dear friends,

i am a criminal lawyer practicing in delhi since 1998. i saw cases like bmw, manu sharma, uphaar, jayalalitha, avnish bajaj of dps mms case, abu salem, etc and found that the hon'ble courts giving very patient hearing to them at every stage from remand to hearing in sc itself. however i found to juniors and in ordinary cases the attitude was adjournment with the accused even in jail even in bail matters. the judges would not allow to argue even properly by saying "come to the point" or "are we sitting in court only for you". even before you had taken a minute.

i started collecting RTI information like people in jail and duration as undertial or with appeal pending and found the same to be for more than 12 years in many cases. i found juveniles imprisoned in tihar. however, the real reason was always to find some way of showing and exposing how the judges in Delhi were not listening to ordinary people cases.

recently Judges like Hon'ble Justice Dhingra have admitted in state vs Rani that the Delhi high court was busy listening to rich and the same needs to change. The Hon'ble Sc justices too have made similar remarks which have recently been published in news paper.

I have recently collected information that in Delhi HC cases are pending from 1972 on criminal and civil side and when i sent the same to the HC the reply was that litigants and lawyers were seeking adjournments or not pursuing cases. the reply was limited only to civil suit original side. despite my reminder no reference was made to appeals especially on criminal side. 

In Delhi HC there have been instances where people have been acquitted after they have undergone there full sentences even of 10 years, as HC has admitted that it did not get time to hear their appeal of 1992 till 2008.

I have also got done a signature campaign where advocates of Delhi in large number agreed that it was the truth that judges do give inappropriate attention to cases of rich and powerful represented by senior high profile lawyers.

The short reason of my writing the above is that this bias of judges in giving time, dates, adjournment and attention means that we as advocates are divided into two categories where ordinary advocates get hearing at mercy of judges or hope that their case comes before good judges who dont practice the bias as above while these high profile lawyers usually politically associated make fun. the impact is that ordinary people have to pay more fees by hiring senior counsels where it is not required only for purpose of hearing. on the other side we ordinary lawyers lose faith in system, suffer professionally , but most importantly lose the zest for the profession and cant answer our selves or clients that why things are not like they should be as per law?

please support the above cause as i am filing a PIL on this issue in a week. your support will make me feel a little more comfortable while arguing it.

adv. manish kumar khanna