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...

If pendency of cases were under control and appellants got a fair hearing, Supreme Court's six-week summer vacations could possibly have been justified. But such is emphatically not the case. Supreme Court judges dismiss a majority of the appeals instantly, not even giving a few second to appellants -- although appellants struggle for months, travel thousands of kilometres many times, and suffer great financial hardships to get a hearing in supreme court. Many of the Supreme Court judges are known to contemptuously THROW THE APPELLANT'S FILES on the floor after a couple of seconds of inattentive 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, year after year, these high-and-mighty Supreme Court judges have the shamelessness to go on lengthy vacations, en masse! If this is not contempt of court by them, I don't know what is. ...

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...

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

Judicial delay in case disposal is NOT an academic issue for ELDERLY CITIZENS, it is an issue of Protection of Life & Liberty. For them, justice delayed means justice denied literally... because they will probably be dead before they get justice! Although elderly people are vulnerable and need judiciary's protection the most, NOBODY IN HIS RIGHT MIND WOULD ADVISE THEM TO GO TO COURT. The chances of getting relief within 8-10 years are small... unless of course they are extrem ely wealthy and can engage the biggest lawyers to expedite matters. Roughly 10 percent of Indians are above 60 years. From bitter experiences, they know that courts are a futile exercise that will drain all their energy and financial resources, and are unlikely to give them anything in return. Our judiciary is consistently failing to protect senior citizens -- people who have completed a lifetime of service to society. How can we remain silent? Like  ·  Comment  ·...

Judiciary drags out cases for decades. Perpetrators, victims and witnesses age, property values multiply, the social, economic and political scenario changes beyond recognition. The judgment -- when it comes -- is not only irrelevant, but also a cruel mockery of all the parties. A delayed judgment does not have a curative or corrective influence on society or individuals. It only inflicts further injury to a wound that time has already healed. 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, ...

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

There is a conspiracy of silence over judicial non-accountability and arbitrariness. Unless we break this silence with specific case-studies that shock the conscience of the nation, judiciary will continue to be a standing monument of injustice. So let us start putting out interesting case studies of clearly idiotic judgments and orders (naming the judges, lawyers, parties and case numbers) and make the judges afraid of being shamed publicly. After discussing with some friend s, I have decided to publish a bilingual ENGLISH-HINDI BOOK OF 250 CASE STUDIES OF MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. Being a journalist-designer-publisher-printer, I can personally do almost all of the work -- thus minimizing costs. Each case study will be summarized in two pages -- one each in English and Hindi. The English book will be of 250 pages approximately. Likewise the Hindi version. My promise is: I shall call a spade a spade, and write without mincing words -- never mind the possibility of being tried fo...

False criminal charges filed by police terrorize powerless common people, and clog up the courts with lakhs of baseless cases that go on for years and decades. Influential organized criminals reap the direct benefit of such police actions. Police often registers FIRs and later, chargesheets, for trivial incidents such as protest marches, minor quarrels between neighbours, fights due to road-rage, etc. In this way, India's justice system incriminates ordinary people, and creates an overloaded and ineffective judiciary that allows organized criminals to operate fearlessly. If the government and judiciary are serious about clearing pendencies (320 lakhs, estimated to take 320 years to clear), then this sort of obviously frivolous cases should be summarily dismissed. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

The judiciary is functioning as an unchecked power -- not as a legitimate organ of governance with checks and balances. Its various constituents are clumping together, and are wielding absolute, uncontrolled power. This is unhealthy for the nation, and it must be halted. Roughly 19,000 judges are holding 127 crore Indians hostage to their arbitrary and frequently unlawful decisions, for which they cannot be held accountable. Over 3 lakh undertrials languish in judicial custod y without a hearing, while the courts shut down for all sorts of holidays and lengthy vacations. Between 10 to 15 crore Indians are perennially harassed by pending cases of various kinds. Where is justice? Less than 100 years ago, our forefathers staged a prolonged struggle for independence from British Rule. There have been numerous struggles and movements after Independence also, against all sorts of tyranny and oppression. So, it may be reasonable to believe that people from different walks of life can...

