Marathi Feature Film "Court" : The Injustice of Justice

Today I watched the much acclaimed Marathi movie “Court” directed by Chaitanya Tamhane. The film is brutally hard on the existing legal system which seems resolutely passive to persons outside the charmed circle of Indian social fabric. Once an old street popular dalit social worker poet runs foul to some outdated penal code provisions, he find there is no escape.

The bitter part of the story is that all along the judge, the prosecutors and indeed partly the defense lawyer know about the mechanized grindstone in which the poet is gripped inside. But, everybody is following the rule and process of the law without having any humane feeling or spirit which could reveal more than what the blind law does not wish to see. I am surprised; nobody talks about the benefit of doubt which reigns supreme in our juris prudence.

Beyond the four wall of the court room these learned caretakers of the law behave exactly as a common person. The judge enjoys holidays in Bermuda, sing songs, advises superstitions of planetary stones encourages exploiting MBA degree most gainfully to youths and most blatantly and cruelly hits a child who dared to disturb his nap in the sun. The lady prosecutor watches a Marathi play that rebukes outsiders who have taken "our jobs and our land, and are now eyeing our daughters" that could be no less deplorable than what the old poet was indicted for. The defense lawyer could be identified as anybody similar to us. He is a rich Gujarati man with a Honda city tuned to the music of jazz and loves socializing with a good test of the spirit. He finds it easier to help poet with one lakh rupees in cash as surety against bail but would not venture much to collect video graphed material to strengthen the cause or dares the judge and the court to venture out to closely see the righteous world of the convicted poet. Surprisingly, the judge likes dictating on computer but loves to remain blindfolded to the technological advancement that could reveal the truth that the law is trying to find out since 3000 BC when the first Egyptian law was enacted.

NDTV’s review has succinctly surmised,”Court is openly contemptuous of the narrow-minded and myopic ways in which obsolescent laws are interpreted in this country, but its tone is so even and genteel that its bubbling anger does not take the shape of runaway rage. Restraint renders the blow it delivers infinitely more telling.” I am also stunned to gauge Tamhane's farsightedness. He wishes the viewers to ponder, sizzle and act in good time rather than giving a solution to the dilemma in which the law of the country is finding itself.

People would surely forget “Jolly LLB”. They would be contented with its logical conclusion. But, stories like “To Kill a Mocking Bird” where the jury having fully satisfied that the negro boy was innocent, decided to punish him to save the black society from the ire of white population of the neighborhood, are the landmarks which brought radical change in the American ethicality.

Only, if, we could inculcate Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraph and its feeling into the existing legal fabric. Only then, the judges and the court would vibrate with the painful truth and the agony of the innocents and would not procrastinate. I shall never forget the scene from the epic film “Gandhi” where entire court including the judge stood up when the arrested Gandhi entered the court room.

The most simple definition of the word Justice is " The Quality of being Just".