MY INDIA, MY VOTE An independent and impartial judiciary, and a speedy and efficient system are the very essence of the civilization. However, our judiciary, by its very own nature has become cumbersome, agonizingly slow and inefficient. Justice delayed is justice denied. Nowhere this ring truer than in India, where a staggering 30 million cases are said to be pending in the country's courts today.
And to tackle this intimidating problem requires comprehensive judicial reforms, more judges of quality and improvement of the judicial infrastructure, jurists say. Thus, there is a burning need to reform the country's judicial system in order to provide speedy and quality justice accessible to the ordinary citizens.
The ambiguity in our judicial system has let us down in so many instances , that it’s time the faith in the system must be restored , else the day is not far, when people would resort to taking law in hands and there would be an absolute chaos and the word ‘civilization’ would be a history.
We need to be vigilant and make our government responsible. We, at INNLive have brought forth the list of our concerns regarding our Judicial system. We want to see a change this time, no excuse shall be entertained at any cost. Let’s come together for a cause that needs us and our voice. After all, its My India, My Vote, it must count and It will count!
We are presenting our list while we are open to any suggestions from our readers, policy makers and experts:
RATIFY LAWS ON JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS AND ACCOUNTABILITY: The current system of appointments, to the superior judiciary, through a Collegium of senior judges in every high court and the Supreme Court, has proved to be futile because it is completely in-house and opaque. The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2013 to redress these two deficiencies, should be enacted.
The older Bill relating to probity, the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, also needs to be revived, especially because of its virtue of giving a say to non-judicial voices without compromising on judicial independence.
PERK UP JUDGE-POPULATION RATIO: It has been 12 years, since the Supreme Court, with regard to the subordinate judiciary, has directed a boost in the judge strength from 10.5 per 10 lakh people to 50 per 10 lakh people. Successive governments have made little budgetary allocations to achieve such a five-fold increase in the human resources and infrastructure of the subordinate judiciary, where the bulk of the 3.2 crore cases is pending. Since, no government wants it to be strong,it is vital that the judiciary must have a greater say in the allocation of funds for its needs.
ENHANCE ACCESSIBILITY TO SUPREME COURT: The government should implement the 2009 Law Commission recommendation that the highest court in the land be split into a Constitution Bench in New Delhi and Cassation Benches in the four regions to deal with all the appellate work arising out of high court decisions.
Though the Supreme Court has expressed reservations about such radical re- structuring, Parliament should give greater weight to the public interest involved in sparing litigants the trouble of approaching the Capital from distant states.
ESTABLISH A COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM OF CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION: There is need for seminars, conferences and lectures to be organized in a systematic manner, first making continuing legal education accessible for all and then making it mandatory as is the practice in many countries of the world, suggests Pranab Mukherjee, he further adds,"Establishing a comprehensive system of Continuing Legal Education will enhance professionalism, accountability and public respect for lawyers".
It is also imperative that continuing legal education centres such as judicial academies be set up for enabling Judges to keep abreast with emerging areas of law such as cyber laws and intellectual property, he added.
LOOKOUT FOR A SOCIALLY RESPONSIVE LAWYER OF ETHICS: As Pranab Mukherjee, beautifully sums it up, “legal education and continuing professional development must create a socially sensitive lawyer of conscience, for whom justice delayed is not an opportunity but blemish on one's professional persona and a failure of the system of which one is an integral part.
The ideal Indian lawyer must not only have excellent legal skills, but also embodies social responsibility and strong professional ethics. The efficacy of the rule of law depends to a large extent on the integrity of lawyers who are the link between the citizen and the system of justice," he said.
UNINTERRUPTED EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES: Section 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) recommends that the examination of witnesses, once it commences, should preferably be conducted daily and without a break.
But some provisions that allow adjournments in this process are often altered by both the prosecution and the defence, there are 100 grounds for interrupting the statutorily mandated continuous examination of witnesses and the system can't remove even one. The intent and scope of Section 309 is one thing and the reality of the court procedures are all together different scene.
A hindrance in a trial invariably works in favour of the defence as there is always a possibility of witnesses disappearing, getting compromised or turning hostile. It is possible that once the examination of witnesses starts then it could go on uninterrupted but for that you need more judges, more judicial infrastructure and judicially trained manpower.
NEED FOR PROMPT JUSTICE IN PENDING CASES: In the recent report published in June 30, 2012, nearly 14,924 subordinate courts were burdened with nearly 30 million cases, 74 percent of which were pending for at least five years. Apart from these, fresh cases continue to be filed every day.
So, the pending cases is the obvious reality of our judicial system. The problem boils down to various combinations of factors ,coupled with the lack of seriousness in dealing with the problem. Jurist R.S. Dakha said the judicial officers alone could not be blamed for the huge backlog."A trial court judge has a daily list of around 25-30 cases, and at times, even 40 cases.
The time available, in reality, is enough to deal with only four to five cases," Dakha said. "Without substantially increasing the judicial infrastructure, including the people manning it, the backlog of cases would continue to rise," says Dhaka .
Thus, our Judicial System has its own share of the problem, which we must not ignore further. We need to act on these issues and opt for the requisite reforms in our Indian Judicial system. We, have presented our list of concerns , based upon our research and surveys.
We, agree, we might have missed out a few important points which we would want our readers to contribute in. Please, this time don’t just vote, but make an informed decision on the right candidate who will work towards making our country more progressive and will accelerate our journey, to be a developed nation.
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