Without quick justice, politics will stay criminalized

Both judgments may indeed keep some criminals out of elections. But they carry grave risks of keeping honourable people out too. Many crooks have won election while in jail, but so have honourable persons (such as those jailed by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency).

Worse, the new judgment could set off an avalanche of political vendettas. Politicians often launch false cases against opponents, sometimes in connivance with partisan judges. This deplorable ploy may be strengthened by the latest judgement. We desperately need to cleanse Indian politics, but not in this manner.

The key problem is not that Indian politicians are inherently crooked or criminal. Rather, the moribund justice system gives a huge incentive for criminals to contest and win elections. Judicial processes are so dismally slow that hardly any resourceful person gets convicted quickly, and many die of old age before exhausting appeals. So, nobody knows for sure who is a criminal and who is an innocent victim of false accusations.

Besides, every party in power misuses the police to harass opponents while protecting its own goons. Instead of justice and clean politics, we have rising criminalization and rising mud-slinging, without accountability for either the criminals or mud-slingers.

The Supreme Court’s two judgments look like attempts to bypass the pernicious impact of unending legal delays. But while such short cuts have their attractions, they carry grave risks too. The right way forward is surely for the Supreme Court to devise procedures that ensure quick, time-bound justice. Judges are fond of saying that justice delayed is justice denied, yet they have failed dismally to end this injustice.

We cannot truly reform politics until we reform the justice system. A land without justice in a reasonable period will necessarily be a land in which lawbreakers will beat law-abiders. This will be true not only in politics but in business, the professions, and everything else.