Delayed Justice Yet Delivered In India

“Justice delayed is justice denied.” It’s a very popular idiom we’re all familiar with, first articulated by William Gladstone, and is heard more often than not ever since, whenever a victim is delayed justice. People have the common belief that justice timely departed is justice appropriately granted. How true does it hold in a country such as India where the justice system sometimes takes years to conclude cases though? If Mr. William is to be believed, the Indian Judiciary should be one of the most faulted on account of the long time it takes in imparting justice. According to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2012, India bottoms at a questionable 78th position out of 97 countries surveyed in terms of granting access to justice. However, the quality of justice has never ever been even close to controversial or questionable as far as the Indian Law system is concerned.

Indian law is codified so as to enable the courts to directly interpret and arrive to conclusions rather than derive decisions according to heinousness of the crime. So what exactly is time consuming in the process? Insufficient bandwidth, lacunae in law (to recourse to higher authority courts for reversal of independent court decisions), sheer volume of disputes and lack of amendments to enable prioritization of criminal cases over civil disputes result in ample delay in dates for trials. Not undermining civil disputes, but when you compare them to cases of murders and rapes, they do appear, if not petty, at least of lesser significance. The rate in growth of crimes is also to blame.

While the demand o 70,000 judges from Chief Justice of India Tiarth Singh Thakur has proven needless if not absurd, The justice system of India has, even after the current vacancy of 5000 judges in the Indian courts (according to Supreme Court), never been known to compromise on quality for the sake of a faster conclusion. Such is the case, even after SC reports a staggering 2.8 crore pending cases and an urgent need for over 15000 judges over the course of next three years. The Indian Judicial System is of the firm belief of ‘Innocent until proven guilty’, as a result of which some accused roam the lands freely. While the decision may be called lenient, the intent which is to not let a single innocent suffer the torture of a prison until absolutely ascertained that he/she is guilty, cannot be deemed unfair to the society. Especially in criminal cases, lives are at stake, and to depart justice without the pressure of a hurried judgement is mandatory. Sometimes, the victims or the accused aren’t satisfied with the verdict of subordinate courts. The law allows them to move the High Court and/or the Supreme Court to have a chance to salvage anything they can from the dispute. Meaning, it takes time, but no good things come in a flash. The aim is to satisfy the citizens of this country with ever growing population (subsequently population growth results in rise in crimes to an extent).

There is also a very commonly observed misconception in the minds of Indians that the cases of terrorists are left pending for absolutely no rhyme or reason, just to serve them luxuries in prison. How ridiculous can one be? What are the prisons, 5 star hotels? The citizens criticize the system, but little do they know about the pending 2.81 crore cases, the grieving victims and their agonizing wait to have a date of trial from the court. Courts follow a procedure, they support their own citizens first, prioritizing the pending cases and adding the new ones to the pending list. According to statistics, a judge averages about 2.5 minutes to 15 minutes maximum per hearing, even then with so many cases pending, we are reluctant to look at the increasing crime rate and faults in the values of society that spread gruesome messages such as violence and greed that inadvertently lead to crime hike. We need to understand that the judges aren’t superhuman, they have somebody’s life in their hands and they understandably need time. The path may be tedious, but there’s always dawn at the end of even the darkest of nights. Come what may, justice always prevails in India. The process may take time and consume resources, but delayed justice is flawlessly delivered in the country. The situation of the Indian Judicial System can be aptly summed using a popular phrase in our national language: ‘bhagwaan ke ghar der hai, andher nahi’ that means all good things in life take time, and what better thing than to impart justice!