The Brave Pedestrian

The Logical Indian  added  2 new photos . May be we have been taught a lie all along. May be honesty is not the best policy after all. Look at what happened to constable Ravinder Patil just because he  was honest. The night Salman Khan ran over the people on that pavement, it was Patil who filed the initial complaint. While every other witness turned hostile under pressure or threats, it was Patil who continued to hold his ground, just because truth was on his side. But what did Patil gain out of it except more pressure from Salman Khan's lawyers and even alleged harassment from within the police force. During the course of the trial, Patil had to go into hiding as he feared for his own safety. In 2006 he was arrested for failing to appear as a witness and in the same year he was sacked from the police force - all because he was an honest man who stood for the truth. He was found on the streets of Mumbai in 2007 with advanced TB because his famil...

Here's something the media never reports: "Anaadi courts" are the instrumentality by which the State deprives tens of thousands of Indian citizens of their Fundamental Right to Life & Liberty. Without due process. For trivial offences like crossing the railway tracks, ticketless travelling and "loitering suspiciously" (combined with inability to furnish bail-bond or engage a lawyer), people are arrested and held in judicial custody for days, weeks or even months in judicial custody, without even being chargesheeted. This is happening daily, without interruption. Hello... Are the Chief Justices listening? Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share  

Unlike the US justice system which has a "witness PROTECTION program", Indian judiciary has a "witness ELIMINATION program". Our courts systematically defeat the good intentions of witnesses, failing which they eliminate the witnesses themselves. They create conditions where witnesses are rewarded for turning hostile, and severely punished for being honest. At great personal risk and inconvenience, witnesses appear before the court in murder trials or trials involving offense s committed by rich and influential people (such as Salman Khan's hit-and-run case). But rather than recording the witnesses' statement at the earliest, judges mechanically give tareekh pe tareekh for many months and years... until the witnesses' stop being cooperative, or their memory fades, or they are intimidated and choose to keep quiet, or they sink into debt and financial distress, and stop coming to court, or they accept money to change their story, or they are silen...

About 50% of Indian magistrates (and 80% of public prosecutors) are widely known to take bribes for going easy on undertrials seeking bail. Magistrates safeguard themselves by channeling the bribes through policemen. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

To feminists, patriarchal systems (such as Khap Panchayats) are like red flags to a bull; they react with great fury and indignation. But feminists seem pretty OK with the judiciary, the baap of all patriarchal setups. It would seem that their rebelliousness is for media consumption, When they meet with a REAL archetypal patriarchy, they become silent bystanders, or even defenders of the patriarchy. Interesting, na? Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Who is biggest human rights violator in India? Judiciary. Why? Because... With the barest-minimum loincloth of "due process of law", our judiciary deprives thousands of people of their Life & Liberty every month, And it keeps them in jail month after month, without a trial. Corruption in magistrate's courts and sessions court is well know and widespread. People who can't afford to pay BAIL, BRIBES & LAWYERS' FEES stay in judicial custody for months, even years without a tria l. Evidently, everybody is fine with that. Not a squeak out of the Human Rights activists & intellectuals. Not a squeak out of the mass media. And damningly, not a squeak out of the judges of Higher Judiciary, custodians of our Fundamental Rights! If We The Citizens don't raise an outcry on this, SHAME ON US. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Here's something the media never reports: "Anaadi courts" are the instrumentality by which the State deprives tens of thousands of Indian citizens of their Fundamental Right to Life & Liberty. Without due process. This is happening daily, without interruption. Hello... Are the Chief Justices listening? Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Knowledgeable court insiders understand that the merits of your case are of little importance. Their first question is, "Who is appearing for you?" Their second question is, "You are before which bench?" Third question: "Who is appearing for the other side?" Based on your replies to these questions, they sometimes shake their head in sympathy for you. "No chance, you will be dismissed," they say sadly, without even looking at your prayers, interim reliefs sought and case laws cited. Surprisingly, their predictions are quite accurate. Why is this so? Let us understand. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Is Supreme Court a PART-TIME GUARDIAN of our fundamental rights? Individuals can enjoy leaves, including study leave, casual leave and sick-leave for much more than six months... but can the ENTIRE ORGAN OF GOVERNANCE remain closed for weeks or months? (And please, don't anybody mention vacation judges, who provide only a loincloth of judicial service!) Evidently, it can! And according to the hon'ble judges, India is hale and hearty despite such institutionalized absenteeism. So, let the whole country follow the noble example of our judges, and accordingly, let the government sanction SIX WEEK SUMMER VACATIONS FOR: 1) Police 2) Central & State Government, including Prime Minister, Chief Minister, entire cabinet and entire secretariat. 3) Entire Army, Navy, Air Force and Border Security Force. Let them coordinate the dates to match with summer vacations for the armed forces of Pakistan, China and Bangladesh across the borders. No surprise invasions and ter...

