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Is It Them Or Is It Us ?

Re:"Crass Disregard For The Law" The Hindu 02/04/2009

We all love to bash the extremists.

But excuse me, we are bhi tho not doodh se dhule huve.

When the judicial system appears to revel in its derelict, dysfunctional state, pathologies will follow.

Or will they not?

Consider this horror from The Hindu's own archives :


It’s just another day... NAVAZ KOTWAL AND MAJA DARWALA

In our courts, justice works in mysterious ways that are beyond mortal understanding.

Photo: Mahesh Harilal


The Judicial system: In need of an overhaul.

After five years of knocking about district courts, you have to laugh really; if you didn’t, you would cry, it is all so pathetic.

It’s the fast track courts today. The case hasn’t reached very far. After five years, charges are still being framed. Today it is number three on board. Everyone waits. His Honour is well known for coming late on to the bench: never there before noon. But no one dares challenge the incredible waste of public time; instead they sweat gently into their seats and whisper resentfully about the law’s delays inside the filthy little court.

When the Honourable finally arrives, neither prosecution nor defence counsel are present. The accused have been there for hours, their eyes anxiously casting about for their lawyers. The witnesses too are downcast. They have been victims and are frightened all the time. Now they will hang about in close proximity to their tormentors for the whole day and lose a day’s wages in the bargain. But that is hardly the court’s concern.

All in a day’s work

While we wait, the next case is called. It’s a murder. Five witnesses are to be examined — two doctors and three policemen. The doctors are not around. The police are. The judge asks them if summons have been served to the doctors. Yes, say the smart cops, just this morning, they would have got it by now. The judge knows better. One of the doctors had to come from a town 100 km away and the other from a village 75 km away. The summons had been issued 10 days ago. The judge loses it. “Why did you wait till the 10th day? He shouts, “From top to bottom you are a lazy and corrupt service will never improve.” The audience laughs, happy to hear from on high what they cannot say with any safety. The cops shift on their feet but this is too common to care about and the court is too little a power in their universe to be a serious worry. Nothing is going to happen beyond a few standard slurs.

The judge signals and matters begin. The accused shuffle in and the formalities of examination begin. Meanwhile the Public Prosecutor is nowhere to be seen. His name is called out again and again. Still nothing. The judge takes over and does the examination in chief. The defence then takes on the cross. The case is reinforced by a dying declaration. This is strong stuff and valuable to the prosecution’s chances of getting a conviction. So valuable in fact that the record shows that the police have drawn it out of the dead man an hour after the body had been sent for post mortem examination. The confirming panchnama has been performed even after the dead man’s statements were recorded This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the old adage that the long arm of the law will get you in the end and now seemingly even beyond the grave if it has to. This is almighty good policing.

The defence asks the cop if there is any possible explanation he would like to put forward for such diligence and tenacity. But the cop is now as quiet: silent as the grave, you might say. The defence goes on. Does the policeman recall that one of the accused had a fractured leg and was on crutches when arrested? Is there a reason why the arrest memo and confirmatory inspection note missed this somewhat obvious condition? More silence ensues, as the defence buries the case.

Given the other circumstances, it’s likely that the police had in fact caught the right lot but no reliable corroboratory evidence has been gathered. As the errors in investigation mount up, the judge intervenes: have senior investigating officers seen these reports; has the case diary had the Deputy Superintendent’s attention? He despairs of responsibility or good practice coming from this quarter and comments: “You people don’t take your work seriously and when the judgement is delivered you blame the judiciary for letting off criminals.”

But all is not lost. There are the expert witness doctors yet to come. At 3 p.m., after the lunch recess, the much awaited doctors appear. The Public Prosecutor is still nowhere to seen and after a few desultory cries for him the judge again takes on expert witness examination. It should be a straightforward formality.

Expert witness

In the cross, the defence counsel establishes that it is the same doctor who has provided the post mortem report. It is indeed. Death, he says, was due to deep head injuries. The bones had been broken and pierced through. The site of injury is clearly mentioned in his report. The defence accepts these truths but is curious: where might the Frontal lobe be, is it in the front above the eyes or on top where the hair grows? The doctor hesitates and points a wavering finger mid-way at his own head. The defence wants clarification: is it up here or down there? But the doctor is accommodating — he is willing to go either way. The defence leaves that alone. The Frontal, it is now established, could be anywhere that is not “backside”. That’s fair enough. But still nice to know where all the other bones might be: so he asks where the Occipital is situated. These long names are getting the doctor down. He is in a sweat: Temporal, Parietal, Occipital — what is all this? What’s in a name? Isn’t it all somewhere around the head? The defence is patient. He asks gently, what the term CSF mentioned in the post mortem is. The doctor perks up. He knows this one. For sure “F” stands for “fluid” but is not really sure about the C or the S. One out of three is surely good enough. The defence thinks so and is satisfied.

