“It was very difficult. Once you are accused, it is headline material while acquittal is like a footnote.” That one quote by Pankaj, Additional Central PF Commissioner, is the core of his memoir My Lady in Black: Learning the laws to fight the flaws.
Geetika Sachdev profiles a man who spent his career on the other side of the law — raiding employers defaulting on provident fund dues, taking on powerful industrialists — until June 22, 2006, when he became the target of what he calls a conspiracy born of personal vendetta, carried through the machinery of law enforcement. What followed was 14 years of legal battle, including two months in Hotwar jail, a chargesheet based on fabricated testimony and a sanction order invoking a provision of law that did not exist. He was eventually acquitted. “Once you are trapped, you are condemned,” he says.
The book, launched at India Habitat Centre on August 30 and already picked for film adaptation, is not just a legal record. At its heart is his wife Sweta, an MBA in Finance who went back to university to study law to fight his case. She examined complexities while he was inside. That is why it is called My Lady in Black.
What prison taught him is the second act. Pankaj describes meeting the “dark underbelly of society” — undertrials who wanted to learn English, who dreamt of becoming MPs. It challenged his assumptions and gave him perspective on people and institutions he could not have acquired from the other side of the system.
The book matters because India’s criminal justice system convicts few but punishes many through process. Acquittal after 14 years is not justice; it is endurance. “Justice wins but costs you a lot,” Pankaj says. In an era of instant trial by media, his footnote is a necessary headline.