Delayed Justice and Its Effects By Chhaya, Mumbai, India
During last few days, a lot of long pending cases have seen closure. We feel happy for the people who are given just punishment for their crime, still, there is this nagging irony. Even the most high profile cases have taken nearly a decade in finishing. And then there are endless days to go during appeals to higher courts.
Our judiciary is plagued with the lack of accountability. Most of the people of our country are poor. Imagine them running pillar to post to get justice. The justice that gets delayed by decades is no justice at all.
The Mumbai serial blast case took 13 years, the Connought place shootout took 10 years. God only know how many years it will take to give justice to the poor family of Rizwan-ur-Rehman who was recently murdered for marrying a Hindu girl. I fear it will take even more time as the main accused are top police officers and one of the wealthiest men of Kolkata, the girl’s father.
What is the result of all this? The result is that the common man has lost nearly all his faith in the judicial system. Nearly 4 crore cases are pending in front of our courts. Imagine what those people go through every day, for years? Many criminals live a full life and die of old age before they get convicted.
This is the reason of the rapidly growing intolerance in Indians. We are not violent people by nature. But when you know that to get the rapist of your daughter convicted, you will have to bear 14-15 humiliating years, suddenly the father finds mob lynching a better solution.
Many petty criminals (refer to recent blogs by various writers of 4indianwoman.com and discussion board links on the same topic) get inhuman punishment. More than 10 people were beaten to death by poor villager few months ago. There were petty thieves. But can you really blame the villagers?
The Indian judiciary is not bad. In most cases, justice is done. But it takes so much time that the outcome is worth nothing more that the paper of the judgment.
The sheer lethargy has to be stopped. Courts must show more pro-active approach so that justice is not delayed like this. It will not only do wonders for India’s image, it will tackle the growing monster of Mob Intolerance.
Chhaya,
Sometimes we really have to scratch our brains and think, 'what's that case?', it happened so long ago...But justice even when delieverd late does gladden us because of that feeling 'ah! at last!'.
The other punishments arent justice, that is street policing that makes news and hides, only to surface elsewhere...even social monitoring would help here, but who will bell the cat?
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i agree with u.. but i also feel that people are so fed up with long delays that their nerves are too frayed to hang on to hope.. its a very sad situation. thanx for the comment sweety.
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"This is the reason of the rapidly growing intolerance in Indians. We are not violent people by nature. But when you know that to get the rapist of your daughter convicted, you will have to bear 14-15 humiliating years, suddenly the father finds mob lynching a better solution."
Chhaya, you've hot the bull's eye with this statement!
Well analysed and wrapped up.
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thanks so much Sangeeta.. hope u got my congrats for ur upcoming Novel
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Thanks, Chhaya
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Justice should always be in time and rightly made ..as for it will set a good example for others who tend to do such mistakes in life..cos I believe that JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED..as delayed justice leads to dis-satisfaction and thus results in restless mind and intolerance ..
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justice delayed is indeed justice denied.. no doubt.. thnx for ur comment honey
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Justice is delayed and a very time before a verdict is given. Wish things would faster and things settle down faster, instead of dragging things that too with a vague, unclear predication waiting somewhere in the Future.
Interesting and so very true.
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thanx so much for ur support...
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It's just part of a general decline of morals in the fabric of indian society...Lynch Mobs rule and justice takes years, lol
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it becomes easier for the govt too - a case less to prosecute. sigh!
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Thanks Chhaya for sharing a very relevant subject and covered very nicely.
JUSTICE delayed is justice denied.
Because of the delay in getting justice people resort to crime and taking law in their hands, which is really bad. Criminals are doing daring acts thinking that it will take ages to get an imprisonment and final verdict.
Less than one per cent of the gross national product was spent on the judiciary and the state would not be meeting its obligation of making justice available to the people if it failed to spend more on the judiciary on the grounds of financial stringency.
The antiquity of our laws could be another reason for the accumulation of cases. Shortages of judges.
court procedures are very old.
All these ills have to be removed to bring back the faith and confidence of a common man in Indian judicial system. Government and Judiciary must cooridinate and act swiftly in improving the status of judiciary and justice in India.
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thnx for taking time to read .i support u fully. the rotting judicial system in the paramount reason of the breaking down of social behavior in indians
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hey cindy my prev comments vanished hr too..
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heyyyyyyyy, Lalli, u are Lalitha!!! wow!!!
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It's common knowledge that justice delayed is justice denied. The red tape of judiciary is baffling all of us ... but what I strongly disagree with is the sheer show of temper from the general public. Remember we waited 300 years before getting justice in our freedom, still it wasn't anything like this. We hear ppl taking to streets, killing, tormenting and bombing if they are disillusioned. Why this? Was India very quick even ten years back .... so that the citizens are fed up now at the slightest pretext? Ills of judiciary were there ... some compulsions only 'they' understood. But, good sense should prevail on both sides of the table. Unfortunately, it is not. So, who will get the motivation to solve such issues?
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i guess u r correct, but then, we dont have a leader like Gandhi anymore.. moreover, our generation has very little patience.. sad times
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some of the popular sentiments of true democracy are surging but institutions are still not delivering...quite scary in many ways and may well become too chaotic if the systems do not learn and evolve rapidly...fine essay...cheers
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thnx a ton charlie for taking time to read...
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I liked the ending of your blog, Chhaya. Delayed justice is the very root to mob intolerance. A nicely written blog! Keep it up!!!
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thnx Neha, i really think that its like a chain reaction... one injustice leads to another,,, and yeah, i really loved ur write up on the "Dress COde"
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Thats an important topic that you've discussed and I know justice delayed often feels like justice denied. Yet, I guess they need to be damn sure too... and that sometimes leads to time consuming. Of course lethargy is there too.
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we need distribute the judicial systems so that petty cases are resolved quickly, leaving more resources for the complex ones...
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