Too many battles

The judge is not. The post mortem report is going to have no value if the doctor who did it can not verify it. He explodes. He asks the doctor if he has ever studied medicine; does he have a degree; is he really a registered practitioner? The doctor does not answer. The judge does not want to know. He knows the system too well to take on another battle. He waves him out. The cross is over. The defence rests. The result has been foreclosed.

Our case is called. But the defence lawyer says his submissions will take a full day and asks for a date 10 days hence. The judge knows he should hear the matter day to day. But the day is nearly over and there seems little point in starting arguments now. He has other business to attend to. So he gives a date nine days hence. He says he is helpless. We are all helpless. We bow ourselves out. It’s just another day in the palaces of justice. Ho hum.

Maja Daruwala is Director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative while Navaz Kotwal is Programme Coordinator.

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

And now consider the context:

Rs. 2,630-crore bribes paid to lower judiciary: report

Legal Correspondent

Delays and corruption lead to cynicism

---

Miscarriage of justice in Gujarat riots case Upper judiciary is relatively clean

· New Delhi: Transparency International has revealed that an estimated amount of Rs. 2,630 crore was paid in bribes to the lower judiciary in India during 2006.

· The Global Corruption Report 2007 released on Thursday deals with corruption in judiciary in 32 countries.

"Although provisions for theindependence and accountability of the judiciary exist in India's Constitution, corruption is increasingly apparent. Two decisions provide evidence for this. One, a Supreme Court decision in the 2002 Gujarat communal riots exposed the system's failure to prevent miscarriage of justice by acquitting persons close to the party in power.

The second involved the acquittal in 2006 of nine people allegedly involved in the murder in 1999 of a young woman, Jessica Lal, even though the incident took place in the presence of a number of witnesses. One of the accused was the son of a politician."

Two manifestations

The report says, "Corruption has two manifestations: one is the corruption of judicial officers and the other is corruption in the broader justice system. In India, the upper judiciary is relatively clean, though there are obviously exceptions.

"Proceedings are in open court and documents are available for a nominal payment. There is an effective system of correction in the form of reviews and appeals. In the broader justice institutions, corruption is systemic. There is a high level of discretion in the processing of paperwork during a trial and multiple points when court clerks, prosecutors and police investigators can misuse their power without discovery."

The report points out that the Centre for Media Studies, which conducted a countrywide survey in 2005 on public perceptions and experiences of corruption in the lower judiciary, found that bribes seemed to be solicited as the price for of getting things done.

"The estimated amount paid in bribes in the 12-month period [in 2006] is around Rs. 2,630 crore. Money was paid to the officials in the following proportions: 61 per cent to lawyers; 29 per cent to court officials; 5 per cent to judges; and 5 per cent to middlemen. The primary causes of corruption are delays in the disposal of cases, shortage of judges and complex procedures, all of which are exacerbated by a preponderance of new laws."

Huge pendency

As of February 2006, cases numbering 33,635 were pending in the Supreme Court with 26 judges and 33,41,040 cases in the High Courts with 670 judges. There were 2,53,06,458 cases in the 13,204 subordinate courts. This vast backlog leads to long adjournments and indolence in India's judiciary and this prompts people to pay to speed up the process.

The ratio of judges is abysmally low at 12-13 per one million persons compared to 107 in the United States, 75 in Canada and 51 in the United Kingdom.

The degree of delays and corruption has led to cynicism about the justice system. This erosion of confidence has deleterious consequences that neutralise the deterrent impact of law. People seek shortcuts through bribery, favours, hospitality or gifts, leading to further unlawful behaviour, says the report.

The Lawyers of Chennai or the Shiva Sena; Or a Jaswant,Mulayam or Stalin "helping the poor".

Or the editorial class itself, crassly dissing a sathyagrahi.

They all know the system of checks and balances in India is just so much mush. They have that "faith" in the system.

And they take their chances.

Met Marlice and Her Pals ?

Re: IPL. You Gotta Be A Boy Scout, Before You Can Be A Policeman

It is a fundamental principle of a self respecting society that government exists to serve its citizens and not the other way round.

So if the judges of the supreme court appear bashful about making a full disclosure of their assets,they will be firmly told to grow up and obey the Law.

If a minister holds up a flight or throws his weight around,that will be news.

