Governance

Justice is integral to the functioning of our democracy, to uphold the rule of law and to preserve the faith of citizens in the judiciary. A strong, independent, accountable and efficiently functioning judiciary is also essential for preventing corruption and abuse of power and for dispensing justice, fairly and expeditiously to all our citizens. For this we need to effectuate Judicial Reforms.

This would entail simplification of the judicial processes and making it accessible to all, reduction in procedural complexities, addressing the problem of inordinate delays in the dispensation of justice, ensuring that judges of adequate quantity and quality dispense effective and timely justice, increasing judge strength and commensurate infrastructure with adequate use of Information Technology and electronic connectivity, transparency in the appointment of judges and ensuring judicial ethics and putting in place accountability mechanisms in order to stem increasing corruption in the judiciary.

To sum up, the desired judicial reforms should take into account the following areas of concern

Huge pendency of cases - According to the April–June, 2014 (Vol. IX, Issue No.2) edition of Court News brought out by the Supreme Court of India, there were 65,970 cases pending before the apex Court as on June 30, 2014. The data available for the 24 High Courts and lower courts up to March 2014 showed pendency of 44.8 lakhs and whopping 2.7 crores respectively.

The impact of these delays and the denial of justice - is the cumulative loss of public confidence in the judiciary, and a resort to lawlessness and violent crime as a method of negotiating disputes. Even judges of the apex Court have attributed the deteriorating law and order situation in this country to the failure in the effective and timely delivery of justice, rendering citizens with little alternative but to take the law into their own hands. The pendency has to be reduced and ultimately eradicated with a time bound target.

Delays in the administration and dispensation of justice–These delays starting from procedural hassles through the conduct of the proceedings right up to the delivery of the final judgment are inordinate and the consequent ‘pendency’ of cases is known to be shockingly huge running into almost 3.00 crore cases today as mentioned above.

Inadequate judge strength- The grim situation are further compounded by the fact that there is inordinate delay in the existing vacancies in the High Courts. The Estimates Committee of the Parliament, focussing the attention on the pendency of cases in the Supreme Court and High Courts, noticed that there were 69 vacancies (as on 3-2-1986) of Judges in various High Courts lying unfilled and if the situation was allowed to continue, the same could be interpreted as deliberate denial of justice.(124th Report of the Law Commission)

Justice accessible to all- As envisaged by the framers of our Constitution, justice should be easily available/ accessible to all and opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizens by reason of economic or other disabilities such as distance, etc. Also, the huge financial burden on the litigant in order to secure justice should be taken into consideration when discussing reforms in the judiciary.

Need for decentralisation of the system of administration of justice by establishing other tiers of systems within the judicial hierarchy to reduce the volume of work in the Supreme Court and the High Courts and alternative methods of dispute resolution such as mediation, arbitration, plea bargaining, pre-litigation counselling, special forums for special categories of cases, etc, to be encouraged.

Need for planning and management of existing capacity / resources, including time management, use of technology, human resources.

Lack of accountability and transparency in the system – There is no accountability for delays and there is no recourse/system of redressal either. There is no provision for litigants or lawyers to lodge complaints against delays (or any other grievance) except to file “early hearing applications”, etc. before the very judges who themselves might be partly contributing to the delay. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) has recommended that courts be accountable to the people. There should be a complaint redressal/ grievance redressal cell to provide feedback on the functioning and members of the judiciary, with swift action and response.

Lack of financial autonomy of the judiciary- The Judiciary does not have powers to create additional courts, appoint court staff or augment the infrastructure required by the courts.

Any progress on judicial reforms has to take into account all these factors, but unfortunately the problem is compounded by a lack of effective will across the board to institute these reforms. Common Cause along with Janhit Manch had approached the apex court seeking specific direction in order to render effective and speedy justice to all, based on social needs, constitutional goals and a fair and balanced approach and taking into account all the concerns mentioned above.

Some of our initiatives on the subject are listed below:

PILs

Petition to ensure speedy dispensation of Justice

Petition on Post Retirement Activities of Supreme Court Judges

RTI Rules of various High Courts Impeding Access to Information

Complaint to Chief Information Commissioner dated February 16, 2009

Complaints against specific High Courts dated August 4, 2009

Complaint regarding RTI Rules of Allahabad HC

Complaint regarding RTI Rules of Bangalore HC

Complaint regarding RTI Rules of Calcutta HC

Complaint regarding RTI Rules of Bombay HC

Complaint regarding RTI Rules of Jabalpur HC