India’s grinding pace of justice

Addressing the speed of its judicial process will help the country’s international standing

Throughout his trial Salman Khan pleaded that his driver Ashok Singh had been at the wheel that night in 2002. AFP

The Indian judicial system took 13 years to find Bollywood actor Salman Khan guilty of culpable homicide for a hit-and-run killing outside a Mumbai bakery – a pace of justice that is simply unacceptable for the world’s largest democracy. If India wants substantial foreign investment and to take a seat at the table of leading global economies, it must vastly improve how quickly it dispenses justice.

This is not to say that India necessarily has a problem with the rule of law. What the country’s 1.3 billion citizens are suffering from is a lack of the swift application of justice. This problem is exacerbated by lawyers who have a vested interest in slowing down the system. All Indians have to face this issue in one way or another.

The details of Salman’s case read like the plot of one of his blockbuster films. On September 28, 2002, the actor’s Land Cruiser slammed in to the American Express bakery in Mumbai. The prosecution and witnesses say that he had been drinking and that his SUV ran over five people sleeping on the street in front of the bakery, killing one and injuring three.

Once he was charged, proceedings slowed to a crawl. From 2003 until 2007, when a prime witness died, little progress was made on the case. While some may speculate that Salman has used his celebrity status and his wealth to put off facing the legal consequences of his actions, his case reflects the glacial pace generally of the Indian legal system. While he remained free as the process ground forward, thousands of other people languished in Indian prisons without even being charged.

Trust in a court system’s ability to deliver justice in an expeditious manner is one of the fundamental tasks of any law-abiding state. Justice delayed is indeed justice denied.

That people are still sleeping in front of the bakery, a decade after this horrific accident, demonstrates another sad truth in India today. Promises to both improve the judicial system and address the country’s endemic poverty have been left unfulfilled. That is India’s shame.