By Rana Ajit

New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) The year set to end will be remembered as one when the judiciary put the fear of the law in the high and mighty with a series of high profile convictions that sent out a powerful message that justice was not beyond the reach of common citizens.

Six convictions came in quick spate in the closing months of 2006. While all of these were horrific crimes, the sentencing of the killers of two young women - Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lal - evoked a huge sigh of relief across the country as the trial courts had initially let off those charged with the murders.

Then, coal minister Shibu Soren was jailed for life for the 1995 kidnapping and murder of his aide Shashi Nath Jha, BJP MP Navjot Singh Siddhu was handed a three-year sentence in a 20-year-old road rage killing, and Delhi's woman councillor Sharda Jain was jailed for the abduction and murder of a male colleague with whom she was romantically involved but who shifted his affections elsewhere.

And Rishi Prakash Tyagi, a retired Delhi Police officer of the rank of assistant commissioner, was ordered hanged for his role in the death in custody 20 years ago of a youth accused in a petty crime.

Quite naturally, the convictions made it to the front pages of newspapers across the country - with the verdicts in the Mattoo and Lal causes grabbing the maximum headlines.

The lives of both women were cut short in their prime by two wayward and pampered youths of well-to-do and well-connected families. While Matto lost her life to the carnal lust of a fellow Delhi University student Santosh Kumar Singh, a senior police officers' son, ramp model Lall was shot dead by Manu Sharma because she refused him a drink at the fag end of a party.

With society at large and the media expressing outrage at the acquittals in the two cases, the Delhi High Court stepped into the picture and ensured justice was done. After a retrial, Singh was sentenced to death and Sharma to incarceration for life.

The legal community views this spate of convictions as "steps in the right direction" aimed at "putting the fear of law in high and mighty."

"Obviously, these convictions are right judicial steps, which enforces the fear of law in high and mighty people as well," said former minister of state for law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Former additional solicitor general K.K. Sood echoed his views, saying: "It is the judiciary's message that rigours of law exist for the poor and rich alike. Such steps embolden the people's faith in the rule of law and justice."

Even judges R.S. Sodhi and P.K. Bhasin, while sentencing Manu Sharma, had commented adversely on the trial court's verdict acquitting him. "We are of the view that this case is one that has shaken the confidence of society in the country's criminal justice delivery system," they had observed.

Terming the trial court's judgement as "perverse", the two judges had passed stricture against the concerned judge, now elevated to the Delhi High Court, for "making undue haste to achieve a particular end, namely acquittal".

Such strong observations could trigger questions as to whether the lower judiciary is vulnerable to manipulation and susceptible to various pulls and pressures.

Said Sood: "It certainly points to the malady plaguing at least the lower judiciary. It does indicate the vulnerability of judges in yielding to various pulls and pressures."

Like the capital's courts, others elsewhere in the country took their own small steps aimed at enforcing the fear of law. In Bihar, which often hogs the limelight for its lawlessness, a court in Rohtas district took a unique step to dispel the impression.

Rohtas district Additional Sessions Judge Arun Shrivastava in July convicted an alleged rapist in what could be the fastest-ever trial of a criminal case. Srivastava concluded the trial in just two days, convicting Gajendra Chowdhary for raping a minor girl last December.

The lightening speed of this trial left the legal community gasping for breath. They wondered if the judge sought to moot this new concept of "justice-hurried-and-justice-buried" as an antidote to what is referred as "delayed-and-denied-justice".

Beyond these headline-grabbing convictions, the justice delivery system continued to be plagued by heavy backlogs in high courts and lower courts across the country.

While the official figures put the number of various types of cases, including criminal and civil litigation, pending in the lower courts at over 25 million, the backlog in the high courts is over 3.5 million.

To reduce the workload of the lower judiciary, the government had set up over 1,400 fast track courts, initially for five years and later extended to 10 years. But even this has not made much of a dent in reducing the number of pending cases.