Fast track to justice

Speedy justice may sound like an oxymoron in the Indian context but the notoriously slow judicial system is making attempts to shake off its lethargy through the route of fast track courts. This is how justice was neither delayed nor denied for a German woman who was raped in Alwar last month.

The trial that began on April 1 concluded on April 12, with the rapist, the son of a powerful police official, getting seven years in jail. Earlier, the attackers of another German rape victim, who had been assaulted in Jodhpur, got life imprisonment after a trial lasting barely a month.

True, the victims had the backing of the influential German embassy to push things along. But, despite connections of the victims, many rape cases in India fall by
the wayside because the victim is wary of getting involved in a prolonged litigation where she is pilloried and has to relive the nightmare of what happened to her. The longer the trial, the more she has to live in fear of her assailants and their threats and blandishments.

A speedy trial eliminates much of the victim’s trauma. It also affords less time for interested parties to tamper with crucial evidence, a route used in many instances to derail justice.

Mumbai’s police commissioner AN Roy recently made the pertinent point that there was a need for special courts to deal with specific crimes. At present, everything from petty theft to rape is dealt with by the same courts, leading to inordinate delays and, sometimes, serious miscarriages of justice. In some instances, those accused in petty crimes spend a longer time as undertrials than the period of the sentence eventually handed out to them.

Lack of enough judges hampers quick disposal of cases too. Though the Law Commission has repeatedly sought a five-fold increase in judges, India’s ratio of 50 judges to a million population is far short of that in many other countries.

Of course, fast track justice should not be speed for its own sake. Special efforts have to be made to ensure that the cause of justice is met and the innocent are not punished. No doubt the honourable judges are aware of this. At the same time, by speeding up justice in sensitive cases, the judiciary has shown that it remains sensitive to the needs of victims and society at large.