OpinionsOur ramshackle legal system - ‘justice delayed is justice denied’

Our ramshackle legal system – ‘justice delayed is justice denied’

Date:

P N Vijay

As far back as 1985, Justice P N Bhagwati addressed the concerns about the judicial system and said that “it is presently suffering from a serious disease and is on the verge of collapse”

The judiciary is one of the pillars of the democracy which we are so justly proud of. We have made tremendous strides in banking, in stock markets, in payments, in travel and booking, in computerising land records and many other areas. Unfortunately, our legal system remains in the stone age, unaffected by all the changes happening around it.

A recent count reveals over 330 lac cases pending in district and subordinate courts in , over 40 lacs in high courts and over 65,000 in the Supreme Court. Of these, more than one-fourth have been pending for more than five years. The Covid pandemic has seriously disrupted the functioning of the courts and the latest numbers are probably much more. According to a statement in Parliament recently, India has 20 judges for every million people; the US and Europe have more than 100. If one were to visit any of the district courts, one would be appalled by the crowding in the courtrooms and corridors… and the car parks!

Problems dating back to 20th century

The problems of the Indian justice system have been in existence since the beginning of the 20th century and many attempts have been made to correct them. In 1924, a committee was constituted by the crown under Justice Rankin of the Calcutta High Court to look at the delay in the disposal of civil appeals and cases. Another committee under the chairmanship of S R Das was constituted in 1929. But all these committees proved to be futile as the measures suggested by them were neither discussed nor implemented in the system.

A report submitted by the Bombay High Court Arrears Committee, 1972, under the chairmanship of J C Shah identified the major cause of the delay in judicial administration as the woeful inadequacy in the number of judges in the high courts as well as inordinate delay in filling vacancies. As far back as 1985, Justice P N Bhagwati addressed the concerns about the judicial system and said that “it is presently suffering from a serious disease and is on the verge of collapse”. So, not only the present generation, but several past generations have been suffering from the pace and inefficiencies of our stone age legal system.

Former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi making his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha in February this year echoed the sentiments of most Indians when he lashed out saying, “People regret their decision to go to court and it is the rich and the corporate citizens who are better suited to take the chance in court…. We want to have a $5 trillion but we have a ramshackle judiciary!”

Bounced cheques

Another unfortunate offshoot of this delay is the fate of criminal cases under Sec 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act relating to bounced cheques. Realising how important cheques are for the smooth functioning of activity, this law was enacted in 2002 to make bouncing of cheques a criminal offence, thereby ensuring that cheques can replace cash as the preferred mode of payment in the economy. But what has really happened is that this law, which envisaged the quick and summary disposal of cases, has also fallen victim to delays and today, we have 35 lac cheque bounce cases languishing in courts. So bad is the situation that recently the Supreme Court took it upon itself to direct high courts and lower courts to expedite these cases and suggested various practical steps. Hopefully, things will improve.

Two obvious means of improving the situation are increasing the number of judges and improving the infrastructure, both physical and digital. Some other ailments also need to be addressed. Though the law provides for time limits on conducting investigations and filing of charge sheets, these are rarely obeyed and have resulted in the obnoxious situation of undertrials languishing in jails for years- some times more than the years they would be in jail had they been convicted. This leads to crowding of jails and inhuman conditions there. Of the five lac inmates of Indians in jails, a whopping 3.5 lacs are undertrials.

In other countries, this number is less than 10 per cent. Of these, more than 90 per cent are not graduates and 28 per cent are illiterate. They are all victims of the system which takes years to judge their cases but refuses to bail them out; a tragic violation of the cardinal principle, ‘Innocent until proven guilty', which is the basis of a free society.

Another cause of delay

Frequent adjournments are one of the other causes of delays. These are restricted by the civil procedure code but the law is flouted routinely. Litigants seeking adjournments must be forced to bear a cost. This merely involves following the apex court's directions and the civil procedure code and the Supreme Court should crack the whip to make sure clever lawyers are not able to take repeated adjournments. We could even think of blacklisting such lawyers who try to torpedo the system. Alternative dispute settlement mechanisms like mediation and arbitration have not made much headway and these need to be used wherever possible.

We often talk of becoming an economic superpower and wish to make our economy fair and transparent. An essential prerequisite for achieving this is an efficient and transparent legal system. A legal system that enables economic choice, promotes ethical and sound business practices, cuts transaction costs and enables healthy commercial dealings through fair contracts is as essential as good infrastructure and sound policies. Our standing in the ease of doing business rankings is still low mainly because of the delays in our judicial system. Unfortunately, though this problem has been festering for more than a century, the government appears to lack the seriousness to give the problem the importance it deserves.

The author is an investment banker and political commentator. His Twitter handle is @pnvijay

Northlines
Northlines
The Northlines is an independent source on the Web for news, facts and figures relating to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and its neighbourhood.

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