The face of Chaman Lal Mattoo, whose daughter — Priyadarshini Mattoo — was brutally murdered 10 years ago, is the face of justice denied. It is also the face of the ordinary litigant, living year after hopeless year, for a judicial closure to a personal trauma or for an end to a situation of injustice. There are, in that sense, countless Chaman Lal Mattoos in the country, tracing their steps to the courtroom and back in a despairing Sisyphian cycle. The Sunday Express by reminding its readers of the Mattoo story, sought to shine the torch on the innumerable points where the process of justice in this country appears to have lost its sense of direction. In many ways, this is a narrative that has assumed a new urgency after the Jessica Lall verdict — but it is, essentially, an extremely old and very familiar narrative.

Consider Article 39 A of the Constitution, which lays down that “The State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on the basis of equal opportunity...” Then consider the countless ways where circumstances, contrived or otherwise, conspire to abort the timely delivery of justice. The Priyadarshini Mattoo case has remained stuck in the judicial labyrinth over a mere technicality — the translation of court records. Earlier, in the lower court, it was a story of delays — even something as ridiculous as a power outage is enough to force an adjournment. An adjournment, then, has become a convenient modus operandi to delay outcomes, with lawyers and defendants alike standing to benefit from them. A system to deliver justice thus itself ends up as the enemy of justice delivery.

After the refresh button has been pressed on the Jessica Lall case, there is today a palpable desire on the part of the ordinary citizen to address the issue and reform the system. Former Chief Justice of India, V.N. Khare, shares his thoughts on the subject once more on this page, going through the frailities of the system with the fine-toothed comb of judicial acumen. We need the best and the brightest minds in India to dwell on this subject and evolve methodologies and mechanisms to change a dark reality. It can be nobody’s argument that this is an easy project, or one that can throw up easy solutions. But the important thing to note is that we seem to have, over the last few weeks, broken through the veil of apathy that had once shrouded the popular response to the subject of criminal justice reform.