The case rests

Criminal justice procedures are entangled with political power and money muscle to ensure that the rule of law will not prevail

Joginder Singh Delhi

It is customary for the political class to express routine alarm at rising corruption, but they are the partners in the same crime. Former prime minister, AB Vajapayee, stressed his government’s commitment to “zero tolerance of corruption” and confirmed that his government would not bring any pressure to bear on the working of the Central Bureau of Investigation or any other constitutional agency. This was on August 25, 2002. Zero tolerance has become a joke. Market-led liberalisation only created more opportunities for corruption. No new laws, policy reforms or new techniques of investigation were introduced.

The backlog as on February 27, 2006 was as under

Supreme Court             33,635

High Courts                  33,41,040

Subordinate Courts       2,53,06,458

The process of obtaining justice is seemingly interminable. The accused can take advantage of the cluttered cases to delay the nemesis, until either they or the key witnesses pass away. Investigation at the first step is often shoddy and especially in high-profile cases where loopholes are left as they are. The public is tired of having the big fish get away, or if caught being treated with kid gloves. However, the investigating authorities are not autonomous. They work keeping the legislature and judiciary in mind.

The Chief Justice of India, while addressing a conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of the High Courts on March 1, 2006, said, "The country's justice delivery system appears to be on the verge of the collapse. Not much has been done for the improvement of investigative and prosecution machinery. Significant suggestions for separation of the investigative wing from the law and order duties and changes in the rules of evidence still lie unattended.  The public outrage over the failure of the criminal justice system in some high-profile cases must shake us all up into the realisation that something needs to be urgently done to revamp the whole process, though steering clear of knee-jerk reactions, remembering that law is a serious business.”

A fundamental flaw is the premise of criminal justice that witnesses will not lie under oath. Practically, the system cannot protect the witness from harassment. It cannot compensate the witness for the losses of livelihood in time spent at courts. To give a personal example, once I asked my wife to drop me at the nearest taxi stand, as the government staff car did not come in time for the flight to Kolkata. While coming back home, to the Curzon Road apartments, her car was hit by a rashly-driven bus. As I was away, I asked her to immediately report the case to the police. This happened in 1979. The case came up after eleven years. Defence asked her whether her eyesight was fine and whether she really knew driving, (though she had been driving for ten years), and why did she not take preventive measures to avoid the bus hitting her car. In all this, she had no intervention, or help of the prosecutor. She told me that she was made to feel like an accused, rather than an aggrieved party.