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• GLOBAL RESOURCES

How to Start Resolving the Indian Judiciary’s Long-Running Case Backlog

PRATIK DATTA, SUYASH RAI

• SEPTEMBER 09, 2021

• ARTICLE

• Suyash Rai

• Suyash Rai is a deputy director and fellow at Carnegie India. His research focuses on the political economy of economic reforms, and the performance of public institutions in India.

• Pratik Datta

• Pratik Datta is a senior research fellow at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Company in New Delhi. His research interests involve the intersections between law, economics, and democratic institutions.

Source: Getty

Summary:

To start overcoming its chronic case backlog, India’s judiciary needs to embrace a host of solutions including well-crafted administrative reforms.

The year 2020 was challenging for most public institutions in India. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the lower house of parliament functioned only for thirty-four days in the 2020–2021 fiscal year, the fewest days Indian lawmakers have gathered in a single year in the country’s history. Central, state, and local government officials were preoccupied with responding to the grave public health crisis, which has officially claimed the lives of more than 400,000 Indians as of August 2021 and perhaps many more.

Like other institutions in the country, the Indian judiciary has found it challenging to function amid the risks and constraints created by the pandemic. Data from the National Judicial Data Grid shows that, in 2020, the country’s high courts—the apex courts in each Indian state and union territory—disposed of fewer than half as many cases as they did in 2019. However, since the number of cases instituted fell only by one-third, the total number of pending cases increased. This problem has major consequences for India’s judiciary and its wider political system.

INDIA’S DAUNTING CASE BACKLOG

Of course, this pendency problem is a long-standing issue across the Indian judiciary. At present, the high courts list 5.8 million pending cases, even though their average rate of disposal between 2015 and 2019 was about 1.8 million cases per year. In most years, the number of cases disposed of is lower than the number of cases instituted, so the problem keeps getting worse.

In practice, this backlog means that many important questions of law do not receive timely answers. Important constitutional law cases—many of them relating to citizens’ fundamental rights—have been pending for years or even decades. In criminal cases, delays create great hardships, as the accused—many of them housed in jail—often must wait years for a verdict. Pendency also makes economic activity difficult, as contract enforcement becomes inordinately expensive. According to the 2020 edition of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings, India ranked 163 (out of 190 countries) on contract enforcement.

Delays in India’s judiciary system are not restricted to the courts; pendency is also an endemic problem in India’s specialized tribunals. Following the liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, statutory tribunals began to proliferate across economic sectors, yet their performance leaves much to be desired. Take, for instance, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), a high-profile panel responsible for resolving India’s debt problem. Academics and practitioners of law have regularly highlighted the NCLT’s weak, inadequate infrastructure.¹ In recent years, these structural shortcomings have meant that the tribunal has been unable to adhere to the time limits mandated by the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, stymying this landmark reform effort intended to provide an exit route for failing firms. A recent report by Alvarez and Marsal, a management consultancy, notes that the NCLT admitted approximately 480 cases in each quarter in the 2020 fiscal year. If the NCLT continues at this pace, it would take six years to clear the backlog.

THE CAUSES OF INDIA’S CASE BACKLOG

Pendency has several causes on both the demand side (the growing number of fresh cases) and the supply side (the slow disposal rate). Demand-side causes include the expansive jurisdiction granted to the judiciary in the Indian Constitution, excessive government litigation, rapid social and economic changes leading to more disputes, and so on. Supply-side causes include civil and criminal procedure codes that do not encourage quick case disposal, the readiness of judges to hear complaints under their writ jurisdiction and to take suo moto (judicial action taken without any request by the parties involved) cognizance of matters, and the country’s large number of judicial vacancies.

JUDICIAL VACANCIES AND PRODUCTIVITY

Many experts have suggested that the Indian government should tackle the challenge of increasing pendency in Indian courts by appointing more judges to the bench. While this reasoning seems intuitive (and, undoubtedly, India has very few judges per capita compared to other leading economies), it is also important to consider the productivity of the country’s judges. To this end, judicial productivity is calculated as the ratio of judges to case disposals per year. While empirical evidence on this metric is sparse, one 2008 study suggests that judicial productivity in Delhi district courts is about half of that in Australian courts. Increasing the number of judges without finding ways to improve their productivity is, at best, a half measure.

