Our justice system in big trouble because of an Italian court.

The Indian government seems to have been caught off guard by the verdict of an Italian court, which found that bribes had definitely been paid in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal. Giuseppe Orsi of AgustaWestland has been sentenced to 4.5 years and Bruno Spagnolini of Finmeccanica has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. " The destination - at least partial - of the illicit funding to the payment of the price of corruption of Marshal Tyagi for his intervention in favour of AgustaWestland for the VVIP helicopters is validly proven," the court observed. SP Tiyagi was chief of the Air Force at the time of the deal. The reason for the government's discomfiture is that the investigation was meandering along to a dead end, as is the routine in India, but now it is being forced to show that it is doing something. In India every effort is made to drag a case on for years, until witnesses have died or forgotten the details or have succumbed to threats and retracted their testimony, which is known as 'turning hostile'. As happened in the murder of Jessica Lall, where the main witness, Shayan Munshi turned hostile. He has been charged with perjury but even that case is dragging on. The case concerning the murder of thousands of Sikhs in 1984, following the shooting of Indira Gandhi, is still going on. Despite innumerable commissions identifying the guilty, and witnesses clearly identifying those who instigated the murders no conclusion is in sight. One of the accused, HKL Bhagat, has died already. In the BMW case where Sanjeev Nanda killed 6 people with his car and then went home and washed his car in an effort to destroy evidence, the witness Kukarni turned hostile. Two senior lawyers were caught on tape trying to bribe Kukarni to change his evidence. Nanda was sentenced to 2 years in prison but let off because of 'time served'. Ain't that grand? Film star, Salman Khan was accused of hunting blackbucks, which is an endangered species. The game went on for 17 years, he was sentenced to prison and has now been let off. The same Mr Khan was implicated in a hit and run incident in 2002 in which one person was killed. He has been let off by the High Court but the legal ping pong is still going on. In the case of Ms Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the High Court did its own calculations and came to the conclusion that only 10% of her wealth was 'disproportionate assets', which means ill-gotten. Apparently, it is allowed to have 10% of your wealth from dubious sources. But, er, 10% of Rs 1 billion is Rs 100 million, which is a huge some of money. The whole system is designed to let off the guilty. Unless you annoy a judge. Then judgement is swift and severe. A fellow got drunk and lost a judge's coat. He lost his job instantly and has been jailed. An inadvertent mix up in names resulted in a fine of Rs 1 billion on Times Now, despite repeated public apologies. Loot, murder, treason, all are games. Only, do not annoy a judge. Yes M'lud.