Wheels of justice: Cutting India’s legal backlog on the move
KAPURHOL — By the side of a busy main road in western India, Nizamuddin Sheikh perched on his crutches and gave a toothless grin, as the trouser leg where his right limb once was flapped in the wind. The wizened 52-year-old farmer has had a court case hanging over his head for the last seven years after he threatened a neighbor with an iron bar in a heated land dispute. But the prospect of a stiff fine — or worse — was lifted after he agreed to hold his ears in a traditional sign of public apology and shake hands with his victim in front of a judge in the back of a bright yellow bus. “I’m very happy that the matter has been resolved without a payment,” Sheikh told AFP after negotiating the steps down from the bus into the muddy car park. “It was very quick.” Sheikh is one satisfied customer of India’s first mobile court, which aims to dispense speedy justice for free in hard-to-reach rural areas and ease the burden on the country’s slow-moving and chronically over-burdened courts. On one blustery, overcast day punctuated by heavy monsoon downpours, the distinctive, bright yellow vehicle stopped in front of a community center in Kapurhol, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Pune in Maharashtra state..... MORESource: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100807com3.html |
|
0 comments
Post a Comment