A Criminologist’s Diar27

Not JUSTICE, but-'JUST ICE' or 'ICING JUSTICE'

The former Chief Justice of India and his kith and kin were accused of amassing wealth form unknown sources. It got fire-wild fire-owing to media discussions and layers' approach to the issue under discussion. Allegations were raised even against half a dozen judges/chief justices of the Supreme Court of India for corruption and malpractices. Everyone spoke about the sanctity of judiciary and loss of public trust in the existing judicial system. The issue became slightly dim and then came up another issue. If media reports were true, two judges of the High Court of Kerala accepted corruption money to pronounce judgments in favor of an ex-minister who was accused of a sex scandal commonly known as the ice-cream parlor case. The issue became a topic of hot discussion in the media and people from all walks of life spoke mostly against judicial functionaries, public prosecutors, Government pleaders, police officials and the rotten system as a whole and the judges in particular. YES, once one of the former Chief Justices of India said in a public address that 20% of the judicial officers were corrupt. Ever since, the number of judges-higher level and subordinate level-accused of various kinds of nefarious activities, corrupt practices, partisan attitudes, political affiliations was incredibly high. The nexus among the affluent, the influential, the powerful and the JUDGES was found to be unbelievably strong- so much so that injustice, wounded justice, less justice, no justice and miscarriage of justice could take place instead of fair, holistic, equal and total justice.

Is it not painful to hear such sad episodes about our judicial functionaries? The allegation so far has been that many judicial officers were little educated and lacked expert knowledge in law and legal practice/administration. They were not well trained people in police, forensic and investigation sciences. Their knowledge in behavioural sciences was nil or was far way from being satisfactory. Their EGO was very unrealistic and most of them thought to be the Roman Kings and above GRAMMER. Their judgements were qualitatively of inferior nature and thus the litany of people's dissatisfaction might be very long. Nevertheless, they could tolerate all such defects and demerits if they were free from corruption and malpractices. Each judge is a LEGION and his defect is spread like an epidemic. The poor people lose their faith in an impartial judiciary and everything becomes ritualistic to administer 'justice' as it is popularly called. Some people say that it is not JUSTICE but, 'JUST ICE' or 'ICING THE JUST-the JUSTICE'. How unfortunate it is to see and hear such allegations!