If mantriji's cavalcade holds up the traffic,citizens will make a note of it in their little black diaries and send her a message come election day.

It is also a principle of civility, that people must be governed through reason, persuasion and example. Not through threats or inducements.

That is why it was disappointing that our suave,like so-not- Mamta Bannerji, with a blue chip reputation for "business friendliness" Home Minister, let the letters "IPL" escape his lips.

The ruling elite wanted a Big, Bad, Law and they got it. They wanted another Big,Bloated Bureaucracy and they got that too.

Now the Home Minister wanted the IPL.

That was so not cool. That was desperation.

Desperation either because election time is also beat the bushes and wring out the last drop of juice time.

Or because, despite the fact that India has been a victim of terror through all her tender independent years,"the sponge that protects us all" in Ashley Tellis' poignant description,we have yet to get our act together.

If our policemen had the opportunity to be boy scouts, they would have learned the motto,"Be Prepared".

Unfortunately some policemen and their bosses would rather be heroes, than be prepared.

After all who needs a hero,when there's no crisis.

Elections are as natural and routine as breathing and need not be such a big deal .

And it is ridiculous to let normal life be disrupted because of elections.

Today IPL. Tomorrow the Kumbha Mela? Or the Rath Yatra?

Terrorism too need not be such a big deal.

Just be prepared,that's all.

As the Home Minister himself has said, "Fighting terror is a mind game."

Creating visions of apocalypse and denigrating commerce as mere money grubbing, all to the chorus of a sycophantic media is also a mind game.

But the target is none other surprise! surprise ! than the hapless Indian citizen.

I'm a hopeless romantic.

I'm still hoping Hon'ble HM will flap his lips and make our police personnel get the latest, lightweight, bulletproof armour.

Call 'em Hemant Karkare suits, if you want.

That will surely play on the mind of any wannabe terrorist.

And it won't hurt with the wise folks back home in Sivagangai either.

Koi Sunvai Nahin Hothi Hai Babujee

In the US, the men said it:



And the women said it:



They cuddled it on their teddy bears,

dressed their pets with it,

they wore it on their bags,

stuck it on their cars,

and just so you would never miss it, they printed it on their clocks:



And put it on the coasters with your drinks.


When they were really mad, they even carried banners:



As an Indian for whom even the memory of the morning sounds and bustle carried within the magnificent modulation of the Suprabhatam



or the azaan,



was a tonic,as fragrant and bracing as the tumbler of decoction coffee, many of us started our day with, this cry of utter despair and resignation was something that I could never get used to.

For all the swagger and the colors and cleverness of commerce this seemed like "a sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions." Karl Marx on Religion.

"SSDD" was the sad credo of the America behind the hype. The angry wail of the many who had been left behind in the cavernous cracks of a "developed" society.

The unshaven old man carrying a lathi who had somehow been allowed into the Marxist Home Minister's peshi expelled that same tired sigh when he put his hand on my shoulder for support and said, "Koi Sunvayee Nahin Hothi Babuji"

I had suffered nearly a decade of repression, from the corrupt bureaucracy and the press, and I could only agree with him.

Indeed, we all know, if the Hon'ble Marxist Home Minister had heard this man, he too would have been able to do precious little than appreciate the pithy local wisdom of his petitioner.

When Neelam Krishnamurthy witnessed the Delhi High Court actually reducing the sentences of the Ansals in the Uphaar tragedy, she expressed the same horror of betrayal.




Sangeetha Sharma, advocate of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and mother of two, was overwhelmed. Hounded and betrayed,by an environment conspicuously lacking in honour, she did the honourable thing. This mother took her own life.

No black guard of the law rioted for Sangeetha Sharma. They just forgot her.



Nobody heard Aman Kachroo when he cried for help.



Nobody heard the girl from Guntur.

Parliament did not hear the Supreme Court either.

Ask Somnath Da and he will tell you nobody heard him either.



Our Chief Election Commissioner thought he had earned the right to exercise his fundamental human right to complain and obtain redressal.

He, like the rest of us, had to come back with his intentions questioned and ears ringing.



The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court imagined he would be heard by the striking lawyers in Chennai. What happened?

Those unfortunate souls are still striking. Even doing some typically delayed PR. Soli Sorabji's "delay syndrome".

Who is going to listen to the lawyers now ?



We have our parliaments and our legislatures. Our courts and our thanas. Our Press and our zillion news channels.

And they all sing the same mournful dirge in this noisily derelict "democracy" that the stupid foreign press has somehow labeled "vibrant":

"Yahaan Koyi Kisi Ka Suntha Nahin Hain. Koyi Sunvayee Nahin Hothi Babuji".

