The Brave Pedestrian

Although bail was a right of every individual, it was largely available only to the rich", says Colin Gonsalves of Human Rights Law Network. "When it comes to rich people, the court has double standards. Rich even get anticipatory bail. Salman's case is a shocking case of miscarriage of justice and consideration based on class. First, it's a fit case where he should have got 10 years in jail. Two,  why should his bail plea be heard expeditiously when there are hundreds such applications pending in the high courts. Why should he be allowed to jump queue? It sets a bad precedent," he told TOI. But that's not the only problem. Courts have also been terribly slow in disposing of cases (Salman's itself took over 12 years). Courts have 84.8% pendency in criminal cases while on an average over 60% cases take more than a year for trial to be completed. As many as 41,670 cases take more than 10 years while 1.7 lakh cases take between five to 10 years for the tria...

Although bail was a right of every individual, it was largely available only to the rich", says Colin Gonsalves of Human Rights Law Network. "When it comes to rich people, the court has double standards. Rich even get anticipatory bail. Salman Khan's case is a shocking case of miscarriage of justice and consideration based on class. First, it's a fit case where he should have got 10 years in jail. Two, why should his bail plea be heard expeditiously when there are hundreds such ap plications pending in the high courts. Why should he be allowed to jump queue? It sets a bad precedent," he told TOI. But that's not the only problem. Courts have also been terribly slow in disposing of cases (Salman's itself took over 12 years). Courts have 84.8% pendency in criminal cases while on an average over 60% cases take more than a year for trial to be completed. As many as 41,670 cases take more than 10 years while 1.7 lakh cases take between five to 10 years f...

Blindly obeying any policeman takes us one step closer towards a "Police State", and one step farther from a healthy democracy. Therefore, our FUNDAMENTAL DUTY ("to develop a scientific temper, humanism, and spirit of enquiry and reform") requires us to overcome our blind fear of the uniform and fear of authority, and understand the limits of a policeman's powers. We need to understand what the law requires us to do, or not to do. It is true that the law requires us to cooperate with a policeman in the performance of his duty. However, the law also requires us to UNDERSTAND THE LAW itself, and what it empowers the policeman to do. If the policeman is acting in excess of his statutory powers, the law requires us to resist. A citizen's blind compliance with authority enables to State to encroach on the rights and privileges of all citizens. Regardless of his rank, if a cop phones us and asks us to meet him at the police station, there is ABSOLUTELY NO ...

India's judiciary comes with a cursed legacy -- 32 million pending cases based on British-era laws like IPC and CrPC. In the eyes of judiciary, Indians are not citizens, but subjects, to be held captive with jurisprudence based on imperialism. The backlog of cases is a huge mess created by lawyers taking stay orders and tareekh pe tareekh, and judges giving it indiscriminately. The language and culture of our jurisprudence is Latin; it is so alien to India's culture that no o rdinary Indian citizen can understand it. Appointments to the higher judiciary are done by a cabal, with a level of mystery resembling appointment of the Pope in Vatican. It is almost as if judiciary is not an organ of India's democratic governance, but an alien thing transplanted from a European mummy. Not only is judiciary arbitrary and rampantly corrupt, but case laws themselves have been distorted by judgments given for money or favours. The question arises: Can this distorted, defor...

India's judiciary comes with a cursed legacy -- 32 million pending cases based on British-era laws like IPC and CrPC. In the eyes of judiciary, Indians are not citizens, but subjects, to be held captive with jurisprudence based on imperialism. The backlog of cases is a huge mess created by lawyers taking stay orders and tareekh pe tareekh, and judges giving it indiscriminately. The language and culture of our jurisprudence is Latin; it is so alien to India's culture that no o rdinary Indian citizen can understand it. Appointments to the higher judiciary are done by a cabal, with a level of mystery resembling appointment of the Pope in Vatican. It is almost as if judiciary is not an organ of India's democratic governance, but an alien thing transplanted from a European mummy. Not only is judiciary arbitrary and rampantly corrupt, but case laws themselves have been distorted by judgments given for money or favours. The question arises: Can this distorted, defor...