BUDGETARY ALLOCATIONS FOR THE JUDICIARY

While most institutions demand more inputs, it is equally important to focus on the utilization of inputs. Take, for example, the financial management of India’s judicial system. Legal scholars have long held that India does not spend enough on the judiciary. Recently, the India Justice Report 2019 found that, out of the twenty-seven states and two union territories covered by the study, the growth rate of judicial expenditures was lower than the growth rate of total expenditures in twenty-one of them.

Analysis by this article’s authors on government spending on the administration of justice by the Indian central government and five state governments (Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha) over the last decade shows that actual expenditures regularly fall below (and often well below) the requisite budgetary allocations.² For instance, in Bihar, each year between fiscal year (FY) 2014 and FY 2018, the state judiciary’s actual expenditures fell short of the revised estimate by more than 20 percent. This gap suggests that the Indian judiciary is not able to budget properly or spend the (inadequate) funds allocated to it. This deficiency is likely due to lacunae in the judiciary’s internal administrative mechanisms. Because the budget for each fiscal year is based on the prior year’s expenditures, this failure to spend down the funds already allocated leads to a consistent decline in the budgetary share allocated to the judiciary. Each year, the vicious cycle repeats.

CASE MANAGEMENT

Similar problems can be seen regarding case management. The objective of case management is to ensure that judges’ time and cognitive resources are utilized efficiently. However, due to inadequate preparation before judges hear a case, a judge’s time is easily wasted once legal proceedings begin. Scheduling problems also lead to innumerable delays and adjournments. Since the early 1990s, the Indian government has launched a litany of schemes and projects to computerize the judiciary’s proceedings. Most of these initiatives have simply involved injecting computers into existing court processes without fundamentally rethinking the design of these internal processes. For instance, e-filing in the Supreme Court of India has been available for many years. Yet advocates-on-record, who are entitled to act for and to plead for a party before India’s Supreme Court, prefer the physical filing process since it has traditionally cost less than e-filing. Moreover, if there are any defects in an e-filed petition, the advocate-on-record is required to rectify them and ultimately submit a hard copy. Such procedural rules defeat the basic purpose of e-filing.

Unfortunately, computerization has also failed to improve the case scheduling process. In India, there is no preliminary conference whereby parties can give the registry, the court’s administrative secretariat, a sense in advance of how long they estimate oral submissions will take. As a result, lawyers and litigants are forced to guess when a listed matter is likely to come up for a hearing on a given day. Furthermore, various routine applications—such as those involving direct, unscheduled requests from lawyers to judges through the mentioning process—often must be placed before a judge instead of being resolved by the registry. Myriad procedural issues like these end up wasting precious judicial time and, as a result, negatively affecting judicial productivity.

IDEAS FOR JUDICIAL REFORM

Running an efficient, modern judiciary necessitates successfully carrying out a range of administrative functions, including activities related to managing and maintaining the courts (such as case, facility, financial, and human resource management). To be clear, better administration is no more a panacea for judicial productivity than increasing the number of judges. Improvements to the adjudication process are also necessary. However, solving some administrative problems could reduce the constraints under which judges work.

DELEGATING ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS

Presently, the respective registries of the courts are mostly tasked with carrying out the judiciary’s administrative functions. This structure has limited the potential for professionalizing these ranks and building up expertise. Many other countries have accepted that the administrative functions of courts and tribunals should be supported by a separate professional agency with administrative expertise, specialization, and modern management practices and technologies.

For instance, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in the UK provides an integrated system of support—including infrastructure and financial resources—for the administration of courts in England and Wales as well as most tribunals throughout the UK. The HMCTS is an agency under the Ministry of Justice, but it is structured as a corporation that operates based on a partnership between the lord chancellor and the lord chief justice.³ The two partners do not interfere, either directly or indirectly, in the day-to-day operations of the agency. The agency is board-driven, and its chief executive is responsible for its day-to-day operations and administration.

Another example comes from the United States, where the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (a specialized agency established in 1939 within the judicial branch) provides a broad range of legislative, legal, financial, technology, management, administrative, and program support services to federal courts.

Canada, too, has an entity called the Courts Administration Service, which was established under the 2002 Court Administration Service Act. This body provides registry, judicial, and corporate services to the Federal Court of Appeal, the Federal Court, the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada, and the Tax Court of Canada. Its chief administrator acts as the chief executive officer and supervises the organization’s staff.

