Dr HC Pande
Plato has stated to the effect that if the people are good then no laws are needed, but if they are not, no laws will suffice. However, the leaders of Bharat Mahan believe that the panacea of all ills is enactment of laws, regulations and ordinances, and as such, they dish it out by the ton. The real problem is not the paucity of laws but their enforcement. It is not the severity of the law but the certainty of its enforcement that maintains law and order.
With over two crores of cases pending in the courts of law, the law-breaker is confident that he can break the law and, statistically speaking, nothing is going to happen to him for a decade or two. In the ideal pursuit of ensuring that there be no miscarriage of justice, the whole system has been made so complicated that justice, when meted out, is generally only academic justice serving no purpose. And, on top of it, there is the interference of the powers-that-be from the FIR stage upwards. Our politicians are not prepared to risk loaves of their office for order in society.
There is no point in blaming the common citizen for disrespecting the law when the Hon’ble members of the highest constitutional body , the Parliament, shockingly, defy all rules, regulations and accepted traditions of parliamentary procedures by jumping into the ‘well’, create a ruckus, and do not allow orderly presentation of even the national budget. What is worse is the fact that though armed with the powers of expelling the unruly members the Hon’ble Speaker watches helplessly.
The crowning glory of the last Parliament session has been our Hon’ble members passing the budget without any discussion at all. Not a single political party pointed this out, let alone make a major issue of this mockery of the parliamentary process.
It is said that people get the rulers they deserve. In India, however, we have a ruling elite that we do not deserve and as a consequence there are more of in-laws and disorder other than law and order. (Writer is Vice Chancellor Emeritus) Â
(Courtesy: Images Times of India, Times NIE)
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