Last week, a new Chief Justice of India took office. We have had four this year, so the change can hardly be described as momentous and I would have ignored all mention of it if I had not, while switching channels, caught Justice V.N. Khare’s first interview as Chief Justice. The interviewer was an eager, young reporter who wanted (naturally) to know what the new Chief Justice’s priorities were going to be. After mulling awhile over this utterly simple question, our new chief upholder of the law said something to the effect that ‘‘there are so many things, so many challenges’’. If this were not banality enough, he proceeded to elucidate in a way that gives banality a whole new meaning. Infrastructure needed to be improved, India had only 13.5 judges per 10 lakh people, other countries had 125 and every time there is a new law there is more pressure on the judiciary. It was as if he were taking charge of a judicial system in perfect condition instead of one so mired in stagnation that it will take an estimated 300 years for it to deal with its accumulated cases. Surely, a new Chief Justice should have more to say about why things never seem to improve? Surely, we have a right to know why there are not enough judges? And, why physical infrastructure is in such bad shape that in courtrooms in Mumbai and Delhi it is not unusual to trip over stray cats and dogs on your way in? Conditions in our lower courts are even more appalling and in places like Ujjain I have personally fought my way past cows who seemed strangely drawn to the courtroom I was due to appear in. It was, interestingly, on account of my having made comments on the mess in the judiciary that I was summoned in a case that in any other country would not even have been admitted. There are hundreds of thousands of such cases in India, cases of no merit, cases that should be thrown out at a pre-trial hearing but in India they find their way into a judicial process that has stagnated so dangerously that more and more young Indians pick up a gun when they want justice. We know there are too few judges, our courtrooms in no way look like courtrooms should, the system is clogged with cases that should never have come to court. What we want to know from the Chief Justice is: how long it will take for things to improve? A state that cannot deliver justice cannot deliver the rule of law. Or to use the words of Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, sentenced last week to death, ‘‘Peace comes with justice; if there is no justice there is no democracy. Democracy in India is under threat.’’ Geelani, a former professor at Delhi University, has been convicted for being part of the conspiracy that brought about the December 13 attack on Parliament. He was arrested under POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) which does not allow bail so he has spent a year in jail despite a powerful campaign by his former colleagues, students and human rights groups to get him released. He has reason to be bitter about Indian justice because on the basis of the evidence the prosecution presented against him he would almost certainly not spend even a day in jail in a country that recognises the principle of a person being innocent till proved guilty. A week before he was sentenced to death I spoke to his lawyer, Seema Gulati, who said the case against him was so weak that they were certain he would be acquitted. The case is that the Delhi police while routinely tapping the mobile telephones of Kashmiris taped a conversation between him and his brother in Baramulla a day after the attack on Parliament. They had this conversation translated by an illiterate vegetable seller who said Geelani had used the words yeh to zaroori tha to justify the attack. When his lawyers had the same tape recording translated by two other Kashmiris, neither came up with these words but even if they had would it be enough to establish conspiracy? What kind of justice system sentences a man with no previous criminal record to death in a year but allows the alleged mastermind of the plot, Azhar Masood, to remain under trial for five years? Masood was arrested for active involvement in acts of terrorism and was Pakistani and yet his case was allowed to drag on long enough for him to be released in exchange for the passengers of IC-814, what does that tell us about our justice system? There are thousands of people in Indian jails, some so-called offenders barely out of their teens, who have spent years in prison simply because they cannot afford bail. I know of one case in which a young boy has spent six years in jail for stealing Rs 100 because he could not afford the Rs 5,000 he was asked to pay as bail. This sort of thing happens only when there are serious flaws in the justice system. If the new Chief Justice wants to make a difference he will need to go beyond the usual banalities. We know there are too few judges, that our courtrooms in no way look like courtrooms should, that the system is clogged with cases that should never have come to court, that laws and legal procedures are outdated and obsolete. We know all this, what we want to know from the Chief Justice is how long it will take for things to improve. Months, years or decades? Email the Author
