COBWEB OF JUSTICE – STRAY THOUGHTS

DailyPost 2038
COBWEB OF JUSTICE – STRAY THOUGHTS

Few ground rules have appeared in the Indian variant of democracy for at least a few decades now. When you are in power, the agencies of the law, instead of acting on you, will take your diktats. Whosoever controls the levers of powers, controls the levers of justice, if we don’t take justice synonymous to the straight jacketed judicial administration of the country. The power of transfers, with good postings and bad postings or whatever ranking it has, creates in itself an attitude, behaviour and inclination to act, which is not objective and empirical and certainly against the spirit of the law and democracy. There is hardly ever any case against any member of the political executive, until and unless one in lands himself in muck, from which he cannot rescued for the time being.

We have reached a democratic presumption that the ruling party; political executive and outside of it too, have to be dealt differently. Anybody in alliance will also have to be dealt differently; kith, kin and clan, all. The value of friends and relatives are also unknown. Any political activity leading to breakdown of law & order, violence, offence etc has always been thought of and dealt with differently, by the political class in totality. First you get into endless criminal activities, rechristened as political, and later ask for its withdrawal. More often than not, it happens, and if the concerned party comes to power, then for sure it will happen lock, stock and barrel. Sometimes even the accused, in power, withdraws his own case. Taking up a case and withdrawing in this manner, is what justice, is very difficult to fathom out.

Justice cannot take care of cases which go unregistered, deliberately by authorities / agencies, and there is no way you can do anything about it. If omission of cognizance becomes an offence, the country will transform to a rule of law state in no time. Then what sections are applied on you, also depends on where you are positioned in the power hierarchy. It can be a preventive arrest, warning, bailable sections, or you can land up in a sedition case. Bail can be fought tooth and nail, or in a weak manner, and you can well make out the difference with the results. The story of undertrials is yet another story. The time spent investigating will also give you some idea, how justice will play out for you. Bail wherever it is a right too, gets viewed differently at times.

Cases being investigated beyond the mandated time are aplenty. The number and selection of investigation agencies will always remain a matter of conjecture. The course of justice can turn more into punishment itself. It can break you down completely. How much time would it take to dispense justice end to end, no one knows. In many cases it happens to be lifetime. Prophetic justice in life can be killing and it always is. When will the case get listed, will it be in the foreseeable future, is a million-dollar question. Deliberating on the constitutionality of the various issues can keep getting decided, but what about my turn for justice? Suo-motu powers; how, when and why, can be a research topic in itself. It includes the judiciary as well. We wait with bated breath at times for this intervention. Contempt, communication and timely compliance have also been becoming hot topics of late.

MINDSET OF SELECTIVE USE OR MISUSE IS ANTITHETICAL TO THE MINDSET OF RULE OF LAW.
Sanjay Sahay

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