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Official website of Shri Jayant Chaudhary - Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Time For Change

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29 August 2012

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Time For Change

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Written by Mr Ravi Kumar Raghuvanshi

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Time For Change

“The constitution is good; it will fail only because those who operate it would have let it fail”- B.R. Ambedkar”

Occasionally circumstances arises that serves to remind us that courts in this Country are established under the constitution to meet the needs of the public rather than needs of lawyers, judges and court personnel. Such a moment has arrived in India.

In Indian democracy that is governed by Rule of law under a written Constitution, judiciary as a third-pillar is the sentinel to protect the rights of the citizens and to poise the scales of justice. When a Citizen approaches a Court of law for justice, it is not as if justice can be granted then and there within seconds. The judicial process can never be instantaneous, it will always take time, but it has to be reasonable one. Unfortunately, today the wheels of justice have become dawdling & time-consuming and we have reached to a position, where courts take not only months but years and even decades to decide cases, till then the denial of justice continues.

In July 2000, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in an attempt to reduce the staggering NPA (Non-performing Assets) totals, issued certain guidelines for the Banks to settle and compromise matters. If all the borrowers had settled and paid as per the guidelines, the NPA would have been settled for Rs. 25,000 crores. It is a different matter that only a small portion of the borrowers availed settlement there under and paid roughly 50% of what in truth owed from them. Those who did not otherwise pay are still contesting claims before Courts and Debt Recovery Tribunals all over the Country is a living example of how our Justice System has failed in this country. Do we realize what does it cost the Nation? Once again of these Rs. 25,000 crores of public money, if a part had been applied towards reform in laws and improvement of judicial administration, not only these 25,000 crores but much more would have been saved. Likewise, in the cases of excise matters, crores and crores of public money have been locked up .

Review of land acquisition cases reveals that the Court delays and long-winded litigation causes injustice to those whose land has been acquired. The compensation must be enough to buy another property. However, because of delays and compensation granted at old rates with only simple interest, the person whose property was acquired cannot think of purchasing from the compensation proceeds, even a thing 1/10th in value what was acquired. Sometimes, the land acquisition process is quashed by the courts on the condition of repayment of the compensation given, and then farmers find it difficult to repay the amount to get back their lands. It is only after the violent land acquisition protests in this decade made the Hon’ble Supreme Court realize to shift the judicial policy on land acquisition.

New judicial concepts like Arbitration & Mediation are no exception to delays. The Supreme Court observed as follows:

“It is unfortunate that delays, high cost, frequent and sometimes unwarranted judicial interruptions at different stages are seriously hampering the growth of arbitration as an effective dispute resolution process. Delay and high cost are two areas where the Arbitrators by self regulation can bring about marked improvement .

Stemming from these factors of delays and injustice is a concept popularly known as “Corruption”. Corruption can survive or increase or even multiply because of delays in judicial system. Today, it is like a perennial malady afflicting practically all of India’s billion citizens. Countries like India, where there are institutional monopolies and lack of economic and political alternatives; some people see corruption as inevitable and the efforts to fight it as futile.

We are living in an era where the State and its functionaries play a pre-dominant role. They not only have to exercise the powers but discretion. If they function right, it is good for the Nation, but if they do not, whether by reasons of inefficiency or otherwise, the citizen has a right to go to Court for redress. Citizens do go to Court, but if the journey takes too long, it crushes the principles of Justice. We must never forget that a democratic State is built on the foundation of Justice. The other alternative is to take Reports to the Vigilance machinery, herein again, the procedures are difficult to follow and the process of obtaining conclusive proof is both time-consuming and costly.

Collective efforts to fight corruption are few and far in between. Our political system use the slogan of “Remove Corruption” as it seems to be a very convenient. But if you go deep, you will realize that a fair amount of corruption exists because of our faulty laws and due to Courts’ delays.

Citizens will be able to fight for justice only when they can seek effective redress. When establishments set up to prevent corruption or to provide justice cannot provide a fast and effective remedial process and the Court delays render redress meaningless, then the drive and ability of ordinary citizens to stand up to justice diminishes. If we reflect on the other side of the mirror as well, sometimes, an upright officer facing the motivated charge of corruption has to wait many years for exoneration. This is so because Court procedures take their own time.

