Over a period of 24 hours, the Indian courts have brought to the fore two verdicts that almost fully embody the irony and excruciating tardiness of the system. From a common man who spent 37 years waiting for justice for a crime he did not commit to a celebrity actor who finally got convicted for a crime in a case that has dragged on for two decades, the two verdicts by India’s lower courts reveal the abject pace and purpose of the judicial system.

The ailments of the Indian courts are legendary: A pending case rate that runs into millions at every rung of the courts’ hierarchy including the apex body, the Supreme Court; the unceasing allegations of corruption against both the legal fraternity and the judicial corps; administrative loopholes such as the unfilled vacancies of judges that drag on for years and a burning public concern of the judicial system’s lack of robustness to uphold India’s constitutional and democratic principles.

These are grave concerns and the seven decades-long track record of an independent India has done little to provide evidence that any of them will be addressed with urgency. Undertrials outnumber convicts in Indian prisons, while the setting up of ‘fast courts’ ‘mobile courts, and even morning and evening courts, are more impressive as policy posters than in their ability to hasten the process and make a dent in the staggering backlog of pending litigations.

Unless the governments, at the Centre and the states, make the functioning of justice a national priority, and a badge of honour, there will be millions more like the man who waited 37 years for justice to be meted out.