Leaders within the Indian judiciary have also acknowledged the importance of creating a professional agency to support the administrative functions of tribunals. In various cases going back to the 1990s, the Supreme Court has recommended such reforms. In 1997, in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, the Supreme Court suggested establishing an “authority charged with supervising and fulfilling [the] administrative requirements [of tribunals].”

It is worth noting, however, that such recommendations from the judiciary have two distinct motivations: to enhance the quality of tribunal administration and to make tribunals independent of their sponsoring ministries. Often, the second reason has seemed to dominate judges’ thinking. Judges have appeared more concerned about placing the agency under the purview of the Ministry of Law and Justice rather than the sponsoring ministry of the tribunal in question so that tribunals can act more independently. Therefore, although the idea of a separate agency for tribunal administration has long been discussed in India, the objective of administrative efficiency has probably always been secondary to concerns of judicial independence.

The Supreme Court’s insistence on placing the agency under the Ministry of Law and Justice may be why the idea has not gained much traction within the executive branch. If the agency were to be placed under this ministry, the common perception would be that all other ministries would lose sponsorship of what had been seen as their tribunals. However, this loss need not be the case. The agency could merely provide standard administrative support services to all the tribunals, irrespective of which ministry sponsors the tribunals and holds the power to appoint their members. Decoupling discourse on administrative efficiency from discourse on the ministerial allocation of tribunals would probably help the idea gain more traction within the executive branch.

The idea of establishing a specialized agency to manage the judiciary’s administrative functions has also been proposed a few times by Indian government committees and advisers. In 2015, the Ministry of Finance’s Task Force on Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal recommended the creation of an agency specializing in court administration to support the administrative functions of the proposed tribunal. In 2019, the ministry’s annual economic survey included a recommendation to create “. . . a specialized service called [the] Indian Courts and Tribunal Services . . . that focuses on the administrative aspects of the legal system.” The envisioned major roles for this specialized service included providing administrative support functions needed by the judiciary, identifying process-related inefficiencies and advising the judiciary on legal reforms, and reengineering certain inefficient processes.

Until recently, there was no clear proposal from the judiciary to implement these ideas. Since the matter pertains to the administration of the judiciary, the reforms require buy-in from the country’s senior judges. In this context, two recent proposals are worth considering. In March 2021, the chief justice of India proposed that a specialized infrastructure corporation be established to modernize the infrastructure of the judiciary. One month later, the Supreme Court’s e-Committee released a draft Digital Courts Vision and Roadmap, which proposed establishing a professional agency for managing judicial technology.

OTHER REFORM IDEAS TO CONSIDER

Although these proposals are worthy of deeper exploration, reform advocates should be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Reforms require clarity of thought. For a while, there was much confusion about the idea itself. For instance, the phrase “court and tribunal services,” as commonly used in the UK, has been widely misinterpreted by many people in India—including lawyers, judges, and journalists—as involving the appointment of judiciary staff instead of the creation of a separate organization to which the administrative services could be outsourced. Policymakers working on tribunal reforms tend to focus only on judicial functioning (including judicial independence)—probably because it is important for the epistemic community in the field of law.

For example, the 2017 Finance Act reorganized and rationalized the tribunal system, focusing primarily on the merging of tribunals and on tribunal members’ conditions of service, but it neglected the administrative structure of tribunals. Fortunately, Chief Justice N. V. Ramana has clearly articulated the idea of a National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation, thereby focusing on the judiciary’s administrative functions.

Reformers would do well to bear in mind five lessons based on the experiences of India and other countries.

1. Pursue comprehensive reform carefully: Reforms should seek to remake the administrative functions of the judiciary in a comprehensive manner, albeit over time, so reforms can accommodate various stakeholders’ ideas and interests. The road map for reform should seek to create a professional, competent agency to provide administrative support to courts and tribunals. Instead of focusing narrowly on individual pillars of the system—such as real estate and information technology systems—the focus should be on improving judicial administration in a holistic manner. For instance, instead of superimposing computers on top of existing paper-based processes within the court registry, the goal of reforms should be to completely reengineer these processes, leveraging the best available technology to achieve the desired outcomes. The existing registries of the courts and tribunals might view these changes as a threat, so it is important to protect their interests so that the transition is not undermined.

2. Focus on professionalization and expertise: A new administrative agency for the courts should be led by people with expertise in the management of large systems, especially in the design and implementation of process-related reforms. At present, there is a lack of professional expertise in the administrative divisions supporting the judiciary. A new agency should be designed on the basis of expertise and specialization, relying on modern management practices and technologies. It should build domain expertise in procurement, financial, human resource, and facilities management. Its focus should be on providing the best possible administrative support to the judiciary.