I must also highlight a very important facet, that the Legislatures in exercise of its power has enacted various Central and State laws. The disputes arising under these laws are to be adjudicated upon ultimately by the Courts. It is a known fact that such legislations are not preceded by judicial impact assessment by the authorities concerned.

We must note that for instance, in 1988, the Parliament amended the provisions of Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The subsequent amendments of 1988 and 2002, the punishment prescribed under the Act was amended and period of notice was reduced to 15 days from one month earlier. These amendments resulted in filing of an unexpected number of cases in the Courts of the learned Magistrates. As per 213th Law commission report , the pendency in 2008 of Section 138 cases alone in the country is 3.8 million cases in the trial courts.

Where does the solution lie? Perhaps, I think that we need to have a comprehensive review of our laws. With the kind of malaise that has set in, it may, seems to be a complex task ahead. In addition, the law Commission and Standing Committee of Parliament on Law and Justice, but even Head of Judiciary highlighted on the inadequacy of number of judges in Courts. Higher ratio of judges to population is a necessity. At least, we shall strive to increase the Judges’ strength from the present existing ratio of 10.5 or 13 per lakh people to 50 Judges per 10 lakh people as observed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Brij Mohan Lal v. Union of India  Case.

The question really comes down to “Where a citizen should look for justice in our land today”? Should we look for it in the criminal courts where number of pending cases is counted in lakhs? Should we look in civil courts where cases which earlier took 20 years for a decision may now take 30 years? Around more than 3 crore cases are pending at the level of the District Courts, some 20 lakhs at the stage of High Courts and about 54,547 cases in the Supreme Court.

Old habits die hard, goes the saying. Whether it is reform in procedural law, substantive law, court practices or adoption of new methods, there is one phenomenon i.e. ‘resistance to change’. If we take step for reforms, there will be a resistance or even opposition from several quarters and for various self-interested reasons. But those involved in the justice delivery system have to appreciate that their job is a service to mankind, where self-interest should have a place well behind the former.

In 1976, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in L. Babu Ram vs Raghunathji Maharaj and Others remarked as follows:

“At long last, the unfortunate and heroic saga of this litigation is coming to an end. It has witnessed a silver jubilee, thanks to our system of administration of justice and our callousness and indifference to any drastic reforms in it. The Indian people are very patient, but despite their infinite patience, they cannot afford to wait for 25 years to get justice. There is a limit of tolerance beyond which it would be disastrous to push our people. This case and many others like it strongly emphasize the urgency of the need for legal and judicial reforms. A little tinkering here and there in the procedural laws will not help. What is needed is a drastic change, a new outlook and a fresh approach.”

An oft-suggested solution is to keep on increasing the number of judges to a level where there are no delays. Impractical apart, the answer admits of only a part truth and for the most part, it is a fallacy. The balance lies somewhere in increasing the number of judges, strengthen the infrastructure and redefine our laws. I think there is a need to fix accountability and to have a performance commission & a constitutional code of conduct for judges. We must adopt innovative approaches to reduce the backlog of cases and to provide effective dispensation of justice. In the 21st century, paying attention to change of technology will be an important responsibility of the judicial system. The High-tech Courts are no longer a fiction and they can bring a transformational change. The Courts in Singapore have shown this.

As we stand today at the crossroads of history, the eyes of common citizens are on the Parliament and Judiciary, watching with a great hope to reform our legal and judicial system. We need to have a deep insight why an average citizen does appear to be highly critical of the prevailing justice dispensation system. And he is fully justified therefore? No. Because he realizes that every hour is late. Every moment is late! Nothing sort of radical action will do. While most will agree that there is a need for reform, reforms cannot drop from the heaven. Each one of us has to make his contribution. We must stand up to the notion that delays must not be acceptable because public loses confidence in Court system and in general affect litigants. Ultimately, it is the credibility and respect of the sovereign state that suffers and we as a nation are paying the price!

By Ravi Kumar Raghuvanshi

(The writer is a law student at University of Delhi. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

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