Add to this the problem of pre-historic technology. Justice Kode took three years to begin delivering his verdict. If he were using a computer he might have been able to produce three legal tomes in that time.

There are other reforms required urgently. Judges must be paid decent salaries. As things stand a junior judge is paid around Rs 15,000 a month, while a two-bit lawyer can make that much money in one court appearance.

The tragedy of the Mumbai bomb blasts case is that not only has justice been painfully delayed but the police appear to have learned no lessons either.

In 1993 I remember watching policemen stomping around in the stock exchange bomb site when it should have been cordoned off and searched with a sieve for evidence.

To my horror I saw the same thing happen after the train bombings of July 11. If the people who run our criminal justice system are to learn nothing from their mistakes then we have already lost the war against terrorism.