Repudiate The Two Nation Theory, General Jingo

When General Jingo the Fourth was airlifted into New Delhi and was given a non-stop live demonstration on just how desperately cheap Indian television time is, I watched it all.

After all the only thing desperately cheaper than airtime on Indian television is the time of that rare imbecile based in the punya bhoomi who believes in the idea of the rule of law.

Every other Indian is "practical", or as in the case of the media group that was doing Kissy Kissy of Life to the faded General Jingo The Fourth - "pragmatic".

That is probably why, when the IV General Jingo was goading his "educated and conscious" audience to show him some big, "strategic", Reaganesque, Hollywood, Dirty Harry, "Go Ahead Make My Day" kinda moves,all our native genius could come up with was, "Will You Return Dawood?"

Hoo Ha.

The Indian elite's craving for insanity, "please spank me, please spank me, Oh my God, somebody please kick me where it stings", will never cease to amaze and scare me.

We had Masood Azhar and Omar Sheikh locked up for godsssake in our jails, right?

So how did that help us?

So now we want Dawood.

Get real my dear countrymen, we cannot even do a stupid Twenty/Twenty nautanki in this aspiring super power.

There is only one strategic question.

And I being a proven impractical could have been the only one who could have asked it.

"General Jingo, don't you think its time you repudiated the two nation theory?May have seemed like a great idea at that time, but isn't it beginning to stink?"

Isn't it time you gave a fateha to Shri Jinnah's gift that never seems to stop giving?

Haven't you realised, with all your war colleges and war games and strategising and tacticalising that first it was two, then three and now it has become maybe a twenty three nation making mean machine?"

"I mean, don't you realise that till such time as you publicly give up on that hateful idea, no Indian, except maybe Shri Advani, who admires Jinnah as a true secularist, will ever barely be able to wait till you turn your back, so he/she can burst out laughing ?"

You are no Clint Eastwood, General Jingo.
Just a Dirty Harry who is stuck and can't move on.

But then that would have made General Jingo draw his piece and shoot at me and that would not be practical at all.

To Have Or To Be?

Watch this interview with Erich Fromm and watch it all fall into place.

Imitative India Fails The Mahatma

So The Government of India has allowed Vijay Mallya to buy the Gandhian artefacts.

We all love Shri Mallya for the Great Indian Party Animal that he is and I am upset with the atrocious quality of Bagpiper the only booze that I can occasionally, very occasionally afford, but it is a little embarassing that the aspiring world super power could only get a daruwalla to return the Gandhiana.

So once again we hear the familiar old sound. Of the bottom being scraped.

I mean Vijay Mallya is a dear soul, but he is no Larry or Sergei. He is no Steve Jobs.

Tushar Gandhi says," So you expect a vegetarian, khadi clad Indian with the millions to buy it for you?"

Was a time, just a few decades ago when that was not such a Fellinian vision.

And ...let's not forget... its a T shirt clad American who has made the millions from our suited, booted and earringed tycoons.

Lagaan again?

The babulog ka babalog who dominate our tv news nowadays, are fashionable people.

They like to be seen as the true descendents of old Winnie.

They give the impression that they are using all the professional control they can muster, to say what they really want,"Gandhi was a naked fakir, and please I'd rather be discussing Karan Johar, so can we just move on already?"

"Gandhi was against modern allopathic medicine. The legal system. Insurance. Western toilets, miniskirts and the pub culture..." lashes missiamma at the Gandhian biographer and researcher.

Poor man has a taken aback moment.

"But that was Hind Swaraj..." he cries out almost holding up his hands to his face."That was so long ago..."

Sorry to interrupt, but both missiamma and man have missed something. The Mahatma was thinking about "the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak".

The "pub culture" was just what the European doctor ordered for the hapless European working stiff.

A fun, money spinning alternative to Marx's religion.

A place he could waste his meagre wages, drink himself silly and throw darts at a cork board, night after night after night. Till he got to Disneyland.

In India of course, our crack pot elite appears to be getting all girded up (or "girdled up"?)to fight the next War of Indian Womanhood on this very issue.

Just Do It.

Just put Bernie Madoff's mugshot on the Indian currency note and lets launch into our new destiny.

That will surely satisfy the souls of our treacherous "practical" dads.

When The Times of India Did A Taliban On The Mahatma

When The Times of India did a Taliban on the Mahatma it was horrible enough, worse when not a single Indian voice objected.

When the nation's intellect is either too greedy or too fearful of the nation's family newspaper, we need to chant the Gurudev's prayer, along with the Hanuman Chalisa.