JUSTICE DELAYED, JUSTICE DENIED

On the New Year, a new dawn, is seen rising on the horizon of our judiciary, with the assent of Justice D Y Chandrachud to the seat of Chief Justice of India. A progressive reformist Judge, a forward-thinking personality, his father Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud, was the longest serving chief justice of India in history, the present Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud a brilliant jurist holding a doctorate in Juridical Science from Harvard Law School, is our best hope to improve our archaic system. At an inaugural ceremony at Andhra Pradesh Judicial Academy, he made several far reaching observations, probably for the legislature and the executive to stand up and take note, he lamented that across India according to NJDG (National Judicial Grid) there were 63 lakh cases delayed due to non-availability of counsels, 14 lakh delayed due to non-availability of some kind of record or document being awaited which is beyond the control of the Court. Summarising his speech: – bail but not jail is the most fundamental rule of the criminal justice system……undertrials languishing in prisons in India reflects a paradoxical situation. Deprivation of liberty even for a single is a day to many.….people should get rid of colonial mind set,…….our mission has to be to ensure that the whole colonial model of people seeking justice is replaced by a new justice delivery system. In the seventeenth century, the village of Chinchinim had its own subordinate court/tribunal called the ‘Julgado’ which used to operate in the house of the ‘Comunidade’ (later it was shifted to Quepem). Every village had its own Judicial Magistrate called the ‘Regidor’, who would settle petty disputes and prevent overloading the higher Judiciary. The observations by CJI are very relevant in view of oppression of rights and liberties of the minorities, specially Dalits and Adivasis. The denial of bail to 84-year-old activist Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, who was suffering from Parkinsons, was refused a straw to drink in jail, died hours before his bail application was decided. India’s overcrowded prisons confined more than half a million inmates at the end of 2021, with a majority of them being those under-trials. Among the 5,54,034 inmates across India’s prisons, 77.1% were under-trials and 22.2% were those who had been convicted by a court of law, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). India currently has the sixth highest share of pre-trial detainees in the world, according to data collated by the World Prison Brief. The draconian laws like UAPA which can put an individual behind bars up to a period of one year without trial need serious review. There have been cases where evidence had been planted to frame up an individual, as in the case of Fr Stan Swamy, relief sometimes comes too late after the person dies. Colonial laws were enacted to control and supress the Indian Freedom fighters, the same laws are used today to supress genuine activists, Section 144 of CRPC is invoked too often and arbitrarily. The Government is deliberately delaying in clearing the names put up for the appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court in the ‘Collegium System’ raising serious concerns whether they want appointments favourable to them.