बेबाक · Editorial
Same Law, Different Speeds: Courts, Custody and Roads Must Move Alike for Every Indian
This week's cases, from the Supreme Court to a Thane tribunal, show that equality before law depends on equal speed, firm deadlines and accountable custody.
A week of tests
This week's legal docket reads like an audit of equality before law. The Supreme Court directed an expelled Bihar legislator to surrender by December 1 in the Dular Chand Yadav murder case, and ordered Bihar Police to complete the investigation within four months. The Kerala High Court stayed the arrest of an Additional District Judge booked in a fatal road accident case involving his 17-year-old son. In Mumbai, a court sent Amar, the 12th accused in the Tiger Shroff car firing case, to police custody till November 6. Raghavan, a theft case convict, escaped from police custody for the second time before he could be lodged in Coimbatore Central Prison. These are different cases with one common question. Does the law move at the same pace for the powerful and the ordinary?
Liberty versus equality
Two constitutional instincts pull against each other here, and both deserve respect. The first is liberty. Interim protection and bail are not favours. They are safeguards against arrest-first policing, and they belong to every accused, including a judge or a legislator. The second is equality. When the accused holds office, wears a robe or is linked to a celebrated name, citizens reasonably ask whether process bends toward power. An editorial that dismisses either concern would be dishonest. Indian justice has to deliver liberty without privilege and firmness without vindictiveness. The test is not whether an influential accused receives relief. The test is whether an anonymous accused in the same position would receive the same relief, just as quickly and on the same reasoning.
Steel-manning the courts
The Kerala High Court's order is defensible on its terms. It did not close the case. It directed the judicial officer to appear before the investigating officer and sought the State's response. The questions of responsibility in a case involving a minor driver are for the investigation and the courts to settle, and interim protection does not prejudge them. Even so, a grieving family sees speed, and speed shapes public trust in the judiciary. The Supreme Court's order in the Bihar case offers a sound template: a fixed surrender date and a four-month investigation deadline. Deadlines do not presume guilt. They simply deny any accused, however well placed, the slow advantage of time. That discipline should be the norm, not the exception, wherever influence is in play.
The ordinary citizen's clock
Now consider the ordinary citizen's timeline. The Thane Motor Accident Claims Tribunal has awarded Rs 30.36 lakh to the kin of Prakash Sachdev, a 55-year-old LIC agent who died in a road accident involving his motorcycle on March 26, 2023. That is more than two years for a family to receive what the law always owed them. After Raghavan's second escape from police custody, four personnel were suspended. A repeat escape points to a systemic gap, not one lapse. On the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh, four cars in a political leader's convoy collided with an ambulance. Fault has not been established and should not be presumed. Nor is the problem confined to one road: in Kashmir, a public representative has called it deeply distressing to see ambulances stranded and students missing classes during convoy movements, and has appealed to the Lieutenant Governor for traffic management measures that uphold essential security protocols while ensuring uninterrupted passage for ambulances. Security for convoys is a legitimate need. But wherever convoys and ambulances share a road, the emergency vehicle's right of way should never be in doubt.
What should change
The way forward is practical, not rhetorical. First, time-bound orders like the Supreme Court's should become standard practice in criminal cases involving legislators, officials and judicial officers. Second, High Courts should list interim-protection matters involving public office-holders for early final hearing, so that relief is not mistaken for impunity. Third, motor accident tribunals and insurers should be held to fixed timelines for death claims, with interim payouts to families while cases proceed. Fourth, the Tamil Nadu police should publish a review of prisoner-transport protocol after the escape on the way to Coimbatore Central Prison. Fifth, the Purvanchal collision and the Kashmir complaints should prompt a published standard procedure that respects security requirements while ensuring convoys always make way for ambulances. A republic proves its equality not in its slogans, but in the speed of its clocks.
Equality before law is not measured by who receives relief, but by whether every citizen receives it at the same speed.
What this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
An editorial is the considered opinion of the FarziUPSC desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions, not parties. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →