Better judgement

India is a land of great promise. While there are many things going for us, the judicial machinery has not kept pace with the demands of India on the march. The fact that there is a backlog of 20 million civil disputes in the Indian courts that will take another 20 years to complete under the present system does not augur well for our judicial system. The courts are simply unable to cope up with the volume of workload partly due to lack of resources and due to their style of functioning. Every malady, however, has a cure. For starters, the Supreme Court of India should establish regional benches in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and only take up matters of constitutional importance. The High Courts need to establish a bench in one city other than the capital of respective states and be the highest judicial forum for all civil cases. Senior Counsels should be made to serve as Judges for a certain minimum period, say one quarter every year, and the compensation package should be good enough to attract qualified and successful lawyers. In matters of Arbitration & Conciliation, the system should provide statutory recognition to conciliation proceedings. Arbitration needs to be made litigant friendly in terms of costs, time frame and ease. Adjournments are the bane of our judicial system and we need to impose restrictions on the number of adjournments . Dates of hearings must be agreed to by the lawyers and marked in the court calendar accordingly. Final and third hearing of the main case should be held not later than three months from the date of the first notice to both the parties. Lawyers who absent themselves or cause unnecessary delay should be penalised. And finally, the types of appeal need to be regularised and disposed off within two months of the first hearing. To achieve all this, our courts need to adopt the latest in technology to improve efficiency. Mere tinkering will not yield the desired results. Bold and substantial steps need to be taken to transform the judicial system by the year 2012.
ThKarti Chidambaram Age: 36 Managing Director, Chess management services THE ECONOMIC TIMES 29 Feb, 2008, 0423 hrs IST, TNN