Justice Doomed

The recent verdict dispensed by the Supreme Court of India on Section 377 of IPC has generated huge clamor in public domain. The major point of conflict is the wordings of the verdict that reflect a mediocre, medieval, and regressive mindset of judges who risked their sensibility in addressing a larger democratic and human rights issue, in rather the most imbecile way possible. Articulating this judgment, first, they have contradicted the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India, and second, misread the universal democratic principles.

Decriminalization of homosexuality has nothing to do with culture, religion, law and state; it's a consensual act between two free adults who have every right to do whatever they want to in a liberal society. Keeping an archaic, meaningless, orthodox piece of penal code, which has no relevance in the current social dynamics is another reference of state crime, and, simply, it reflects how vulnerable is India as the largest democracy of the world – the democracy that doesn't uphold the basic principles of human rights. This judgment is perhaps the most regressive one in the recent history and, beyond question, it degrades the democratic index of India in a modern world. In all modern democracies of the world, civil liberty takes the front seat of progression, and in India, it's almost invisible in action.

While political classes are now squarely blaming the verdict and reacting to this judgment in the most opportunistic way, they have hardly done anything significant in all these years. And the most incredible point in the context of this judgment is that even after 67 years of independence, India is still servile to the laws enacted by the Britishers some 150 years ago. As a parliamentary democracy, India has not only failed to imbibe the principles of modern democracy, but also it has aborted the mechanism of delivering fair justice to its citizens. Whether political, judicial, or bureaucratic, each organ of state has proved inefficient, indolent, and digressive to the modern democratic principles. Now is the time to overhaul the system in letter and spirit.  

On A Different Note

With growing trust deficits in democratic institutions, the citizens of this country today confront with burning challenges of harsh social issues and endemic corruption in all public offices, and hence they abruptly conclude that no institution in this country is working with integrity and propriety. Such generalizations are indeed irrational and questionable. Any system, however competent, is guided by rules and regulations established by law makers of that country. Remember, laws are dynamic and consequently change with social evolution. Whenever the laws become static and inscriptions of rock, then all the problems crop up and the people in power often misuse the embedded lacunae in the legal system.

For a progressive democracy like India, which has significantly excelled in many dimensions of human development in last few decades, the credit for excellence goes to the citizens of this country, and yes, a part of that credit is also meant for the people in power who have enabled a fairly workable system despite many challenges. Although in the course of time the ratio of good people in power to bad people in power has diminished significantly, there are myriads of ways to improve this system and make all the stakeholders accountable for their action. And for this we urgently need a vigilant judicial system to uphold the democratic principles laid down by the Constitution of India and then quickly intervene in the administration whenever it feels the principles of law are not sufficient to administer justice.

In the recent past, we have observed a frequent judicial activism in all walks of democratic institutions because the learned judges of Supreme Court or High Courts have convinced that either the administration is not discharging the desired responsibilities or the laws are not sufficient to handle the complex issues. However, the selective activism is not enough to manage the multitude of conflicts generated during the execution of law. What's essentially required now is to bring in drastic transformations in the working of democratic institutions that govern the hopes and aspirations of a billion plus populous nation.

As the growth story of India in last two decades has become a global case study for other functional democracies, it's imperative now for the law-makers of this country to strengthen democratic principles with checks and balances. Wherever we need radical changes in the laws to ensure fair justice to the citizens of this nation, the Parliament must pass ambitious, forward-looking bills to enrich the legal framework of this country. And the beauty of our democratic system is that together we can establish an effulgent India unfailingly.  

Let the truth prevail

The worst crime ever committed by a ruler is his or her discrepancy towards subjects while delivering fair justice, but today this crime is being publicly undermined by justifying political mandate in the elections or awe-inspiring partisan economic progress in the state. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes still rule us, lecture us about secular democracy, and even shamelessly claim that they are the legends that the entire mankind should follow their footprints. What could be more deplorable than this side of human hypocrisy that at one point the person who overwhelmingly shows his beliefs in a value, at a different point of time the same person leaves no stone unturned to break that value?

No one can forget that fateful night of February 27, 2002 when a group of terrorists torched a bogey of Savarmati Express in which 59 karsevaks charred to death. But again a matter of caution here whether this act of dastardly terror was a conspiracy of a sinister design of some communal groups is yet to be established under the court of law. Let's now examine the fallout of this dangerous act of crime. The state government rather than promptly deploying law and order machinery to action for nabbing these perpetrators of crime, the leaders of the state orchestrated a malicious design so that the community belonging to the victims can vent their anger against the other community by igniting the sparks of the worst communal riots after independence.

For last nine years the case has been investigated by a SIT being monitored by the Supreme Court. However, nothing substantial has come out through this investigative tribunal. This is the callous state of the judicial system in India where the delivery of justice is always delayed supporting the adage: justice delayed is justice denied. It's delayed so extensively that the incident is forgotten in the public memory. If we explore the high profile cases in India, it's quite evident from the historical facts that no case is ever resolved in a year or two, forget about months, India judicial system is so lethargic that at least a decade or more is passed in chagrin to reach at the verdict, which is again partisan, biased, and dictated by the ruling party.

Can India abstinent from such feudal mindset and rise above the political prerogatives to deliver justice in time? Can the various wings of democracy including legislative, executive, and judiciary act collectively to preserve the sanctity of secularism? Can Indians expect fair justice irrespective of the social stature of the persons involved? Probably these are the difficult questions we have been raising since long, but we haven't yet received any satisfactory response to them. There are two specific reasons that fit here; one, the ruling class carries an inherent inertia as a mechanism to prove its extreme importance; two, the subject close to the ruling class try to tinker with anything and everything to prevail their position in society. Thus the immaculate truth is that one India is exploiting the other India with extreme precision.