The Brave Pedestrian

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

My main objective in running this poster campaign about judiciary is to tear the veil of silence surrounding the judiciary. I just want to throw open the judiciary to public scrutiny and debate, just like all other democratic institutions. My being right or wrong is irrelevant; I try to be right in what I say, but I am at best a journalist or cartoonist, NOT a legal expert. I’m provoking thought and discussion around various issues concerning the judiciary’s dealings with the public. BUT SOME PEOPLE FEEL THAT NOBODY SHOULD TALK ABOUT JUDICIARY. They feel that judges and lawyers must not be blamed or criticized for the nation’s ills. They feel that although we may criticize government, political parties, and individual politicians, we must never criticize anything concerning judiciary. Let us look at some of the ARGUMENTS of these people, who are self-appointed guardians of judiciary: ARGUMENT # 1: Criticism of "weaken the authority” or “erode the institution” of judiciary, ...

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...

People get the government that they deserve. Similarly, they get the judiciary that they deserve. So far, after Independence, we have acted as SUBJECTS of colonial masters when face-to-face with judges. And so we got a colonial sort of judiciary... because judges, like any other human being, usually go by the expectations of people surrounding them. Judges are surrounded by people who bow and scrape and abjectly beg; so what else can you expect from them but tyrannical behavo ur? Now, to change this existing reality, we have to start facing them as CITIZENS, and make them aware that they are public servants. As this sort of behaviour builds up around them, they will be forced to change their behaviour and thinking. The change may happen gradually, over some years. And in the meantime, we can expect scenes like the one shown in this cartoon  smile emoticon Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high... Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. -- Rabindranath Tagore Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

If pendency were under control and appellants got a fair hearing, Supreme Court's 6-week summer vacations could possibly have been justified. But such is emphatically not the case. Judges dismiss a majority of the appeals immediately, not even giving a few second to appellants -- many of whom have travelled across the country, and have suffered great financial difficulties to come this far. Many judges contemptuously THROW THE APPELLANT'S FILES on the floor after a couple of  seconds of perfunctory hearing, showing callous disregard for the litigants and the appeal process! Despite such hurried methods, the queue of pending cases before SC is growing longer every year. And the Supreme Court judges have the sheer gall to go on lengthy vacations, en masse! 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 pendency were under control and appellants got a fair hearing, Supreme Court's 6-week summer vacations could possibly have been justified. But such is emphatically not the case. Judges dismiss a majority of the appeals immediately, not even giving a few second to appellants -- many of whom have travelled across the country, and have suffered great financial difficulties to come this far. Many judges contemptuously THROW THE APPELLANT'S FILES on the floor after a couple of  seconds of perfunctory hearing, showing callous disregard for the litigants and the appeal process! Despite such hurried methods, the queue of pending cases before SC is growing longer every year. And the Supreme Court judges have the sheer gall to go on lengthy vacations, en masse! 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

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...

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

Judiciary is not like a "pipeline" meant for maximizing the output; it is a "filter" that reduces the output to a thin trickle, and retains the maximum number of cases in circulation for an indefinite number of years. Justice i.e. final judgments, is NOT its objective. Its true purpose is SYSTEMATIC DENIAL OF JUSTICE. This deception and exploitation of Indian citizens has been going on since 1947, when we adopted and continued the BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM of administration, judiciary, army and police WITHOUT ANY CHANGES. 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

The public often finds that judges avoid taking action against corrupt government officials and politicians. That is because, as the saying goes, those who live in glass houses avoid throwing stones. Every judge carries the guilt of having been elevated to his current position by doing favours to government officials, politicians, senior counsels, etc. in exchange for recommendations to the collegium. His entire career is controlled by the collegium of judges at High Courts and Supreme Court. There are no rules, no benchmarks, no due process to be followed, and no reference to any institution created by any law; the words of the collegiums -- which are illegal -- are the only law. How can such judges and chief justices safeguard our fundamental rights against encroachment by the powers-that-be? 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  · ...