Lack of Fear of Law in Minds of Indians with Poor Police and Judicial System

License Raj is gone from India, but Inspector Raj still remains. India is too lenient, democracy as practiced here is too distorted and there is lack of fear of the adverse in minds of those with even small power. Public services, in West, Middle East, China, Japan, Europe, South Korea or ASEAN, are devoid of corruption. So, while corruption in top echelons there is humongous, but not in daily necessities – like Licenses, water, electricity, real estate certificates etc. Modi has completely removed top level corruption in India. But the only way out now for culling corruption at lower levels, is to bring death penalty for corruption in any public service.

Given the lack of respect for law in mind of many Indians, stemming from a Judiciary mired in humongous number of Court cases and hence in permanent coma, Government can unclog Courts by moving intra-Government cases to arbitration panels. Government should also slash on multiple appeal layers of our judiciary system to ensure justice is quickly & correctly delivered.

This is a tricky issue for the Government since Judiciary reports to no one – NO ONE in the system! While Modi Government has attempted to correct this by NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission) Bill, but Judiciary seems to love its “independence” so much so that it is not correcting itself and merely usurping more powers from the Legislature. Crores of cases are stuck, a large part of Judiciary is corrupt and there is no check and balance on them, just on the pretext of Judiciary’s “independence”!

Then comes the lawlessness and lack of fear of law prevalent in the country. Police in India, is largely corrupt and untrained to meet the challenges of the Digital age. Judiciary is in a coma, and hence anyone wanting to block a fair resolution can get the other party mired in decade’s long legal dispute.

An incident reflects the grave hurdles businessmen face in India when taking recourse to Police or Judiciary to get a fair result. My Brother-in-law was CEO of the Hotels division of the largest Indian travel portal (Say ABC). The company acquired a smaller e-hotel booking player and as part of the deal, the promoter of the acquired company came on board as Head of the Hotels division of the portal. This guy, subsequently committed fraud, by collecting all confidential information on tie-ups with Hotels pan-India from ABC and gave it to a competitor (Say XYZ), who, till then, did not have an online presence in the Hotels booking space. XYZ, overnight, had a huge business and in lieu of the fraud, it made the fraudster as CEO of its own, newly-created Hotels division.

Now, the Management of ABC asked my Brother-in-law to bring the Fraudster as well of CEO of XYZ to justice. My Brother-in-law had to run from pillar to pose in the Police system, just to get the case made. For one, Police was incompetent in online and technology matters, so he had to sit in the Police station to make the case file himself. It was only after using connections with then Chief Minister of Delhi, that Police arrested the Fraudster and the CEO! ABC’s PR promptly ensured the media covered it next day. But it was a consolation since the very next day, both were accorded bail by the Court and the case has been dragging on since 10 years now! How to conduct business in such poor legal & enforcement environment, you may wonder with me as well.