A stumbling block for India

Dear Madam,

Apropos your article titled Law enforcement in the July/August issue, congratulations on your well-balanced coverage of the issue.

Law enforcement in India is not as bad as it is made out to be anecdotally and in some comments. However, it is also not comparable to what one would wish for or hears of in developed jurisdictions. The current regime works in patches and an efficient enforcement is often a coincidence of good lawyers, favourable jurisdiction and efficient and capable judges all coming together. However, a good and efficient law enforcement system cannot work merely on the basis of coincidence.

Indians have traditionally been a litigious lot; family and property disputes have been known to go on for ages, often to uphold family honour. This attitude has continued in modern times and is reflected in the form of a reluctance to admit a breach of law or contractual obligations, or to be prepared to face the consequences of them in order to uphold individual or institutional prestige. This leads to attempts to exploit all means to oppose and to come out clean from any proceeding for wrongdoing/default and contributes to delays in law enforcement.