3. Separate judicial and administrative functions: Most administrative functions should be placed with the agency so that day-to-day administration does not consume judges’ time—which should largely be spent on their comparative advantage: judicial functions. At the same time, the judiciary should be able to hold the agency accountable for its performance, likely through the oversight of a board.

4. Facilitate cooperation and coordination between the judiciary and the rest of the government: Any reforms to revamp judicial administration will require the judiciary and governments at the union and state levels to work together to build the administrative agency. During the initial stages, governments will be required to commit to allocating significant financial outlays, and they may also need to support the administrative agency with procurement of facilities and technology systems, recruitment of personnel, and so on.

5. Insist on judicial oversight: While cooperation between the judiciary and the rest of the Indian government will be essential to build and sustain the administrative agency, it is also important to respect the independence of the judiciary. Therefore, the government should see its role as that of an enabler in improving judicial performance and should not intrude into the judiciary’s domain. This balance can be achieved if board oversight of the agency primarily rests with the judiciary.

CONCLUSION

To start reducing its judicial case backlog and achieve a robust economic recovery from the pandemic, India needs a strategy that focuses on both the immediate problems facing its judiciary and their root causes. The Indian government should address the institutional weaknesses that hold the country’s economy back. The problems of the Indian judiciary are among the most important institutional challenges the country is facing, and the public health crisis has made them worse. The idea proposed by India’s chief justice is perhaps the most consequential in many years. It is now up to the judiciary and the rest of the Indian government to make the most of this proposal.

Need for reforms in the Indian judiciary

This article is written by Khyati Basant, pursuing BBA LLB from Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA. This article gives an in-depth view of the problems faced by the judiciary system and the reforms that must be made for the betterment.

Table of Contents

• Introduction

• The Supreme Court

• High court

• Need to reform Indian judiciary system

• Issues with Indian judiciary

  • Delay in justice

  • Case pending

  • Corruption

  • Transparency

  • Judicial capacity

  • Undertrial accused

  • Infrastructure

  • Lack of interaction with society

• Reform to Indian judiciary

  • Improve District Courts

  • Increase judicial capacity

  • Court management

  • Case management

  • Infrastructure

  • Faster trail

  • Merit appointment

  • Better investigation

  • Hierarchy reduction

• Conclusion

  • References

Introduction

The time has come to think and talk about many things. One is the need for changes in India’s judicial system.

The Indian Constitution follows a fundamental framework which sets the very foundation of the Constitution. The Constitution of India consists of three pillars: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The Indian judiciary is regarded as one of the most important foundations of these three because it is an independent entity. The Indian justice system can prosecute even the country’s top officials. The Indian Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950, and it is known as the world’s largest constitution. The constitution is India’s basis of legislation and India’s supreme legislation as well. This is dependent on maintaining and upholding law and order.

The justice system in India is a court system. The court has the authority to decide and enforce the rules, settle conflicts, too. The judiciary system consists of judges and other magistrates who constitute the judicial system’s bench.

India’s justice structure consists of :

1. The Supreme Court,

2. High Court,

3. District Court, or Special Tribunal.

The Supreme Court is for the country as a whole, High Courts for the states, District Courts and other courts for lower levels. India has an integrated judiciary system. It means the country’s judicial administration is governed by the Supreme Court. Its orders are binding on all other national courts.

There are approximately 12,000 courts – 1 Supreme Court, 21 High Courts, 3,150 District Level Courts, 4,816 Munsif / Magistrate Courts, and 1,964 Magistrate II Courts. Only six of the High Courts have original jurisdiction, i.e. civil cases may be brought directly in those courts, such that the monetary interest of the claim reaches a certain amount. These are the Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Madras High Courts. Many high courts are Courts of Appeal. For places where the High Court has no initial authority, even cases involving substantial amounts of money will go through lower courts, which often do not possess the requisite expertise to adjudicate on complicated matters.

Judicial independence means it is not under the control of either the legislature or the executive. The judges should not behave on the government’s behalf or in compliance with the party’s wishes of office. For this reason, all western countries have courts independent of the legislative and the executive. India managed to achieve this.

