JHANSI, UTTAR PRADESH — A 71-year-old guy named Kanhaiya Lal admitted to stealing and embezzling money nearly 50 years ago. This is a clear example of how slow India’s courts are. Lal told the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Jhansi on Saturday that he was too tired and weak to keep fighting and requested for the trial to end.
“I’m tired. “I am now 71 years old and am tired of going to court over and over again,” Lal told the court. “I don’t have the strength to fight this case anymore.” I admit to the crime, and I want it to end.
The Case and Its Long Journey
The case goes back to 1976, when Lal, who was then a peon at the LSS cooperative society in Bamanua village, was accused of stealing a receipt book and a wristwatch along with two other people, Lakshmi Prasad and Raghunath. The FIR also said that the fake receipts were used to steal ₹14,472 from society members.
During the 49 years of the trial, both of Lal’s co-defendants passed away. Lal, on the other hand, kept going to court until 2012, and then the case sat for almost ten years. The case was only brought back to life in 2021 when a bailable warrant was issued. On December 23, 2023, he was officially charged. Lal’s direct request to the judge to end the case was the single thing that led to the final decision.
The Decision and the Larger Problem of Court Delays
The court, led by CJM Munnalal, found Lal guilty of several crimes under the Indian Penal Code, such as 457 (breaking and entering), 380 (theft), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 467 (forging valuable security), 468 (forging for the purpose of cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy). The court fined Lal ₹2,000 because of his confession, his condition, and the time he had previously spent in jail. After paying, Lal was permitted to go back to his home in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh.
The case has brought to light the widespread problem of court backlog in India. GS Chauhan, a prominent lawyer at the Lucknow high court, says that these kinds of delays happen all the time in courts all throughout the country. He says that the only way to fix this is to “create more courts at the district level, strengthen the lower judiciary, and make it mandatory to resolve cases in a timely manner.” The Law Commission of India has said before that the low number of judges compared to the population is a major reason why there are so many cases still open.