Equal Justice and Forensic Process: Truth and Myth

by V.R. Krishna Iyer

Justice Krishna Iyer, in these lectures, forcefully advocates a thorough overhaul of the legal system, which as he says, inflicts unlimited injustices upon the numerous voiceless illiterate masses of India, and what is required is 'the radical, humanist reform of the rickety justice system,' that is 'expensive, dilatory, exotic and callous to the common man's agonising needs.'

"Those who fought for the Nation's Freedom had fondly hoped that Brave New Bharat would be a new society-secular, socialist, modern and dynamic. Instead, the hopes of the Indian people were largely belied by the judiciary who were lost in the maze of old precedents and procedures, and the colonial solutions to legal problems.

Justice Iyer is fully aware that attempts at changing the legal system will be met with criticism. Nevertheless, he strongly advocates that "Statesmen of the Law must surely dynamise the forensic methodology with creative intelligence and consciousness of social dimensions, and democratise its institutional accountability so as to ensure the Third World mendicants of justice, in their meaningful remedial alms !"

Inspite of his scathing criticism of the judicial system, the author acknowledges with hope but not without restraint, the recent developments and signs of change. "However, the court has transcended the bourgeois parameters, whatever its rhetoric. Even so, no social realist will deny that, within its limitations, the court is playing the role of catalyst of that crimson change which is implicit in our Founding Deed."

152 pages, Hardcover

Published March 31, 2010

About the author

Retired judge.