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the apex court. This means that any order passed by the court cannot be challenged. It is the highest judicial body in India. It consists of one Chief Justice and 30 judges. Unresolved or still in litigation cases are levelled to the Supreme Court for reclaiming justice. If a law is declared by the Supreme Court, it is binding on all other courts of all States and territory within the Union. The Chief Justice and the judges are chosen by the Collegium system. Eligible to become a Chief Justice is an individual who had been a judge in one or more high courts for at least 5 years or a lawyer in the high court for at least 10 years or a distinguished judge on whom the President of India believes in. Article 124-147 of the Indian Constitution lays out the duties and roles of the Indian Supreme Court. The key role of the Supreme Court is to review the judgment handed down by the High Courts. However, as specified in Article 32 of the Constitution, a petition can be filed directly at the Supreme Court.

High court

Under India’s constitution, each state should look to a single High Court. Mumbai High Court was India’s oldest court and the Supreme Court at that time. There are currently 24 High Courts. The High Court has 94 judges, of which 71 are permanent, and 23 are additional. The High Courts have limited jurisdictions to their associated states or parts within the Union. Economic problems and legal paperwork are dealt with by the High Courts. Under Article 141 of the Indian Constitution, the High Courts are obliged to obey the Supreme Court’s directions and its instructions. A petitioner may, as provided for in Article 226 of the Constitution, appeal to a High Court. Calcutta High Court is the oldest high court in India. Eligibility to become a High Court judge is: He should be an Indian citizen, and in any case, the lawyer should have at least 10 years of experience.

District Court of India – Under India’s constitution, the district court is subordinate to high courts or subordinate tribunals. The State Governments establish the district courts. District courts are established according to district and state population distribution. Depending on the workload of the specific case, the district courts are provided with one district judge and even several assistant judges. It takes control of the district’s legal and criminal matters. A rule proclaimed by the district tribunal extends to all subordinate tribunals. Eligibility for district court judge – He should be an Indian citizen and an advocate who has at least 7 years of practice.

All Indians can enter the country’s courts. Which means that every person has a right through the courts to justice. In reality, it has always been difficult for the vast majority of the poor in India to access the courts. Judicial proceedings cost a great deal of money and paperwork which takes up a lot of time. The work carried out by the courts can be divided into:

(i) Dispute resolution;

(ii) Judicial review;

(iii) Law preservation and human rights protection.

As the Indian judiciary turns 70, there’s a lot to be proud of, the judiciary has been the spiritual conscience of the country, speaking truth to political authority, defending citizens’ freedoms, mediating centre-state tensions, providing justice to both rich and poor alike, and protecting democracy itself on many momentous occasions. Despite its successes, a disparity between ideal and fact has become apparent over the years. Justice delivery is sluggish, the appointment of judges is mired in confusion, judicial processes operate poorly, patronage rather than competence still seems to be the fundamental rule, women are seriously underrepresented, and constitutional cases frequently languish for years in the Supreme Court.

Need to reform Indian judiciary system

A powerful, independent judiciary is of great importance for India’s development. As the basic core of life is a fast and productive operation. Yet by its definition Indian judiciary has been very weak and inefficient. Furthermore, our laws and their implementation have contributed to immense suffering for the litigants and driven people to search for possible remedies.

The very core of society is an autonomous and unbiased judiciary and a swift and effective operation. But, by its very nature, our judiciary has become weighty, and appallingly slow. Our laws and their implementation and adjudication resulted in immense suffering for litigants and pushed citizens to try extra-legal alternatives. Relative to other governmental agencies, and even compared to other courts in many countries, the justice system is financed poorly.

According to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey, India ranks 168 out of 190 countries on ‘contract compliance.’ Using Mumbai numbers, it notes that settling a disagreement from the date of filing takes 1445 days.

India has one of the highest numbers of under-trial prisoners in the country. A little more than two-thirds of the nearly 4.2 lakh inmates in India are awaiting trial. The criminals languish in jail not because they are found guilty and sentenced to prison but because they are convicted of the crimes that are too serious to deserve parole, or merely because they are too vulnerable and disempowered to secure parole.

The propagation of justice in our society is heavily dependent on the judiciary. Hence its credibility is central to the sustainability of India’s civil order. As long as Indian citizens believe in court mechanisms and integrity, the judiciary remains the interpreter of the laws and the determinant of social justice, it should be. Sadly, some things restrict the application of our laws to all Indian people. Many who challenge courts not only pay the burden of the case; they also waste a great deal of time waiting.

