Holy cow! The innocent-until-proven-guilty pillar of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is under attack from (In)Justice VC Malimath. This would mean that the burden of proving innocence would lie with the accused rather than the prosecution having to prove the person’s guilt “beyond reasonable doubts.”

The ‘criminal justice system is virtually collapsing under its own weight as it is slow, inefficient and ineffective’ due to which ‘people are losing confidence in the system,’ the report said. The present system of the prosecution having to prove the guilt of an accused ‘places a very unreasonable burden on the prosecution,’ the committee said in its report and recommended that in India, like in the continental countries, a ‘clear and convincing’ standard of proof should be statutorily prescribed.

This is probably one of the most business-unfriendly ideas I’ve heard in a long time. The laws have never been a problem in India, the enforcement has — and the venal corruption that eats into almost every walk of public life. One of the reasons India had some credibility (vis-a-vis, say, China) was its familiar legal traditions. Now, at one stroke, Justice Malimath and Mr Advani wish to wipe the slate clean, and make India’s judicial system just as arbitary as the Indian bureaucracy is.

The ostensible thinking behind this is that ministers and other VIPs caught with wads of currency notes on their premises during raids need not come under the category of ‘presumed to be innocent till proved guilty beyond reasonable doubts’. Rubbish. Ministers survive raids like these because of inept prosecution and political influence. And they will continue to do so. Meanwhile, it will become much easier for average Indian to be victimized via planted evidence: “Your Honor, a search of Joe Ramkhilawan’s housed revealed wads of fake Indian rupees, a sack of poppy and a copy of the Pakistani national anthem. He is obviously an agent of the Foreign Hand(tm) and should be hanged!”