Forgotten Damon of criminal justice system 

 

  All around criminal justice system reforms ,  recommended by retired Justice Malimath report submitted in 2003 , are highly clamorous just after the Indian Parliament like   pendamonium in public by four senior judges of Supreme Court . Above all ,now government itself is too inquisitive to implement some of its key  recommendations to reforms criminal justice system.

      As reports says conviction rate in India is very low due to corruption, delay in justice and bottlenecks in  police system. In the purview of reforms , Criminal justice system has three main components for reforms. 

      One is Police which is responsible for controlling the crime  and to make the crime rate as minimal as possible with stringent law and order in vogue. But the police system seems explicitly failed in its duty , if we cast our eyes on the snowballing crime rates.

     Second is judicial system, Indian judicial system is notorious for delay in justice. It seems plausible that very famous quote “Justice delayed justice denied”  deserves to be tag line of our judicial system.

Although, Indian judiciary is the strongest organ of our democracy because of its mammoth development viz PIL, Judicial activism but recent media trial by four judges has raised many questions on its high esteem and integrity.

     Third is the Jail , the Corrective measures  in terms of punishment like capital punishment and imprisioment. Pathetic conditions of prisons and torture of prisoners shows a dark side of corrective system.

In view of the above three main aspects of CJS , an another aspects is a forgotten demon of our criminal justice system, which can’t be reformed by a  law passed in one hour. The demon is the mother and  cradle of criminals i.e our society! where the criminals come from. 

    Ultimately , we can’t punish this demon but apart from the reforms mentioned in malimat reports, we need to change the Character of our society, basically the moral and ethical character and we need to restore the eroding values of society.

    Aristotle has rightly said “ its takes one day to change the law , but its takes years to change the character”

    In view of this quotation, we need to implement stringent laws to restore the justice and improve conviction rate , but societal reforms are inevitable to minimise the criminal production rate.

Deepak Kumar Joshi

29Jan 2018