Another problem which calls for change is to overreach the judiciary. There is a need to appoint more judges in court. In 2015, the Supreme Court overturned the National Commission for Judicial Appointments (NJAC) Act, declaring it unconstitutional. A renewed version of this idea and aim could help to appoint more judges effectively. An autonomous executive authority should be formed specifically to ensure the compliance of court-issued decisions, to enhance confidence in their efficacy. The government has to take immediate steps to avoid this court system being disrupted and out of control for everyone other than the moneyed.

Issues with Indian judiciary

The problem, despite the overwhelming power, is that the Indian judiciary faces certain integral issues. The Indian judicial system, for example, is erratic, underemployed and, above all, extremely slow. Our country’s citizens continue to have confidence in our judges and the administration system of justice, and if they stopped believing in the system, there would be anarchy. And unfortunately, the faith has been shaken by the events of the last couple of years. Unless we are rescued from the quicksand by corrective measures, we will all be in the sinkhole.

The issues faced by the judiciary system are :

• Delay in justice

• Case pending

• Corruption

• Transparency

• Judicial capacity

• Undertrial accused

• Infrastructure

• Lack of interaction with society

Delay in justice

The delay in the trial has been proven to be one of the greatest drawbacks of a court system. If we examine in-depth about why the Indian judiciary is lagging behind, it can be concluded that the issue lies at the grass-root level. The Indian judiciary has struggled to provide justice. People’s levels of difficulty in getting their cases heard contribute significantly to the system’s overall chaos. Delay in justice means the time taken to dispose of a case and the time that the court would spend in determining the matter is delayed.

The time taken for a case in the High Court or the Supreme Court is beyond imagination, starting from the moment it is taken to file an FIR to the moment the judgement is made. There’s too much red-tapism people face when dealing with legal problems. Justice delay creates disillusionment among the litigants and also undermines the capacity of the judicial system. Justice delayed is justice denied holds for India. One of the main reasons for the delay of justice is that the institution of court cases exceeds its disposition.

Case pending

There is no controversy that the biggest issue the judiciary faces is the number of pending cases. There are over three crores pending cases in India. The huge backlog of cases is proving to be the primary judicial problem. About four lakhs of them are cases in the High Court, 65,000 in the Supreme Court. This figure is increasingly growing and in fact, reflects the inadequacy of the judicial system. Increasing the number of judges, establishing more courts, has always been debated but the execution is always late or insufficient. Where does one describe a ‘case dependent’? Is a lawsuit that was initiated yesterday (a highway challan) as much a pending prosecution as one that was initiated twenty years ago (gang rape and murder) not decriminalized yet? Each law defines the words used in the statute, and the court will rule on the interpretation of those words. However, we have not yet decided on the definition of a ‘pending case’ and therefore all cases in court are pending.

The top five states are Uttar Pradesh (61,58 lakh), Maharashtra (33,22 lakh), West Bengal (17,59 lakh), Bihar (16,58 lakh) and Gujarat (16,45 lakh), according to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG). The victims are average or poor citizens, while the wealthy can hire costly lawyers and in their favour, change the direction of the law dispensation. That also creates a huge blockade for business in India for international investors and corporations. And even because of this backlog, most of the inmates in India’s jails are in jail pending trial. The arrears in tribunals and commissions are staggering too and most cases have a direct impact on the everyday life of the common citizen. And, even though our concepts are precise, though we count up the lawsuits pending in the courts, tribunals and commissions, we will come up with an unmanageable caseload that undermines the foundation of our justice system.

This amusing load of cases is the source of setbacks, adjournments and dissatisfaction among the litigants who are enduring the slings and arrows of ridiculous misfortune. Remedial steps are completely important and, without them, the agitation could turn into rage, followed by the day of doom. One of the stalwart indicators of the inefficient justice system is that incidents like the 1984 Sikh Riots still await a final decision. Besides, in these long 32 years, many of those who were finding justice have expired.

Corruption

Corruption has penetrated deep into the system. The various recent scandals, such as the CWG scam, 2 G scam, Adarsh Society scam, including rapes and other crimes in society, etc., have exposed both the actions of politicians and public dignitaries, including the common man, as well as the weaknesses present in the working of Indian judiciary. The government-judiciary relationship can make it much easier for government officials to manipulate judges. Top government officials have little or no respect for the concept of the separation of powers and use their enormous powers to manipulate the judiciary. Governments, particularly State Governments, use various techniques to manipulate the judiciary including the extreme case of offering gratification to judges.

