Contempt for the bitter truth.

"Can a commoner allege political bias by sitting SC judge and escape contempt ire?" asked D Mahapatra. That would be worse than suicide. As businessman Subrata Roy found to his cost when he was sent to prison for contempt for an indefinite period for ignoring an order to pay Rs 100 billion as demanded by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), in what reeked of political persecution. Or when Times Now was fined Rs 1 billion for accidentally defaming a retired Supreme Court judge, even after it apologized repeatedly for its mistake. Recently, retired Justice Joseph Kurien explained why he, with three of his colleagues, held a press conference in January in which they accused the then Chief Justice of allocating cases to junior judges. "He said all four shared a perception that then CJI Deepak Mishra was being influenced by someone from outside and was allotting sensitive cases to benches headed by select junior SC judges perceived to have political bias." Refusing to initiate contempt proceedings against an article in the Punch, British Judge Lord Denning said, "All that we ask is those who criticise us should remember that, from the nature of our duties, we cannot reply to their criticism. We cannot enter into public controversy." Not so in India. Time and again judges have reacted with ferocity when criticised, although when a politician is the accused the reaction is very diffident. Perhaps suspicion of bias would not arise if judges concluded cases promptly, instead of dragging them forever. Last year the Supreme Court apologized to a woman for not concluding her case in 13 years, during which the woman had passed away. What use was this judgement? It took 20 years for a judgement in the Uphaar Cinema tragedy in which 59, mostly young people, died. Having waited for 20 years parents and relatives of the dead were further humiliated when one accused was freed because of his age and another got a derisive 1 year in prison. It is in the interest of the guilty and of lawyers, who are paid eye-watering sums of money per appearance, to prolong a case till such time as witnesses have either died or have been coerced to turn hostile. But, why do judges go along with this sham? Mystery. In the same way not one politician has been convicted of the killing of thousands of Sikhs following Indira Gandhi's murder in 1984. Naturally, cheats take advantage of judicial inertia to file appeal after appeal costing the nation many trillions of rupees, wrote S Pathak. Since civil servants are never punished for wasting court time by filing ridiculous appeals to deny citizens of their basic rights the government is the biggest litigant. Justice Kurien is right. Judges are biased. Against citizens.