ON JULY 28th Shamsuddin Fakruddin was convicted of a theft by a metropolitan magistrate. The verdict, instead of making him sad, gave him utter happiness as the verdict now declared him free. Almost an year back he was lodged in Tihar Jail for stealing a wallet containing rupees 200 and an ATM card. He has spent almost 12 months behind bars for an offense that carries a sentence of not more than three months.

After being denied bail once, he was granted bail three months ago, but he did not have the asked amount of rupees 10,000 in property needed for a bail bond. He changed his initial not-guilty plea to a guilty when he learnt that his father has passed away and he is required for performing last rituals. He said to his lawyer "I'll say I am guilty. I just want to get out. I just want to go home to my village."

Shamsuddin, before changing his initial statement, maintained that he did not commit any theft. He was charged under various IPC sections and sent to Tihar Jail for judicial custody. He was fortunate that his case came in the eyes of NGOs whose tremendous efforts to get him bail out has resulted in getting him out of the jail, though at the cost of admitting a crime which was actually he may not have committed. Does the judiciary, which has let him rotten in the jail for a period longer than he was eligible, has the guts to convict even a single corrupt politician or a bureaucrat who have mushroomed during last few years especially during unearthed scams such as 2G Spectrum Scam, Commonwealth Games Scam, Telgi Scam, etc.?

Do they dare to give them capital punishment or hang them by neck seeing the SIZE of their crimes? Looks like we need to pass this knowledge to our coming generation that once you grow up commit a bigger crime not just petty theft of Rs 200.

These days the qualification required to enter politics is not the economic and civic and public administration degrees rather how many police cases one has on its name and how much capable one is to commit scams. Seeing the present day scenario I would like to ask common man to be ready to get punished for a crime which he hasn't even thought of. If tomorrow a corrupt government official is caught on corruption or on some charges, one among the common man would be lucky enough to actually get caught and put behind the bars. Looks like India is not developing, with failure of Baba Ramdev's comment that by 2011 India would be a superpower, its going back to the ancient times. To the times where somebody from Praja used to be hand-picked, given a lucrative chance of earning some good amount if he agrees to get punished for a crime committed by the King or somebody among his cabinet.