A separate justice

It is an admission of judicial vulnerability in Tamil Nadu. The SC decision casts the spotlight on the failure of the courts in Chennai to administer justice without fear or favour, no matter what 8212; no matter who. The solution, the judges of the apex court have suggested, is to airlift the cases to a different locale. The cases will now be tried in a special court that will be constituted in Karnataka, under a special judge, within a special time frame.

There is a problem here. While the apex court8217;s intervention is enormously wise and welcome, surely it cannot be the end of this matter. It is true that in many ways what happens in Tamil Nadu is peculiar to that state and that it mirrors the peculiar ways in which the rule of law is being subverted there. The subduing of the judiciary is part of the larger story that is being written with yet greater ferocity by the chief minister in her latest tenure as elected Queen. But questions must also be raised in this moment about a larger malaise. What is that institutional weakness that the powers that be in Tamil Nadu are able to seize upon, and which the chinks that so easily widen into escape hatches for the powerful? Surely, the SC8217;s message cannot be that justice is circumscribed by geography. India cannot be mapped into two kinds of territories: where justice roams free and where it cannot. Surely the packing up of the cases from Chennai and their relocation to another state is only the beginning of a deeper look at the judicial process, one that runs through Tamil Nadu as well.