassed by the police. Sadly, any discussion on the case’s merits and demerits and the allegations of CBI bungling were lost out in the hour-long tamasha which followed.

The show had six panellists but denigrated quickly into a shouting match between Arnab and Maxwell Perreira. Perreira, former Joint Commissioner of Police – Delhi, at one point stated that such a debate was influencing opinion. This was probably the first time he was watching a TV debate on Times Now which usually simply numbs opinion owing to the deafness that is sure to follow. Other panelists included Anand Prakash – the father of Ruchika’s friend Aradhana who has been steadfastly fighting the case all these years, Sumit Verma – senior advocate, D R Karthikeyan – former CBI director, Neelam Katara – Nitish Katara’s mother and Neelam Krishnamurthy – Convener of Victim of Uphaar fire tragedy. The two women on the panel, through their questions and comments, displayed the vast knowledge of various judicial remedies which years of fighting for justice has given them.

Anand Prakash didn’t seem to be able to answer many of the questions properly, but not everyone has mastered the art of TV debates. He said that Ruchika’s father had given up when he was threatened that if he spoke against Rathore, his grand daughter’s fate would be similar to his daughter’s. When asked for proof, Mr Prakash said that he had given this in writing but unfortunately wasn’t able to give any conclusive answers when questioned further. What is sad is that seemingly honest people, if not media savvy during a TV debate,might end up losing the support such a medium could get their cause.

While everybody else gave their legal opinion, Arnab and Mr Perreira decided to indulge in some tu tu main main moments with the former JPC losing his temper – and his earphone – at one point. Much like Ram Jethmalani had done a month or so back. (Maybe it’s a ploy which people use on Arnab’s show to stop him shouting at and near them for just a few minutes?) Surprisingly, Pereira upon being pushed to the mat,not only claimed that the police are unfairly persecuted in India but also said that he didn’t have enough information to comment on all the facts conclusively! Why agree to appear on national television without full preparation or research on the subject at hand? But then again, what am I saying. That seems to be par for the course for most panelists.

Of course this debate, like many others on TV, wasn’t conclusive, and after all that screaming, shouting and breaking of the sound barrier, all we ended up with was some high octave outrage. And as we know, that isn’t enough to get justice.

And while I did give the other news channels credit and assume that even though they had not discussed or devoted much time to this latest development in the Girhotra case, they would do so. I was wrong. It seems that this is all the media interest that Ruchika gets. The story is old, the girl is forgotten, and there’s more interesting news to break.

After all, there is a Presidential election a foot and a credit rating downgrade you know! Justice can wait.