Thursday, May 14, 2015

A bad seven days for Indian justice...

In three separate cases, high profile and influential individuals - a Bollywood star, a powerful politician, and a former business baron - were allowed to walk free by appeals court despite being found guilty by lower courts.

The actor was found guilty of running a vehicle over people sleeping on the street, the politician of amassing unaccounted wealth and the former business baron of corporate fraud.

The wheels of justice grind slowly in India - more than 30 million cases are pending in its courts and more than a quarter of them have been unresolved for at least five years. Snail justice ends up benefitting the rich as witnesses can be intimidated and bought and political pressure and money power can be used to influence and subdue prosecutors and sometimes judges.

It took 13 years for a court in Mumbai to convict actor Salman Khan of culpable homicide and sentence him to five years in prison despite prosecution witnesses turning hostile. But it took two days for an appeals court to suspend the sentence and grant him bail. It helped that Khan had access to some of the best and most expensive lawyers. India has over a million registered lawyers, but a large number of them graduate with dubious degrees from indifferent law schools, are poorly educated and, according to lawyer-turned-journalist Kian Ganz, "effectively operate as fixers... hawking for work outside small claims courts or as notaries". Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Status, wealth, power in India's justice system...
  2. Bollywood star Salman Khan freed after sentence suspended for street...
  3. What if Salman Khan had run over a fellow Bollywood superstar?
  4. India and Bollywood furious at Shah Rukh Khan's 'detention' at US airport...
  5. India's crocodile tears over a diplomatic slight...
  6. India sex assault case spotlights powerful predators...
  7. Gang-raped by 40 men, victim in India waits 17 years for justice...

No comments:

Post a Comment