Fast Track Courts : Is this a blackmarket for judicial services ?
The news that the Supreme Court is planning to introduce a fast track court for corporates who can afford steep judicial fees -- and in the process earn windfall income -- raises some very disturbing questions. Profiteering from the sale -- at high prices -- of scarce goods and services is referred to as ' blackmarketing ' and in India both the administration as well as civil society views it as crime. Jawaharlal Nehru had in fact wanted blackmarketeers to be hanged from lampposts and even today the government threatens to crack down on hoarders and blackmarketeers every now and then. Unfortunately, if not paradoxically, the Indian state is no stranger to this tendency towards blackmarketing when it comes to the delivery of its own goods and services. " Tatkal " schemes -- in telephones, rail tickets and gas connections -- are nothing but blackmarketing in disguise where those who are willing to pay a premium are delivered scarce goods and services ahead of t...