http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6076540.stm

Last Updated: Monday, 23 October 2006, 14:35 GMT 15:35 UK

Stolen oxen case drags on for 33 years

By Amarnath Tewary
Ara, Bihar

For the past 33 years, Surajnath Yadav, a farmer in the Indian state of
Bihar, has been going to the local court as an accused in a case
involving the theft of a pair of oxen in his village.

Forty-six-year-old Yadav is the only survivor of five villagers accused
of stealing a pair of oxen from a house in Nawada Ben village on 19 June
1973.

He was 13 years old then. Today, he is the father of four children.

The maximum punishment for Yadav's crime is three years in prison.

The other accused - Ramdeo Yadav, Suresh Yadav, Sabha Yadav and Gopal
Singh- are all dead.

So are the oxen. So is the investigating officer, Yashwant Singh, the
complainant, Ramvriskha Yadav and his son, Vishwanath Yadav.

All this in a state which has a new policy of fast trials - last week a
district court completed the trial of a rape case in five hours flat,
sending the accused to prison for five years.

'Too old'

Every three months, Surajnath Yadav treks 20km from his village to the
district headquarters spending 50-100 rupees($1.11 to $2) on travel and
lawyer's fees.

"I have been making the rounds of the courts for my entire life. What to
do? First I had to go to the courts weekly, then monthly, and now I have
to appear once every three months," Yadav says.

"You can imagine how much money I have already spent on the case and
still the final judgement eludes me."

The court case against the surviving accused continues even though the
stolen oxen were recovered seven months after the theft.

In 1997, a judge hearing the case, Arvind Azad, ordered it to be closed:
"It has become too old and the prosecution did not have any evidence to
present in the court."

But the son of the complainant, Vishwanath Yadav, appealed against the
closure in a higher district court.

The appeal is still pending in the higher court. Vishwanath has since
died, but his son, Suresh Yadav, a milkman, continues to pursue the
case.

Surajnath Yadav's lawyer Raj Kumar Jain says his client's case is
possibly the oldest in the district court.

"It is a strange case, perhaps the oldest one here. The case should be
dropped by the court immediately, in view of the higher courts asking
for speedy trials in trivial cases," he says.

Theft of oxen is a common crime in agrarian central Bihar- a pair of
these farm animals cost around 25,000 rupees ($555) today, five times
their worth in 1973.

In August four people suspected of stealing oxen were lynched by
villagers in the Balbatra area.

"Oxen are essential for tilling our land, and their prices have also
shot up. So there are regular thefts of oxen in our area," says villager
Surendra Yadav.

Surajnath is fed up with the delays in his case.

"This is the way the judicial system works for poor people like me," he
says.

The chief justice of the high court in Bihar's capital, Patna, Justice
JN Bhatt says long delays in settling cases leads to disillusionment
with the judicial system.

The conviction rate in this lawless, dirt-poor state is as low as 6 to
7%, lawyers say.

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