BANGALORE: Former Judge of Supreme Court R V Raveendran said that moral justice is different from justice rendered under law.
Delivering G N Sabhahit Memorial Lecture on ‘Anomalies in Law’ on Sunday, he said the cases are settled in courts based on evidence. “It is about whether the prosecution can prove the offence,” he observed adding “unfortunately people are quick in categorising the judiciary as corrupt if an accused is acquitted.”
Raveendran also said that another major anomaly exists in the drafting of today’s laws.”What they (Drafters) do unfortunately is a cut and paste job,” he observed adding that sections are borrowed totally from developed countries’ laws with no hope of matching them or changing them to match Indian conditions.
He gave the example of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Law which was impractical in many ways and hence was ignored by the judiciary for close to ten years. “The person who drafted the Act copied Section 73 of Arbitration Act entirely. They also interchanged the definition of mediation and judicial settlement with one another. When the statutes of the law are not implementable, law will be a failure,” he felt.