VASNI

TOPIC : Citizen’s Appeal - Expeditious and Timely Justice to all

‘Justice at your Doorsteps’

A Structural Amendment Procedure to ‘Change’ Justice Delivery System in India

Team VASNI (The Change)

Vishwas Nath

Antara Ghosh

Sonali Mishra

Neha Pundeer

Ichchhit Jaiswal

High Court

Supreme Court

Pending(Start ofYear)Fresh cases filled

cases resolved

Pending(End ofMonth)

Subordinate Courts Present Scenario

Proposed Solutions

1) Improving Quality of the Work Force

a) Law Education :

• Setting up regulatory institutions for Law Schools like ‘Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Law Education’.

• Institutes as well as research scholars should focus more on innovation rather than reconstruction.

• A rating system should be introduced for all law schools irrespective of their establishment.

• Financing of Law Schools and impartial unification in examination pattern is also required.

• Easy Availability of Free internship courses for law students. • Practical aspects of legal education such as moot courts, judgement writing etc.

should be dealt along with syllabus.

b) Lawyers :

• Grading of Lawyers on the basis of educational background, potential and experience by a reputed team at district, state and national level to upgrade their skills to the top levels .

• For Improving and Aiding the needy individuals through free workshops and internships followed by award of merit on passing examination of the learned skill.

2) Increasing the Potency of the Judges Appointment of Judges: • Selection criteria of the high court and supreme court judges must be transparent

and available under RTI.

• Shortlisted candidates to appear for interviews in front of an unbiased panel.

• For lower courts Standardizing Various Judicial Appointments like PCS (J) introducing more of practical aspects to assess the potential candidates.

• Removal of Quota during the appointment of judges, especially for Lawyers.

• Judges should be allotted cases on the basis of their specialisation on a branch of Law improving efficiency exponentially.

• Deciding the number of Judges by the formula: The number of judges in a court is decided by dividing the average institution of main cases during the last five years by the national average, or the average rate of disposal of main cases per judge per year in that High Court, whichever is higher

• Increase the retirement ages of Court Judges to 70 years .

• Potential of retired members of judiciary can be utilised for conduction and chairing of Internships, deciding cases by way of ADR etc.

3) Up gradation of the Court Infrastructure & Increase in the Court staff

• Increase in the ICT infrastructure.

• Increment in the number of Court managers & clerical staff .

• Separate specialised courts in Embassy, RTO etc...

• Legal awareness camps for the citizens within and outside the court premises.

• Implementing the concept of ‘Mobile courts’ on a larger scale across the nation.

• Increase in the Budget allocation for the state judiciary which according to present statistics is just 1% of the annual budget of each state except Delhi.

• Formation of Block/Tehsil /village courts.

4) Accountability for the cases disposed • Setting up of a national committee with one delegate from each state to account for the

Statistics and present status of cases to the concerned authorities. • Classification of the cases by the Section Officer at the district & session court should be implemented at the grass root level. • The Section Officer be made accountable to the State delegates for their job assigned. • The State delegates in turn be made accountable to ‘National Assessment Authority’ constituted for the same.

5) COMPUTERISATION

• Online dispute resolution for petty cases. • Interactive Voice Response System should be upgraded. • e-FIR, e-Plaint, e-written statement etc. mechanism should

be put in practice.

CASE: A plaintiff files a e-plaint in the court and the defendant on

issuance of summon , files a e-written statement. Thus the judge will come to know the cause of action- prima facie. The parties will be called for first hearing to present their evidence and if so required for the second hearing to produce the witnesses. The procedures can therefore be set flexible thereby reducing unnecessary delays in giving hearing dates.

6) Removing Pendency

• Step 1 :

• Step 2:

• Step 3: Prepare Time Table for all assigned judges.

• Step 4:

Classification of Cases

Petty Grave

Assign Judges

Retired Judges

High Court

Supreme Court

District Judges

Session Judge

Civil Judge

Submission of report of cases

Cases disposed Assessment of cases

7) Procedural Changes

• The mentioned clause ’Unless court deems fit’ in the procedural laws should be substituted by ‘Unless Exceptional Circumstances Arise’ to affectively reduce the summon time .

• The procedural practices like ‘summon , execution of decree , ...’ in CPC and CRPC should be amended and brought into implementation at the earliest .

• A mandatory resort be made by the courts to move to tribunal for specific cases.

• Mandatory free & competent legal services to be given to the needy . • Amendment of the CPC provision & its parallel acts in public interest, for eg :

section 80, Order V. • A provision should be made to send the copies of plaint to defendant before

filing the same in the court. • Revision power in criminal cases should be exercised either by HC or Session

court not both . • In case of new case filings identification details such as current bank account

number, pan card number etc should be made compulsory . • This will be especially helpful in case of appellate jurisdiction while sending

summons wherein punishment can be imposed if the summons are not replied by the respondents within the stipulated period.

8) Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) &

Online Dispute Resolution(ODR)

• Encouraging Cases to be solved through the ADR on account of the benefits.

• The Judicial Training Institute of India Should set up a separate cell for training individuals for negotiation skills – a must for ADR.

• Formation of a ‘ Sarvoch Lok Adalat ’ wherein the Principal district and session judge remains the chairman of this statutory body while senior civil judge remains a secretary in every district. Collector, commissioner of police, DGP, SP (Rural), and ZP CEO along with social workers are part of 15-member DLSA panel who act as ex-officio members of this Adalat, the biggest advantage of it being that its decision cannot be challenged in any court of Law.

• Organizing these Adalats at district levels.

• ODR is a form of online resolution of cases which can be implemented for speedy trails of cases and can be effectively implemented once the quality of ICT infrastructure improves .

9) Challenges and Risks

Challenges : • The Computerization of various processes may lead to an eventual increase in

Cyber Crime.

• Reduction of summon time period may have some genuine cases suffering .

• Implementing the Practical approach based curricula in the initial run won’t be easy .

• Initially Gradation of lawyers will lead to a friction .

• The Lawyers in the top most grades will create economical problem by increasing their consultation fees .

Risks : • The State Exchequer may find it difficult funding all the ventures.

• Absorbing talent and keeping it intact to train the upcoming workforce will be a herculean process.

• It will be a difficult for the court in a state with weak government machinery to get their orders implemented.

References:

•Law commission of India Report 221,Report 229

•Mission Mode Program

•National Knowledge Commission recommendation

•http://www.supremecourtofindia. nic.in/.

•National Consultation Report

•National Centre for State Courts

•http://www.causelist.nic.in/

•Official website of Maharashtra Government

•Press information Bureau of India

•http://lexisnexus.co.in

•www.lawand otherthings.blog spot.com

•Report 239(Virendra kumar Ohri vs union of India WRIT 341/2004)

•Malimath commitee report