Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Punishing the Powerful

Just read a news item about a "sitting MLA" getting jail for committing murder during riots in Kandhamal in Orissa. The report says he has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by a fast-track court.

This is a rare type of news, especially in a corruption-infested country like India, where justice is not only routinely delayed (Bhopal gas leak is a case in point), it is in such a shambles that the corrupt and the powerful are actually 'encouraged' to perpetrate more crimes and excesses.

It made me wonder: what would happen to India's polity if there were a way to accentuate such 'fast-track' courts and punishing verdicts against the high and mighty? It will be nothing short of an all-body cleanser, a transformation of sorts, a miracle...alas, miracles seem to happen only in the movies!