India Uncut
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Thursday, June 22, 2006
How fast is fast?
I read in the New Indian Express that "[a] Fast Track Court here [Tindivanam] on Wednesday awarded 10 years imprisonment to four jail staff, including a warder, in the sensational Rita Mary rape case."
Quite excellent, I think to myself (as opposed to someone else, for I don't know telepathy). Justice delayed, justice denied, and so on. As I continue reading the sad story of Rita Mary, I'm even gladder these chappies got punished by the law. The main culprits got 10 years, while some others got four or three.
Then I learn from the last sentence that the people who got lesser sentences "were released as they had been lodged in the prison for four-and-a-half years, which was more than the conviction period."
That's "fast-track" for you. Think about how long a normal case drags on, then, and of the estimates that it will take 350 years to clear the current backlog. It's hardly surprising, then, that a lot of crimes never even get reported.
Quite excellent, I think to myself (as opposed to someone else, for I don't know telepathy). Justice delayed, justice denied, and so on. As I continue reading the sad story of Rita Mary, I'm even gladder these chappies got punished by the law. The main culprits got 10 years, while some others got four or three.
Then I learn from the last sentence that the people who got lesser sentences "were released as they had been lodged in the prison for four-and-a-half years, which was more than the conviction period."
That's "fast-track" for you. Think about how long a normal case drags on, then, and of the estimates that it will take 350 years to clear the current backlog. It's hardly surprising, then, that a lot of crimes never even get reported.