Terms like "pendency" or "backlog of cases" suggest that the problem is temporary. For instance, if the judiciary is slow in one month or one year, yes, it can possibly make up for that slowness by working faster the next month or the next year. BUT SUCH IS NOT THE CASE WITH INDIA'S JUDICIARY. The existing "backlog" of 320 lakh cases cases has built up over decades, due to systemic problems of our entire legal system -- not only because of how the judges handle cases, but als o various behaviours of lawyers, police, government and the general public. A root cause is the structure of our laws and our jurisprudence. Our laws and our system of handling cases are mismatched with the temperament and culture of the Indian people. Is all this going to change overnight? Do we have any realistic way of changing all these factors over the next week, month or year? Is anybody in government or in the judiciary even applying their mind to these problems? T...

The core values of judiciary are not just undemocratic, they are ANTI-democratic. These values are hard-wired into its DNA by its creators, the British colonialists, who used the judiciary to suppress dissent and enforce their imperialistic agenda over our country. The natural tendency of judges is to side with those who are in power. The majority of judges are blatantly pro-establishment. They safeguard the authority of government and of big business lobbies. And they silenc e the common people's dissent by making us afraid of their monarchical and unreasoned authority. Judges deal with litigants as subjects, not citizens. Judiciary is NOT the liberator of We The People. With some notable exceptions, judges are generally NOT a faithful watchdog of our fundamental rights. They continue to be instruments in the hands of oppressors – very similar to the days of British Raj. Please awaken your critical faculties, and stop having blind faith in the judiciary. ...

In the face of colonial behaviour by the judiciary, why are we quiet? Is it because we think of these judges as "our people"? Because they are brown-skinned people with names like PD Dinakaran and KG Balakrishnan, instead of white-skinned people with names like Reginald Dyer? Sometimes I lie awake all night, wondering: Are we quiet because we fear that we may destabilize the nation if we rise up in revolt? Are we docile and obedient because in our own hearts, we consider cont empt of court to be such a grave offence, that the continuous injustices meted out by 19,000 judges to lakhs of people seem to be OK in comparison? Are we failing to unite because the fear of going to jail overwhelms us? Is this an enemy that we cannot fight because it disguises itself as part of our democratic governance structure? Because fighting this enemy seems like fighting against Law & Order itself? Or are we unable to define this enemy because it has no face, unlike, say, politica...

Rather than functioning as a legitimate organ of governance with healthy checks and balances, the judiciary is functioning as an unchecked power. Its various constituents have clumped together, and are together exercising absolute, uncontrolled power over the nation. This is unhealthy and must not be allowed to continue. About 19,000 judges are holding 127 crore Indians hostage to their arbitrary and often unlawful decisions, for which they cannot be held accountable. Over 3  lakh undertrials languish in judicial custody while the courts shut down for all sorts of holidays and lengthy vacations. Where is the justice? Less than one century back, our forefathers staged a prolonged struggle for independence from British Rule. There have been numerous struggles and movements after Independence also, against all sorts of tyranny and oppression. So, it may be reasonable to believe that people from different walks of life can come together again to break the judiciary's strangleh...

Corruption in India gets sheltered by distorted judicial functioning i.e. stay orders, adjournments, unlawful judgements, etc. If judiciary functioned properly, about 80 percent of corruption would disappear. So, to tackle corruption in government and in private sector, we have to focus on cleaning up the judicial system i.e. Judicial Reforms. Einstein used to say: "you cannot solve the problem on the level it occured". This holds true for judiciary. Judicial reforms cannot b e achieved by filing a PIL, because that would be asking the judiciary to judge their own cause – sure to end in disaster. To reform judiciary, we have to go to a higher level, namely the level of We The People, in whose name the various organs of government, including the judiciary, preside over the nation. We will have to awaken the people of India, and involve the other two organs of the State, namely legislature and executive. So judicial reform is a political agenda, and not a judicial agen...

Chief Justices are not supposed to be pen-pushers. They are supposed to have a GRAND VISION of justice, the BIG PICTURE of the entire judicial system. Theirs is one of the topmost jobs in the country. They are given the responsibility and independence to correct the bad practices of the past, to ensure that justice reaches the common man. They are supposed to be able administrators. But the present system of appointment, it seems, gives us only short-sighted pygmies as Chief Justices -- men who don't feel sufficiently responsible and sufficiently empowered to change the system. And so they just hold hearings till they retire and get a cushy government job. Tragic. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

For the ills of our nation, the public generally points fingers at the political parties, government, police, bureaucracy, etc. But it is very rare that anybody points fingers at the judiciary. Why this conspiracy of silence? Let us discuss the reasons why various stakeholders or interest-groups have remained silent for decades... starting with the common man. And let us ask whether keeping silent is good for the nation. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share