BMWs or trucks?

Nothing exemplifies the rot in the country's criminal justice system more than the Nanda hit-and-run case, where Sanjeev Nanda stands accused of running over six people sleeping on the pavement with his BMW on January 9, 1999. Within months, two major witnesses turned hostile and one, Sunil Kulkarni, was dropped by the prosecution after it found discrepancies in his statement. The same Mr Kulkarni, who also wrote a letter to the National Human Rights Commission saying it was a truck that mowed the sleeping pedestrians and not a BMW, was strangely brought back as a star witness. Presumably the prosecution was satisfied with the explanation he gave for telling the NHRC that he'd been coerced by the police to say the killer vehicle was a car and not a truck. Now Mr Kulkarni makes the headlines by saying it was a hefty person who was driving the car (which ruled out Mr Nanda); a few days later he's exposing, through a secret video recording by him, his discussions with the public prosecutor and the defence attorney on how he could get paid for changing his statement.

Though it is not possible to come to a firm conclusion till the video has been thoroughly examined by the courts and the lawyers involved have given their written statements on the episode, it is obvious that there is a serious problem with the system as it exists and functions, especially because this is not the only such case. Just a year ago, a newspaper headline "Nobody killed Jessica" captured the charade of the investigations into, and trial of those accused of, Jessica Lall's murder""the public outcry, in this case, forced the authorities to call for a re-trial in which the murderer was sentenced. It should be obvious, of course, that only a few high-profile cases like Jessica Lall's are lucky enough to get the kind of attention they did and become a rallying cry for injustice""in most other cases, few get to hear of the victim or the miscarriage of justice that allows the perpetrator to get away. In the other prominent Nitish Katara case, for instance, it took years before DP Yadav's daughter (Katara's love affair with her, it has been alleged, resulted in his murder) was brought to the court to depose.

What needs to be done to improve the criminal justice system? One sure remedy is to mete out exemplary punishment for perjury, so that witnesses think many times before changing their story or becoming hostile; another is to have a proper penal system for investigation officers who deliberately bungle investigations, for there are countless occasions when the presiding judge has had to pull up the police for sloppy work. A third is for the Bar Council to become a more effective body for ensuring correct professional conduct by lawyers, and it can start by making an example of the two lawyers in the Nanda case if they are found guilty of misconduct. And a fourth solution may lie in switching to the jury system, with its continuous hearings. Whether such a system will work in a country with high levels of illiteracy is an open question, but it might be a solution to the inveterate delays caused by repeated adjournments. Reform must start with the realisation that the rot has gone deep.