Justice is blind....and so are its keepers !

Academic integrity is highly valued in this country and rightly so. There are stiff deterrents to ward off probable offenders. However, an incident occurred today which reflects the title of this post and has left me feeling dissatisfied.

In class today a student was apparently found guilty of copying the solution to a homework problem verbatim from the book. Without disputing the story, I agree that it was a foolish, dishonest and dangerous thing to do and having done so he definitely deserves punishment.
The University that I am in has a very strict code called the _____ code of honour and violating it brings heavy punishment. But I was shocked at the magnitude of it-F grade in the course and dismissal from the university. I write this hoping the latter does not happen.
Let me just put that in perspective. A foolish student makes a mistake like this once. Not in an examination but in one problem of a homework that will not even amount to a tenth of the total weightage. And for that the self righteous men in authority decide to enforce the law to the letter. They decide to end his career by terminating his admission at the university. Is that fair?
I know law is blind-its precisely for that reason I do not have much respect for it; but surely the men enforcing it need not be blind. I thought the purpose of the law is to punish, not destroy. And in this case they could have put the fear of God into the student by doing far less, and yet setting an example, teaching him a lesson, without flogging a dead horse. Even a murderer gets a chance to live, quite often. This is just a student. Surely he deserves another chance.
But perhaps this is a symptom of a greater evil here-the fiendish desire to adhere to the letter of the law without using one's mind to decide the right course of action-a contrast with India where there is a pathological desire to break the law.

I remember the campus newspaper reporting on the ridiculous rates of fines that apply to cyclists who break the traffic rules. In accordance with the spirit of the law that treats all offenders equally, one on a bike worth a double digit amount who would be hard pressed to cause greivous bodily harm even if he so desired and another in a car worth a princely sum and weighing a hundred times more pay the same penalty for violating road rules.
Surely, such a punishment serves no purpose .

Fire is a good teacher, it is said, because a small child learns the lesson after getting burnt and knows not to touch the fire. How would it be if he were to touch it and be punished by being charred to death ?