As you walk through the High Court in any major city in India, you find names of then-sitting judges inscribed for posterity on plaques for doing things like ‘inaugurating this elevator’ (actually paid for by taxpayers), with photos of grand ceremonies (also paid for by taxpayers).
Should you accidentally cross the path of a judge on the way to the library, several orderlies will rush ahead and tell you to stand to the side and wait for him to pass. Lest, you get carried away by your reading of the Indian Constitution and the phrase ‘public servants’, you will find good old sovereign immunity everywhere.
In addition, you will also find that the website of the High Court continues to be down. Sometimes, it just leaves you with a bizarre ‘invalid characters found’ error without saying where, and finally works if you are persistent enough.
To get copies of case documents, you have to stand in line in two different departments to submit your copy application, and then bribe your way to get the file moved across three different departments all in different places for it to arrive to the copying branch. At each of these departments, you will meet clerks who will give you different excuses ranging from ‘file missing’ to ‘come tomorrow’ or ‘too busy’, most of which are euphemisms for ‘bribe required’. If you refuse to bribe as a matter of principle, your application will be left pending for months until it automatically expires and some official either pockets the money or funds the next elevator inauguration, and you won’t be able to argue your case.
This is digital India at its finest and in the highest courts of the country, and with projects that were funded more than a decade ago. But it will be different this time. That was e-courts. Now, we will have d-courts, and now we have Mark Zuckerberg on our side.
Free Facebook is a fundamental right, and yes, the poor and hungry shall have it. How else do you expect them to keep up with the latest selfies and hashtags?
— The reader is an Indian dentist based in Dubai
