Moving on,slowly

On April 28,the Supreme Court of India upheld actor Khushboo’s constitutional right to free speech and quashed 22 cases of criminal defamation filed against her. The apex court’s decision comes almost five years after her comments on pre-marital sex. In those five years,Khushboo’s life was made hell. Violent protests were staged; case after case was filed against her in different courts. During one of her many court appearances,she was pelted with eggs and tomatoes. Now that she has finally been found innocent,who is to blame for what she has suffered? Opportunistic politics and moral policing are,of course,the usual suspects. However,the incident also asks a big question of our legal system: given the delays,is not the process much too often a punishment?

As of 2009,there were around four million cases pending in the high courts and 27 million in the lower judiciary,as per one estimate. Apart from procedural hurdles like adjournments,there is a paucity of resources. A million Indians share,among them,a mere 10 judges. There is then the government problem,meaning that India’s largest litigant clogs up the courts with unviable appeals. Law Minister Veerappa Moily has spoken of the need for an “internal mechanism” to reduce government litigation. Such a mechanism must disincentivise needless appeals while protecting civil servants from an archaic provision of law that links file closure with corruption. But the law ministry is still to flesh out its “internal mechanism”. In a similar vein,Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan emphasised,on April 25,the need for more judges and courts to combat case pendencies. It is hoped that this too is followed by a time-bound action plan.

The costs of judicial delay are not just that the process becomes a punishment. Delay enables the guilty to push the verdict into the future,buying time while the grinding wheels of justice move ever so slowly. From their statements,it appears that both the higher judiciary and the law minister are seized of this problem. But,as with the legal process,time is of the essence.