Speed up prosecution for fair play’s sake

Speed up prosecution for fair play’s sake

One of the biggest reasons for judicial inefficiency in the country is that trials — and retrials of people already acquitted or convicted — last for decades, often owing to political guidance of the prosecuting agency. A telling case is that of P K Thungon, who became India’s youngest chief minister, at age 29, in Arunachal Pradesh. He was charged with graft for his role as a junior minister in the P V Narasimha Rao government and the case dragged on for 21 years, till, this Monday, he was acquitted. Prosecution, including trials, arguments and judgement, must proceed and conclude fast, both to prevent the innocent suffering under a cloud of suspicion and the guilty plying their trade unrestrained.
The revived case against Lalu Prasad, chief minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997, is another murky example. The fodder scam, of which he is accused, took place in undivided Bihar (today’s Bihar and Jharkhand) over 1988-96, when funds from the animal husbandry department were mis-invoiced and pocketed by scores of powerful people, including, allegedly, by Lalu and his predecessor Jagannath Mishra. Of the total six cases in which Lalu was an accused, one was dropped, another acquitted him, a third found him guilty and sent him to jail, and judgement is pending in the remaining three. He abdicated his chief ministerial position in 1997, served two brief terms in jail, where he was bailed out, was disqualified as a sitting MP in 2013 and sentenced as a non-contestant in elections till 2019.
Article 20(2) of the Constitution says no person can be prosecuted for the same crime twice. The Supreme Court should fast-track hearing Lalu’s appeal against his conviction, instead of declaring the fodder scam to be multiple conspiracies, one for each district treasury of Bihar and Jharkhand.