All the procedures get slowed down with so much corruption involved in the legal profession. In addition to the lack of workforce and corruption, the Indian judiciary is endangered by low resource allocation. The late amount of money allocated to India’s judiciary is the lowest compared to all the other countries around the globe. There is no transparency mechanism for this. Owing to the fear of ridicule, the media still don’t give a clear picture. There is no provision for registering an FIR against a judge taking bribes without the permission of India’s Chief Justice.

More than 45 percent of Indians claim that the justice system is corrupt. In the lower courts, corruption is not just rife, others have alleged that this abuse hits the highest levels that are deeply detrimental to the judiciary. Unfortunately, as an assault on the judiciary, the Indian judiciary has shown a fondness to respond to any letter or statement from the executive or legislature or even the political establishment.

In 2011, Sumatran Sen, a former judge at the Calcutta High Court turned into the primary judge in India to be reprimanded by the Rajya Sabha for misappropriation of assets. Judges, fearful of reprisals from government officials, seem eager to do whatever is necessary to remain in the good graces of the government, sacrificing the right to the fair trial of the citizens in the process.

Transparency

The lack of transparency is another issue faced by the Indian judiciary. Substantial issues like the quality of justice and accountability are not properly known in the functioning of the judiciary. Judiciary does not fall within the scope of the Right to the Information Act. There have been numerous civil arguments around the country regarding the Collegium’s framework and the new framework to be presented by the administration for the arrangement of judges, the NJAC. None appear to be sufficiently transparent to make the process of selecting judges clear and understandable to the general public.

Right to know is a part of freedom of speech and expression as provided by the Constitution, but this fundamental right is being violated by the present system. The right of the individual to learn is now a common phenomenon and is also endorsed by judicial rulings. We don’t have a straightforward and foolproof framework for naming judges. This often contributes to delays in the positions filled up.

The new government headed by Prime Minister Modi says more accountability in nominating judges would be the launch of the National Judicial Appointment Committee (NJAC). Nevertheless, India’s Supreme Court denied the argument and said there is a need for an even higher standard of law for the selection of judges as NJAC is not “complete.” According to the Supreme Court, the bar council was invited to amend the NJAC citing that the committee will consist of India’s chief justice and four supreme court senior judges. Later, in 2015 the NJAC was declared unconstitutional.

Judicial capacity

The most contentious part of the administration of justice is and has been so for many decades, the appointment of judges. Independent India started with independent judges who took separate decisions. Many of those choices were not to the establishment’s taste, so attempts to call them to heel were made. But the judges stood like a pillar which contributed to the establishment theorizing that a judiciary was compromised. To some extent, the government was successful in making inroads into judicial independence.

Allocation of new judges will help the swift dismissal of cases. As of September 1, 2015, the High Courts had a deficit of 413 judges. Although the approved strength is 1,079, around 666 judges work across the country. But there is a massive shortage of subordinate courts, while they have provided an authorised strength of nearly 20,000 judicial officers which is short of 4,937 judicial officers. Judge vacancies are cited as the main hindrance to the level of cases being disposed of. Indian Judiciary Annual Report 2015-2016 and in the Subordinate Courts of India: A Report on Access to Justice 2016’– which also highlighted that it would require nearly 15,000 more judges to overcome millions of cases in the next three years.

Undertrial accused

Much of the prisoners in Indian prisons are under trials, who are confined to the prisons until their case finds a definitive conclusion. Another drawback that results from the above-mentioned drawbacks is the provisional allegations against the convicted. In India, more than two-thirds of India’s nearly 4.2 lakh prisoners are being held, which is one of the world’s highest number of undertrial prisoners. They’re in jail not because they’ve been proven guilty, but because they’re being tried on non-bailable offences or because they’re too low to pay a bond.

Indian detention institutions are brimming with provisional individuals; they are confined to jails before a definitive decision is drawn in their situation. The cost and suffering and agony of defending oneself in court is worse than completing the punishment itself. Undercover is not guilty until convicted. The wealthy and influential men, on the other hand, can call the police to their side, and the police can threaten or intimidate unpopular and vulnerable people during the court’s long ordeals.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure requires to be implemented to provide a more effective judiciary. Firstly, poor infrastructure encourages corruption. Records of court cases and decisions are held in less than adequate circumstances, leaving them vulnerable harm or malicious loss. That will be a tremendous amount of paperwork involved. Additionally, the court’s archive is not stored in one location, and the trials and hearings are not registered. Therefore, there is a need to use improved technologies to document claims, other devices such as CCTV can also be used for recovery and similar procedures.

