JUDGMENT

Justice is not just & certainly not cheap. Philosophically, if it is truth that everybody is right from his place. It is held so in the material world too. An accused & victim are right from their own point & at their respective place, yet it is difficult on paper in the court of law who is sinner & who’s not. In the end in the court, both accused & victim are left alone & their money speaks in court through their lawyers. One, who pours more money, gets better & winning lawyer. The goddess of justice puts her weight on the weighting scale she’s holding on hearing & certainly not on seeing who’s guilty.

They say with their wide mouth, 'justice delayed; is justice denied’. If this quote is to be taken as truth, justice is being denied, justice is denied. Thanks to many variables, viz. scarcity of judges, lawyers, perennially long list of booked cases, faulty investigations, ignorance or purposefully weak case building by the investigating agencies, purposeful delays in the cases & behind most of the reasons is the greed to gain money & still more money. The corruption is the biggest reason, the monster holding back & trailing back the judicial system.

See the irony, the person who is considered as the epitome of advocacy Ram Jethmalani ran pillar to post to save killers of none other than Indira Gandhi, seating Prime Minister & still becomes country’s Law Minister. He tried even the mercy petition & drags the President in such a heinous & shameful act of him. Well, it is considered to be innocent till stamped guilty by the court. Yet, the killer grabbed at the spot of incident & still the fellow trying to save those traitors, some political party still accommodates him, offers ministerial berth that too Law. Bandit queen Phoolen Devi is granted ticket due to sheer her fame or say infamy, fools like us vote her in too & she manages to seat on the same chairs where once towering personalities like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Nehru, Azad & like must have seated once. God is simply great!

What it actually needs to arrive at the judgment one would get confused at. Shooting illustrious Pramod Mahajan at point blank range in his own flat by his own brother & the judicial system is running & running & collecting all those items under the goose of evidences. Case is lingering on & on. May be in the end say after ten or even fifteen years the man would be set free due to want of sufficient evidence to prove him guilty. Bombay blast killers, have lived their life, many of us have even forgotten the number of blasts took place, forgotten intensity of blast & number of people killed; relatives of victims perhaps have cursed their fate & taken the fact in their stride lived on. After so many years even if the court passes judgment it is too late & too little. still if somebody appeals in the higher court against the judgment, two three decades will pass just like that. The judgment may not be issued as those involved have died in due course of time.

Getting witness to arrive to the court to deliver their statement is Herculean task & thankless job. As a matter of fact the fellow gets nothing but embarrassment, loss of his time & money, threatening calls & perhaps lives in permanent danger to his life. On the top of it, if some witness persists & visits court on date after date; is asked on what has happened seventeen years back is nothing but a joke. All must be thick skinned there, the victims & accused; lawyers are thick skinned since that is the prerequisite to become lawyer.

Judicial systems must be made accountable, time bound & transparent. How on earth, a reckless driver kills seven people sleeping on the footpath yet gets off with just six months imprisonment? Why not Jessica Lal killers are not getting noose? Why temple of democracy the parliament attackers enjoying daily dal-roti & not hanged? Why Shibu Soren was made minister so many times despite his proven criminal record? Why human traffickers are not removed from the parliament & put behind bars? Why best bakery is still baking? Why?

If truth is to prevail, what colour of truth, what scent of truth is needed? Who should say what truth is? If their definition of truth is other than common mans’, what is it?

By

Vijay Yelmelwar