Children of a Well-Connected God

We now know that a US immigration officer in Newark is as likely to have heard of SRK as an Indian fruit vendor is to identify Tim Robbins in a line-up of Caucasian men. What the hoopla over the "my name is Khan" incident revealed, apart from the immaturity of certain Indian politicians (read Ambika Soni), is the "VIP complex" in the Indian system, a long ingrained habit of trying not to inconvenience the rich and famous. This complex was evident in the way newspapers compared the SRK case to the time Abdul Kalam was "frisked like a commoner" at the New Delhi airport, 'in clear violation of protocol".
But the case that best demonstrates this preoccupation with pampering the privileged in recent times is that of Sanjeev Nanda. Nanda, the scion of an influential New Delhi family, was the prime accused in an infamous hit-and-run incident in January of 1999 when he rammed his BMW through a police checkpoint, killing six people and injuring one. He was initially acquitted of all charges for lack of reliable witnesses but after a lot of public outrage over the acquittal, he was retried and sentenced to five years in prison in September 2008, more than nine years after the crime.
But then last month a Delhi high court reduced his sentence from five years to two after downgrading his offence to a less serious one of causing death by rash or negligent act. The trial court where Nanda had previously been convicted had found him guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder since he was drunk and driving well beyond the speed limit. The Delhi high court disagreed. Here's why:
"[Though] the appellant caused the accident in which six persons died...., it was not a case where the appellant had any knowledge of the presence of these persons on the road..."
SAY WHAT???? You mow down six people without being aware of their presence on the road!!! What made the whole thing more convenient for Nanda was that he only had four or five months of the two year sentence left to serve since he had already put in some jail time during the protracted trial process. And the final cake, complete with icing, was delivered to him a few days ago when the Tihar Jail Superintendant let him out three months before his sentence was due to end as a reward for his "good conduct". Could they have fallen over themselves more in trying to smooth the guy's way to freedom? Why didn't they just dispense with the sham trials and let him walk a long time ago - slipping a few mints into his hand as he headed towards the door and expressing the hope that he had found the service satisfactory?