If the judiciary does not rescue itself how will it protect us?

The Supreme Court of India apologized for delaying hearing a case for 13 years during which the petitioner had died. The case started in 2004 when a woman filed a case against her own brothers for forcibly taking over her shop with forged rent receipts. A high court judge issued contradictory orders on the case on the same day. On the one hand he allowed a hand writing expert to verify signatures on the rent receipts, while blocking the police from further investigating the case in his second order. 'A pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood', William Shakespeare could not do any better than the high court judge. There were 58,438 cases pending before the Supreme Court in July 2017, better than 62,537 at the end of 2016. There are 25 judges at the Supreme Court at present, the total sanctioned strength being 31, who are highly paid by Indian standards and are to get raises of around 80%. The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal so almost all cases, except direct Public Interest Litigation, have been extensively argued in lower courts. Once a case comes up in front of the Court lawyers must make their final submissions and the Court must not allow any postponements. Lawyers charge enormous amounts of money per hearing so it is in their interest to prolong a case as long as possible. Appear for 2 minutes, ask for postponement, pocket your fees and play golf for the rest of the day. This is terrible for citizens because wealthy people can escape justice by prolonging a case forever and ordinary people die waiting for justice, as happened to this lady. It is shocking that Supreme Court judges are conniving in this predatory behavior by lawyers. Naturally, respect for judges is waning among people who cannot understand why judges allow stonewalling by lawyers. In a recent case, in which a retired High Court judge has been accused of corruption, lawyer Prashant Bhushan stormed out of the Supreme Court, after accusing the Chief Justice of conflict of interest, and asking him to recuse himself from the case. After that, there was open criticism of the Chief Justice and Court proceedings on the social media. The judiciary is facing a big problem of credibility, partly due to politicians trying to curtail its powers and partly due to its inability to deliver justice. The delay in hearing petitions against the government forcing people to link bank accounts, phone numbers and all services with biometric card, Aadhaar, is dangerous and subverts human rights of citizens. Once everyone is linked politicians will have total control. Anyone protesting will have his Aadhaar deactivated and will not be able to use his phone, access his accounts or drive his car, in short will cease to exist. People of India detest politicians and civil servants. We are finished if judges let us down.