बेबाक · Editorial
One Law For The ATM Thief And The Balance Sheet: Speed Cannot Depend On Size
From a ₹1,816.22 crore EPFO fraud case to a five-storey Bhiwandi collapse to detention in Assam, the same test recurs: does the law move with equal seriousness across scale?
A Week Of Reckonings
In the space of days, Indian justice moved on very different targets. In Odisha, the Raurkela Police cracked an attempted SBI ATM loot at the Jaraikela SBI ATM within 24 hours, arresting the accused from Manoharpur in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district. In Mumbai, the Central Bureau of Investigation registered an FIR against Reliance Capital Limited, its former chairman Anil Ambani and others over an alleged ₹1,816.22 crore loss to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation. In Bhiwandi, a five-storey building collapsed, killing ten and injuring three, and an FIR was lodged against the owner and repairs contractor. Different scales, one question: is the law equal to all of them?
The Core Tension
The state's reflexes can be swift where the accused is small and visible. An attempted ATM loot was solved within 24 hours; after the Bhiwandi tragedy, the contractor and building owner were booked and an inquiry was ordered. The harder test is the powerful defendant with layered corporate structures, secured non-convertible debentures and the capacity to litigate for years. The EPFO case concerns the retirement savings of ordinary workers. When the alleged wrong is measured in thousands of crores, the speed of registering an FIR must be matched by the seriousness of resolution, or accountability risks becoming theatre.
Steel-Manning Both Sides
The case for restraint deserves its strongest hearing. An FIR is an allegation, not a verdict; those named in the EPFO and Bhiwandi matters are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and conviction by headline is its own injustice. The Karnataka High Court's stay of a former minister's murder conviction, with release on bail and the consequence of revoking disqualification from the post of MLA, shows why appellate scrutiny matters before consequences become irreversible. Yet the counter-case is also grave: when the Enforcement Directorate questions a former state fire minister for about ten and a half hours in an old corruption case, citizens are entitled to ask whether process is being followed uniformly, and whether firmness against the influential survives past the FIR stage.
What The Evidence Shows
The pack yields hard particulars, not impressions. The CBI's FIR against Reliance Capital Limited alleges a wrongful loss of ₹1,816.22 crore to the EPFO through secured non-convertible debentures, and also names unknown public servants and other unknown persons. In Bhiwandi, repairs reportedly began four days before the collapse, after residents had reported concerns. Before the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Home Affairs has stated in an affidavit that a foreign citizen cannot be deported unless the home country confirms nationality, in a plea challenging the indefinite detention of persons declared foreigners in Assam without prospects of deportation. Each fact points to the same fault line: remedies that exist on paper but can stall in practice.
The Considered Verdict
The concern is not that Indian justice fails to act, but that it may act unevenly—decisive in visible cases, slower in complex ones, and forgetful of those trapped in its own procedures. A person declared foreign, with no country confirming nationality, may be held in a limbo the state must answer for. A provident-fund fraud of this magnitude, if proven, would strike at savings surrendered under a promise of protection. Bhiwandi shows that the poor often occupy dangerous buildings because they have the fewest choices, which makes official neglect more culpable, not less. Equal law cannot mean equal registration and unequal resolution.
The Way Forward
The remedy is institutional, not rhetorical. Financial-fraud cases of this scale should carry clear timelines for investigation, chargesheeting and trial, so ₹1,816.22 crore matters do not outlive the victims' patience, while the EPFO strengthens investment governance and scrutiny of corporate debt exposure. Municipal bodies must be bound to act on residents' structural-safety complaints within fixed days, turning the Bhiwandi warning into a preventive duty rather than a post-mortem FIR. And the Supreme Court should settle the deportation-limbo question with a humane, time-bound framework for those no country will confirm as nationals. Equal law is a schedule of deadlines the state agrees to keep for everyone.
When accountability arrives in 24 hours for an ATM and more slowly for a balance sheet, the citizen learns to ask whether the law's speed changes with the defendant's size.
Your Constitutional Rights
What the Constitution guarantees in this storyAn arrested person must be told the grounds of arrest, may consult a lawyer of their choice, and must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.
Fundamental RightNo person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except by a fair, just and reasonable procedure established by law — read by the courts to include dignity, privacy, health, a clean environment and livelihood.
Fundamental RightNo one can be convicted under a retrospective law, punished twice for the same offence, or compelled to be a witness against themselves.
Fundamental RightThe State shall take steps to separate the judiciary from the executive in the public services.
Directive PrincipleWhat this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
Join the movement
One fearless editorial at a time — in your language. Plus the constitutional Ask that must follow.
An editorial is the considered opinion of The Mudda desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions and actors; we do not endorse or attack any political party. "The Mudda's Ask" is a citizen's good-faith policy proposal, grounded in the Constitution — not the platform of any party. Translations are faithful — no fact is added in any language. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →