THE acquittal of Jayalalithaa by the Karnataka High Court in the disproportionate assets case has highlighted an undeniable fact of the judicial system in India -- that the rich and the powerful cannot be brought to justice for corruption and abuse of power. Jayalalithaa and three of her associates had been found guilty by a Special Court in September last year and sentenced to four years imprisonment and a Rs. 100 crore fine. A single judge bench of the High Court has overturned this verdict. On the same day that Jayalalithaa was exonerated, a sessions court in Hyderabad gave bail to Ramalinga Raju, former owner of Satyam company, and suspended his sentence. Ramalingaraju had been sentenced to seven years in jail and a fine of Rs. 14 crore in the Rs. 7,000 crore case of financial and accounting fraud. There is no need to go into the flawed judgement of the Karnataka High Court, except to state that it has been delivered in a most peculiar circumstance. The Special Public Prosecutor who conducted the case was removed by the Supreme Court and a new Special Prosecutor was appointed. This was done by the Supreme Court on April 27 after the High Court had reserved judgment on March 11. No fresh trial was ordered and the new Special Prosecutor was given one day for submitting his written submission. This, in itself, has made the whole judicial process suspect. The fact of the matter is that it is virtually impossible to convict and jail any top politician who has held public office for corruption, which is what the accumulation of disproportionate assets to income, is about. First of all, it is difficult to ensure a proper investigation in such cases. We have seen in the past how the investigations into disproportionate asset cases by the CBI have been used as a political instrument by the previous UPA government. Both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati were investigated in such cases and pressure applied off and on by the government in these matters. Even if there is a conviction, as in the case of Laloo Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam, he got bail from the Supreme Court after an appeal was filed against his conviction. The sole exception has been O. P. Chautala, the former Chief Minister of Haryana, who is serving a jail sentence along with his son for bribery in the teachers’ recruitment scam. Even if convicted of serious offences, it is easy to get bail for the rich and the powerful. Salman Khan, the film star, got bail within three hours from the Mumbai High Court, after being sentenced to five years in jail for running over pavement dwellers and killing one of them. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment but has not spent even a day in jail. The High Court has suspended his sentence pending the hearing of the appeal. According to eminent lawyer Rajeev Dhavan, “We do not have clear principles to guide bail decisions – especially in post-conviction cases, where judges look at the crime and behave totally with subjective arbitrariness against the poor”. Contrast, the speed with which Salman Khan got bail with the plight of 2.8 lakh undertrial prisoners who are languishing in jails for years on end. According to one estimate, 40 per cent of undertrial prisoners (1.1 lakh) took more than six months to secure bail. Most of these undertrials are poor, belonging to the oppressed sections of society. Some of them have already served more than the maximum term of sentence they would be entitled to if they are convicted for the offence they are charged with. It is this patently unjust system which led the Supreme Court last year to order the release of those undertrial prisoners who have served half the maximum term for which they can be sentenced, without completion of trial. The rich and the powerful know how to utilize the legal and judicial system to protect their interests. Highly paid lawyers who are the best in the profession appear for these elite sections. In the Supreme Court these legal luminaries charge as much as Rs. 25 lakhs for an appearance. Justice is usually depicted as the figure of the goddess of justice who is blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. The blindfold is to show that justice is objective, free of any bias. But invariably justice is not blind to class. The court which gave bail promptly to Salman Khan in the case of running over some pavement dwellers would never consider giving bail to a pavement dweller accused of theft, even if he is an undertrial prisoner and has not been found guilty. The stark reality is that accumulation of wealth by illegal means by a businessmen, or, politician or, top bureaucrat is not really a crime in the capitalist system. This is reflected in our political system and also influences the judiciary. Years ago, EMS Namboodiripad had pointed to the class bias of the judiciary. EMS in a press conference on November 11, 1967 had said that “Where the evidence is balanced between a well dressed, pot-bellied rich man and a poor, ill-dressed and illiterate person, the judge instinctively favours the former” and that “the judiciary is weighted against workers, peasants and other sections of the working classes”. He further stated “the law and the system of judiciary essentially serve the exploiting classes.” For telling the truth about the judicial system, EMS was held in contempt of court by the Kerala High Court and fined Rs. 1,000 and in default of payment of fine, simple imprisonment for one month. This verdict of the High Court was appealed in the Supreme Court. V.K. Krishna Menon appeared for EMS. The Bench headed by Chief Justice Hidayatullah upheld the verdict of the High Court but reduced the quantum of punishment to a fine of Rs. 50 or, in default one week of simple imprisonment. This famous case showed how the higher judiciary was unable to accept the truth about its class nature. Many jurists criticized the judgment of the High Court and the Supreme Court pointing out that there was no scandalisation of the judges nor any motive imputed on any judge or single judgement. The use of the contempt provision was, in this case, infringement of the freedom of expression. What EMS said about the judicial system needs to be recalled today when we witness how the rich and the mighty are able to have their way in the courts of justice.