Definition of the word justice is in itself mired in a strange duality. One definition is “conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude: righteousness”. The other defines it as “the administration and procedure of law”. The bench that delivered judgment on Jessica Lall threw righteousness out of the window and administered the law.
There is no law that can be unlawful. There can be no law that legitimises lawlessness. Justice, I am told, is a matter of interpretation. But where is there room for interpretation when a room full of men and women saw a woman getting shot? There are no interpretations there. Simply conclusions — those are easy to make.
The Indian judicial system consistently disappoints. But with the Jessica Lall case, it has incensed the nation over its insensitivity. Worse still, it insults the intelligence and integrity of the human spirit. It highlights our individual impotence. It stresses the fact that the system will always outshout what is right.
Would matters have been different had the Lalls been in ‘high places’? Evidently so. The system has this remarkable habit of pardoning people who mow down the innocent in their drunken stupor and their unbridled cars.
We are a strange country. We punish the poor. We rescue the rich.
{{/usCountry}}We are a strange country. We punish the poor. We rescue the rich.
{{/usCountry}}I don’t really know what will ever happen to the Jessica Lall story. Will it now be leather-bound and consigned to a legal library? But I think that, collectively, as a nation we owe an apology to that family.
An apology for progressively killing an entire family. And shame on the witnesses who changed their story. They must die everyday they live. We have two very able men who run this country. I really wonder what they must feel about this. Mr President, if you have the power to pardon, you have the power to punish. Stand up for the conscience of your countrymen and punish the people who killed Jessica Lall.
In one of his stories, Premchand talks about a bandit who is dressed in the guise of a beggar and abducts a man with a horse. When the man finds out that he is actually a bandit, all he tells him is “Yeh baat kissi ko nahin kehna, nahin to logo ko gareebon pe se vishwas uth jaayega.”
I feel a bit like that about the judiciary. Let us trust you for justice for all.