The “Paper Case”: Evidence and Narrative of a Terrorism Trial in Delhi

Suresh, Mayur

Abstract

Through an ethnography of a terrorism trial that followed bomb‐blasts in Delhi in 2008, this article seeks to understand the centrality of files and documentary practices to the production of legal truth. By following key documents regarding the case against one man I call Fahad, I argue that the truth produced in a trial crucially depends a chain of seemingly insignificant certificatory practices‐the signatures, countersignatures, stamps, and seals that appear on documents. What emerges in the account I provide is that juridical truth is less a matter of finding ‘what really happened,’ and more about the competition between narratives that depend on the certificatory correctness of humble sheets of paper.

Citation

Suresh, M. (2019). The “Paper Case”: Evidence and Narrative of a Terrorism Trial in Delhi. Law & society review, 53(1), 173-201. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12378

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 16, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Dec 28, 2018
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Oct 25, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 25, 2018
• Journal: Law and Society Review
• Print ISSN: 0023-9216
• Electronic ISSN: 1540-5893
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 173-201
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12378