what a delay!
| Date :02-Aug-2019 |
THERE is no doubt that the Ghaziabad milkman Mr. Vijendra finally got justice when the honourable Supreme Court acquitted him of the charge of adulteration of milk way back in 1979 under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. But this took the judicial system to arrive at the final acquittal of the milkman 40 long years, making mockery of fundamental principles of justice. Honourable Justices R. Banumathi and A.S. Bopana made significant observations while acquitting the milkman of charges of adulteration for which he had been handed down an imprisonment of 6 months and Rs. 1,000/- fine. That he was out on bail for all these years, is only a consolatory part of the judicial system.
Yet, it is not possible to ignore another dirty reality that he lived under the lurking shadow of law for forty long years. It is this aspect that the larger society must take note of and look for reasonable solutions to the problem of delay in delivery of justice in the currently operational system. Failing to do so at the earliest will only mean that as a society, we are not much bothered about the uncertain shadow of law under which countless Indians are made to live for countless years just because early verdict even in simple matters is not available to the people.
This vexed issue has bothered the Indian society for decades now. Legal cases have shown a dirty tendency to drag on for years without result, leading to a continued dark shadow of punishment hovering over the heads of countless accused. The case against milkman Vijendra is one good example of how badly the judicial system in the country works. This brings us to a very sickening conclusion that India’s judicial system has no respect for individual accused in whose case no verdict is delivered for decades on end. That milkman Vijendra got a bail for all these years, is a welcome detail.
However, there are countless hundreds of people who are languishing in confinement for years in the absence of verdict. In each case, the accused does not get a bail, which makes him spend long years in confinement with no respite in sight. This is a blot on our judicial system and the Government as well as the larger society must find an effective answer to this vexed problem. If a simple case of adulteration of milk can take as many as forty years, then we can imagine what may be happening in other and more complicated cases. This is not a commonplace argument, however.
This is a serious issue that needs an immediate attention not just of experts but also of lawmakers and the people manning the judicial system at all levels. Thus, this is an anguished cry of the society whose members have suffered endlessly just because the judicial system does not deliver the verdict in right time. It may appear to be a cliched observation, but no one can deny the truth in the age-old adage “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Indian judicial system has been denying justice to countless people just by delaying delivery of verdict.
If this is not a travesty of justice, then what is it? The honourable Supreme Court has done well to establish how the guilt of the milkman was not effectively proved beyond reasonable doubt on technical grounds such as failure of the authorities to take the sample of the milk in a proper manner. But a similar observation could have been made by earlier judicial officers who considered the case in the intervening forty years. That that was not done, is actually a matter of massive failure that needs to be addressed on an immediate basis. It is a national need to ensure that the Indian judicial system is made to work faster in the best interest of justice and law so that people, innocent or otherwise, do not suffer lifetime of injustice. ‘Injustice’ may appear to be a harsh word here, but looked at in the light of the suffering of the milkman for 40 years, it justifies itself fully.