The Maze

For those who feel that the Law is ever an Ass (with due apologies to that noble of beasts), here is a surprise: unlike an Ass, the Law is able to realise its own asinine nature (asininity sounds so incorrect that I hesistate to use it, lest it expose my lack of grammar).
Most Indians who have had occassion to be associated with the law have dreaded its might, not for its awful majesty but for something equally, if not more,awful; its awful rapacity. More distressing is its secular nature, it being eqaully rapacious of Time and Money which, in the modern world, are one and the same.
For Indians who have never been involved in the vast machinery of the legal system, the greatest punishment that could conceivably be inflicted is not the actual loss (of freedom or resources) but the process of the infliction (or benediction).

Like Gabbar Singh of Sholay fame, who boasts that Mother's utilise fear of him to put children to sleep, the legal system can lay claim to deterrence of crime. Nothing deters crime more effectively than the fact that one is likely to be caught in the tentacles of the law, irrespective of the fact that anticipated punishment can take so long to be delivered as to be almost labelled inter-generational.

In fact, given the proverbial long arm of the law, the framers of our legal system must be complemented on their vision and foresight, foreseeing that prevention of crime is better than detection, and further that a non-transparent, arbitrary set of rules, one that allows the norm to be determined by any exception that an inventive judge is able to dredge up from a hoary past of equally inventive judges, is the best deterrent, devised the current punishment that is our legal system.

Of course, if is quite unfair to lay the blame at the doors of the framers of the the legal system, if it is only the "small flies" that accept an invitation, by the spider, in the form of the lawyer, into the parlour that is the legal system, to forfeit all.
Thus, all who complain that the law does not provide any tangible solutions to our problems must be reminded of the divine purpose of the Law, as provided in the unparalleled aphorims of Bierce; a victorious litigant, questioning his lawyer as to the lack of any tangible benefits from the victory, is reminded by the lawyer that "he-the litigant- appears not to know the purpose of litigation" .

In this ideal world of judicial perfection, I wonder what certain learned judges alluded to when they compared the current legal proceedings to a "chakavyooha" (a complicated maze) with the litigant being in the position of an Abhimanyu ?
http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/apr282006/state198172006427.asp

Tale 1:The Liberal, the Free-marketer and the the Socialist: A Tale of three approaches
A Liberal from the Big Apple, a Free-Marketer from the Windy City and a Socialist/maoist from the heart of the BIMARU states once happened to meet at a Social science Jamboree that went by the name of Global Anti-Social Forum.

A peasant just then wandered in, along with his family, in search of a meal. His eyes lit up with a rare hope when informed, in English (not in the uncivilised 'vernacular' tongues), by a fashionably (or what is the same, scantily) clad female, a 'volunteer' at the gala event, that these great souls had assembled here to deliberate upon the Poor Peasant and His Problems, and he uttered, between broke sobs, "Noble Sirs, I humbly salute you, and ask you to put me out of my misery, to put some bread into my mouth and roof over my Head"!

Thus Spake the Great Men:

The Liberal (L): Hail to democracy, Victory to the People, down with Oppression. Friends, I represent to you Hope, the Hope that people shall break all shackles of tyranny.
Look at what we have done with liberal values, achieved equality before the Law, engendered a Free Press, enshrined Free Speech, encouraged libert(ine's)y[, attained gender equality]
The Free-Marketer (FM): My Friends, do not be misled by the liturgy of the Liberal, he knows not what he speaketh.
Listen to me, I am the New Religion, I am Legion, I shape lives, I provide the Correct Signal, worship at my Altar.
My God is the Profit, His Book is The Market, His Staff is Price, His Commandments are The Competitive Market, Laissez Faire, No Inflation, and His Angels include Milton Freidman.
Know that the Religion of the Market is the Opium of the (M)asses....
The Socialist: Death to the Enemy of the Peasants. Peasants of the World, do Not fall into the Trap of the New Religion, Hearken to my Voice, the Voice of Hope, of Revival, or Revolution.
Follow my Path and you shall be saved, Led into a New Egalitarian World, of Plenty, of Equality. Give me Blood and Babies and I shall give you Death and Destruction..
Liberal: Alas, my friends, believe in my message of peace, of brotherhood, not in the messages of destruction and of following pagan and cruel Gods.
Defend your rights to your last breath, Fight for your rights, remember that Eternal vigilance is the Price of Democracy.

Then, looking at the utterly befogged peasant, and feeling that a demonstration of their powers would be most convincing,
Thus acted the Great Men:
Liberal: "Look here, wretched peasant, you cannot Feed your family, How do you expect your wife to live. Here, I shall set right this injustice against Womanhood, and uphold the superiority and rights of a wronged womanhood", and promptly took her as the spoils of Evangelism.
FreeMarketer: "Heathen!, Knave!, I shall have to visit the Curse upon your unbelieving Soul, and I curse that your children be separated from you", and promptly set the children to earning their living, and making His God a Profit
The Socialist: "Enemy of the Peasants, and a counter-revolutionary, I shall yet reform you", and so saying, he Set him at once to Fighting, and Bled him till He could Bleed no more.

Just then rushed in a bevy of beauties, along with a bearded man or two, in tattered clothing and with battered slogans, calumniating the Liberals for their Wantoness and Hypocrisy, the FreeMarketers for their immoral Lust, the Socialisits for their Cruely, the peasant for his ignorance and gullibility. On being Duly propitiated with press photographs and attentions of the Great Men, they declared their mission accomplished and adjourned themselves to attack evils elsewhere.

Thus Concluded a Great Session and the Organisers congratulated the participants for showing them the Way. Each then went their Way, the Great Men glad at Having an opporunity of uplifing Lesser Mortals, Lesser Mortals Glad at Having had an opportunity to do their mite for the Upliftment of the Nether Beings, the AGO's(Anti-Governmental Organisations) at having succesfully opposed all the participants.

The Peasant then slowly opened his mouth, lips feebly, and in vain, searching for a drop of water, was promptly photographed by the now-free Press breathing His last.
The Press then resolved that his death would not go unremarked, and made their editor and owner a great profit.

Thereby Hangs the Tale of Development, remarked a Wag.