Reading about a 60-year-old man in Uttar Pradesh walking free after spending 11 years in jail simply because he couldn't afford a lawyer is profoundly disturbing. Eleven years. An entire decade and more, lost not to a conviction, but to a systemic void. This isn't just a failure of justice; it's a failure of information management. The man was, in essence, a record lost in a vast, unindexed database.
Our judicial system, with its mountains of paperwork and overburdened staff, functions like an archaic search engine. If you don't have the right 'keyword'—in this case, legal representation—your query, your very existence, returns no results. You simply disappear into the archives.
It reminds me of a thought I had over a decade ago. In a 2010 blog post, TIME TRAVEL ?, I predicted that the future of search wouldn't be about finding 'information' but about receiving 'solutions' to 'problems'. I wrote: "They will enter their current / expected 'problem' in a hand - held device and receive readymade 'solution / answer / advice' in milliseconds!"
Seeing this story today validates that early thought with a renewed and somber urgency. We have built powerful search engines and AI that can sift through petabytes of data for commercial gain, yet a man can remain invisible to a system that holds his freedom in its hands. The 'problem' was an undertrial languishing without representation for a period far exceeding any potential sentence. The 'solution' was simple legal aid or a judicial review. Our system failed to execute this basic search.
Imagine an AI-powered oversight system for our judiciary. A system that actively 'searches' for anomalies within its own database:
- Flagging Inaction: It could automatically flag cases of undertrials who have been incarcerated without trial for an excessive period.
- Identifying the Unrepresented: It could identify individuals without legal counsel and connect them with state-sponsored legal aid services.
- Preventing Oversights: It could cross-reference time served with the maximum potential sentence for the alleged crime, alerting authorities when an injustice is imminent.
This isn't a futuristic fantasy; it's a practical application of the technology we already possess. We use AI to detect fraud and optimize supply chains. Why can't we use it to find the lost, the forgotten, and the unjustly detained?
This man’s lost decade is a testament to the human cost of systemic inefficiency. His story should be a catalyst for change, pushing us to build not just smarter cities or businesses, but a more just and responsive society. We need a search engine for justice.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
Of course, if you wish, you can debate this topic with my Virtual Avatar at : hemenparekh.ai
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