<div>The present decade 2011-2020, has been declared ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’ by the United Nations. In India, over 1.3 lakh cases of road accident fatalities were reported in 2013 alone. If the figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau are to be relied upon, it all boils down to this: one road accident occurs every minute and one fatal road accident occurs every four minutes. Sabari’s car accident was one such serious hit-and-run case. The Supreme Court has recently, in S. Raja Seekaran vs. UOI, observed that untimely retrieval of the injured accident victim to the hospital is the leading cause of deaths caused by road accidents. Though, the Supreme Court, in Pt Paramanand Katara vs. UOI, has stated that no victim of a road traffic accident can be denied medical aid for want of completion of medico-legal or police formalities, yet, we see that in Sabari’s case, the three policemen blatantly refused to take her critically injured driver, Ambi, to the hospital, citing jurisdictional disputes.<br /><br />Contrary to popular belief, the law as laid down in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is not completely ineffective — its enforcement is. Further, official data reveal that pay scales of policemen are extremely low and service conditions poor. The police’s conduct in Sabari’s case reflects an institutional malaise that has been plagued by an utter lack of motivation, compassion and general reluctance on their part to perform their duties with honesty and integrity. Corrective measures taken to ensure accountability of the police, too, prove ineffective. In states like Assam, for instance, the Police Accountability Commission failed miserably owing to poor infrastructure, lack of funds and inadequate staffing. Deeply infuriated by this disturbing trend, the apex court has recently constituted a committee headed by judges to monitor enforcement of its directives closely.<br /><br />At the other end of the spectrum, we have good Samaritans like Jnanesh, for instance, who, having chosen altruism over self-preservation, ended up in what can be rightfully termed as a “costly mess”, better avoided than invited. <br /><br />The wisdom imparted to him by Kuldeep, another despondent witness, who reported a devastating road accident caused by poor road signage, reveals a harrowing tale of a man abused by the due process of law, not to mention the unceasing harassment by the police, repeated summons by the court to testify against the accused and the frivolous adjournments sought by crafty defence lawyers representing either the rich or the even richer, insurance companies. In light thereof, can one really rely upon the protection accorded to frustrated litigants in the Advocates Act, 1961, against malpractice committed by lawyers? <br /><br />Such complaints, if at all raised, end up before state bar councils which, ironically, are headed by lawyers themselves and have proved ineffective as far as disciplining lawyers is concerned. Digging beneath the surface, official data reveal what could, perhaps, be one of the reasons behind the frightful state of affairs in Indian courts and tribunals. Judicial posts in the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (set up in each district), for instance, are almost never filled to their capacity, they lack infrastructure and official pay for the presiding officers are rarely a match to the average salaries enjoyed in the private sector. <br /><br />The government’s reluctance to squarely address the aforesaid institutional realities, has given birth to a disturbing culture of reluctance — be that the indifferent reluctance of bystanders who do nothing to help road accident victims for fear of being harassed later, or the indolent reluctance of the police, which bends only before the influence of the powerful, or even the unsympathetic reluctance of the institutions of justice which, instead of applauding the selfless efforts of ordinary citizens like Idris, for instance, erode any faint strains of faith in the system of justice that might have remained in the people’s hearts. Symptomatic treatment of this institutional malady, would, unfortunately, only lead to its aggravation than its cure. The way forward is to reinvigorate our institutions and systems to shift from the model of ‘command and control the citizen’ to serve and be accountable to the individual citizen. <br /><br />The writer is Partner at PLR Chambers and is a public policy and regulatory affairs lawyer suhaan.mukerji@plrchambers.com<br /><br />(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 22-09-2014)</div>