Bhopal gas tragedy is a blatant example of how judiciary behaves when the interests of big business clashes with those of the common man. Over 5 lakh persons were exposed to the crippling gas Methyl Iso Cyanate (MIC) on the night of 2-3 December, 1984. 3,787 died, 3,900 were severely and permanently disabled. 26 years later, in June 2010, seven former employees of UCIL (including Keshub Mahindra, non-executive chairman) were convicted of causing death by negligence. Each was  sentenced to two years imprisonment and fined of Rs. one lakh. All were released on bail shortly after the verdict. BOTTOMLINE: NOT EVEN ONE PERSON RESPONSIBLE HAS BEEN JAILED YET, 30 years after the world's worst industrial disaster. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

If our new Prime Minister is really a common man at heart, he should take initiatives to ensure that judiciary becomes accessible to the common man. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Modi-sarkar should pluck the LOW-HANGING FRUITS to give quick results -- such as immediately eradicating "anadi courts" where lakhs of people are ill-treated daily. Installing CCTV cameras in all courts would be a good way to make magistrates, judges, public prosecutors and police stop ill-treating the common man. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Judiciary is an institution for engaging the common man in an endless legal battle, from which there is no exit. It does not promise him justice, but it tells him that directly fighting against his oppressors is illegal, and therefore, he has no option except to go to court. By a subtle creeping process of institutionalized delay & procedure-based denial of justice, India’s common man is being convinced that he is insignificant, and that he can never get justice. Very slowly, year after year, as pendency increases and the possibility of getting justice grows more distant for the common man, he comes to believe in his own powerlessness. That is the creeping danger facing We The People. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

The common experience of litigants is that judiciary is NOT for implementation of the laws passed by legislature, and it is NOT for giving justice to the common man. More than anything else, it is for the exercise of judge's discretionary powers, and their ability to grant "prayers" -- whether lawful or otherwise. How can you reform a judiciary that considers law implementation and justice to be merely by-products? Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Shailesh Gandhi recently wrote to our new Chief Justice R M Lodha, and suggested some remedies for giving timely justice to people of India. Read this letter  http://bit.ly/1kaZ7AS  and give feedback to Shailesh. Please email him on shaileshgan@gmail.com Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

S Rajendra Babu, former Chief Justice of India, said, “Many of our poor fellow citizens have chosen to avoid courts and other legal systems rather than face intimidation, cost and time-loss in legal proceedings.” But it’s not only the poor! Even the middle-classes and the well-to-do have made up their mind that GOING TO COURT IS NOT A REALISTIC OPTION. Most people go to court in the heat of the moment, or they are given false hopes by lawyers. But they soon realize that they  have walked into a quicksand. They realize that there is MORE INJUSTICE IN COURT. A few people get sucked into an ENDLESS CYCLE OF COMPLAINING against lawyers and judges, and multiplying litigations in response to their sufferings in court. The whole lives, and life-savings, of lakhs of such people are consumed by fruitless litigation. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Here are the extracts of two Facebook conversations I had with advocate friends, which I'm combining and reproducing here for the purpose of thought and discussion: ADVOCATE: hello sir,i would like to share something with you... even though i like and i agree by ur each and every post, i m scared of commenting, sharing or liking it because i m afraid of contempt of court.... dont u feel so? SUMMARY OF MY RESPONSES: Hi. If you like, comment on or share my judiciary posts on FB , you will be one among thousands of people who have done that... including at least 100 lawyers. I may of course be prosecuted for contempt of court sooner or later (because maybe I will make a mistake and overstep the line in a poster). But ask yourself, is it possible that they will prosecute hundreds or thousands of people for liking, commenting and sharing? I feel it is unlikely. Many of the FB forums are moderated. My posts appear only after the moderator allows them. I am posting on roughly 2...

Is judiciary a back-breaking burden that Indian citizens have been carrying since Independence, simply because nobody believed it was possible to put it down and review the whole thing? Must we remain stuck with this huge tangled mess of cases that tareekh-pe-tareekh has rendered meaningless? Millions of cases based on archaic British-era laws (like IPC, CrPC and CPC) continue to linger and obstruct the path of new litigants. Many cases have been badly damaged by profiteering  lawyers and insensitive judges, but continue only to provide livelihood to lawyers and judges, and occupy space and time in courts. They only cause harassment to citizens, and reduce the efficiency of the economy. No good is coming out of such proceedings, only harm. Shouldn't we clean the cobwebs of the past and start afresh? We The People have the power to clean our attic, drive away the poisonous insects and throw away the useless files where such insects breed. Like  · ...

Judges often make up their mind, ahead of hearings, about what their judgment will be. Then they invent legal-sounding reasons for upholding their decision. Judges play deaf to those parts of the oral or written submissions of advocates that don't suit their pre-decided judgment... and to that end, they even change, twist and misrepresent the arguments presented by advocates. Judges frequently leave a crucial material point undecided, by saying that they were not pressed duri ng arguments. And, if that is not enough, judges bring in their own original arguments to validate their decision -- arguments that were not presented by either side. Judges are able to do all these things with absolute impunity. No one can touch them for these un-judge-like acts. Senior counsels are capable of dislodging judges from their pre-decided conclusions -- at least some of the time. Quite often, they are capable of convincing the judges to write a judgment that is neither supported by th...

The numbers of victims of India’s judiciary is mind-boggling. 3.2 crore (or 32 million) litigants, accused persons and appellants are continually suffering because of pendency of cases – getting only date after date, but no effective hearing. This figure includes about 3 lakh persons being held in judicial custody for weeks or months, because they are unable to secure bail. If we include the family members of these people, who are also harassed by these proceedings, then the  lives of 12 to 15 crore persons are being systematically degraded by the judicial delays. One in 10 Indian citizens is living life as a victim of the judiciary, directly or indirectly. The numbers of their oppressors? About one lakh (1,00,000) judges and lawyers. For their own convenience, greed and self-interest, a mere one lakh judicial officers are holding hostage 10 percent of India’s population. If this isn’t unreasonable and tyrannical, I don’t know what is! Like  · ...