Law is an Ass

I have always held the view that the root cause for India's problems are the lax judiciary. It takes ages to get a verdict and when it comes it has no meaning whatsoever. Then the never ending delays due to appealing at High Court and Supreme Court Starts. One can get away with anything, including murder. And whoever said, 'Justice delayed is justice denied' must be turning in his grave at least as far as Indians are concerned.

A recent survey showed that it will take 466 years for ALL the CURRENT CASES in Delhi High Court were to be cleared with the present infrastructure. If this is not bad enough, the worse is yet to come. Once you are lucky enough to have your case being heard, the Delhi High Court takes 4 minutes 55 minutes ( true, only four minutes and 55 seconds) to hear the case and give a verdict. As I said before, the accused can THEN appeal to the supreme court.

What triggered the chain of thought about this ridiculous state of affairs is the recent conviction of an Ex Union Minister, Sukh Ram in a case of possessing disproportionate assets. The case started in 1996 when Sukh Rams house was raided by CBI who recovered Rs 2.45 crores (this was a pretty big amount in 1996) of unaccounted money from his house in Delhi and a further Rs 1.16 crores from his house in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.

I am reproducing the chronology of events of this case from a newspaper verbatim as it is typical of any case in India,
Following is the chronology of events in the disproportionate assets case against former Union Minister Sukhram:

Aug 16, 1996: CBI recovers Rs 2.45 crore from Sukhram's official residence at 12, Safdarjung Lane here and Rs 1.16 crore from his house in Mandi in Himanchal Pradesh.

Aug 27, 1996: CBI registers FIR against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Sep 18, 1996: CBI arrests Sukhram.

Oct 16, 1996: Sukhram gets bail.

Jun 9, 1997: Chargesheet filed.

Jul 10, 2001: Court frames corruption charges.

Oct 30, 2001: Court starts recording evidence.

Nov 6, 2004: Former PM P V Narasimha Rao records his testimony as a witness in the case.

Apr 13, 2007: Recording of testimony of prosecution witnesses concludes with examination of 64 witnesses.

May 18, 2007: Sukhram answers court queries based on evidence against him.

Jul 20, 2007: Defence starts recording statements of witnesses.

Nov 7, 2008: Sukhram gets 16 witnesses examined in his favour.

Dec 2, 2008: Final arguments start.

Feb 17, 2009: Special CBI Judge V K Maheshwari reserves verdict after the conclusion of final arguments.

Feb 20, 2009: Court convicts Sukhram in the case and says quantum of punishment likely to be pronounced on February 24.

Feb 24, 2009: Court reserves its verdict on the quantum of punishment after CBI seeks the maximum punishment of seven years for the former minister.

Feb 25, 2009: Sukhram sentenced to three years' imprisonment and told to pay a fine of Rs two lakh. Court also orders forfeiture of his disproportionate assets worth Rs 4.25 crore.

If you thought after 13 long years justice has been finally rendered, you are wrong. Sukh Ram who was 69 when he was caught, is 82 years old now. He was granted bail immediately on verdict being pronounced so that he can appeal to the High Court in Delhi. And as per the survey, his case is likely to be disposed off in year AD 2475. Sukhram will be a very young man aged 548 years! And if he gets an adverse verdict then, he can go to the Supreme Court!

Charles Dickens must have been a visionary looking into a crystal glass at India of 2009 when he made the statement "Law is an Ass" in Oliver Twist