Second, the courtrooms are not designed to accommodate audio, slide and other multimedia displays to help finders understand the case and arrive at a reasonable judgment. Incapable of mounting technical evidence due to insufficient resources, the applicant bearing the burden of proof is significantly impaired and will bear his or her plight without any reasonable means for redress or substantive program assistance.

Lack of interaction with society

It is really important for every country’s judiciary to be an intrinsic part of society, and that its contacts with society be made routine and significant. In every situation, it is always the responsibility to ensure that they are properly participatory to classify the knowledge with the legislation. The law officer and developers ought to be similar to the general public to look into their conclusion on a particular rule or decision.

However, several countries involve their citizens in judicial decision-making, no such setup exists in India. The citizens must take an active part in judicial activities to build an effective judiciary system.

Reform to Indian judiciary

As Justice Chelameswar claimed in the NJAC judgment in his dissent, the courts ought to amend to maintain them. The government needs to improve the common man’s quality of living. This attitude is honourable. In addition to upholding the rule of law, particularly by taking stern steps against gang activity and religious intimidation, what the government will do better is to make the judicial system operate quicker and more reliably in this area. A Bloomberg Businessweek estimate states, “If the nation’s judges nonstop battled their backlog — with no breaks to eat or sleep — and closed 100 cases per hour, it will take more than 35 years to catch up.”

Here are a few suggestions for the reformation for the judiciary system in India.

• Improve District Courts

• Increase judicial capacity

• Court management

• Case management

• Infrastructure

• Faster trail

• Merit appointment

• Better investigation

• Hierarchy reduction

Judiciary is essential for the State and a priority must be given to it. There has to be an improvement in the funding for the justice system and an improvement in efficiency. This along with reforms in civil and criminal practices, as well as reporting and regulatory processes, will go a long way towards streamlining trials and reducing court delays.

Improve District Courts

There must be a bottom-up approach for the reformation of the judiciary in India. The biggest concern is with the district courts where lakhs of people come into touch with the system of administration of justice. Many administrative improvements and ad hoc modifications at the Supreme Court and high courts will not affect the structure until the concerns of those courts are resolved, and the ordinary litigant will have to endure the slings and arrows of cruel fortune. A high-level team must tour each district court to ascertain if the services and amenities are missing. It would shock many to learn that, for many years, several court halls and registration rooms have not been whitewashed and there is a breakdown of windows, tables, racks and almirahs. There are innumerable pending cases in the lower courts. These must be tackled to have a better structure. More number of judges must be appointed to the district courts than the high courts. This will help to deal with the pending cases.

The Gram Nyayalayas Bill has been enacted to set up more trial courts at the intermediate Panchayat level. The welcome feature is that the procedures have been kept simple and flexible so that cases can be heard and disposed of within six months. It is also envisaged that these courts will be mobile, to achieve the goal of bringing justice to people’s doorsteps. Training and orientation of the judiciary, especially in frontier areas of knowledge, like bio-genetics, IPR and cyber laws, need attention.

Increase judicial capacity

The first thing the government can do is to increase the number of magistrates. This method is not a simple one. It requires action at every level. The number of judges needs to be increased including the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the lower courts. To at least double but preferably triple the number of judges. India needs a variety of amendments, filling up all the existing vacancies. It is the most critical step towards solving India’s serious lack of judicial ability. Indian judiciary needs a streamlined recruitment process also.

Special attention must be paid towards the appointment of District Court judges and their transfer. We need to provide more vacancies for judges, especially at the lower levels of the judiciary. District judges with legal degrees and postgraduate degrees come to the service. People and women with outstanding intelligence are quite frequent. We accumulate experience as judges over the years and then their appointment as high court judges are postponed because of the district judiciary’s corruption. Relatively unimportant jurisdictions are granted to the district court. They are also viewed with less deference by Bar owners. Very few district judges have made it to the Supreme Court except for maybe a few well-known and extraordinary instances. Gates to the above platform are often opened by considerations other than competence. They are neglected based on religion or status. Very qualified judges are superseded by these factors. Lower judiciary requires a structured procurement mechanism that is handled by full-time supervisors rather than judges. That is, our court needs a committed Human Resources Director. Vacancy rates in the lower courts are about 25 per cent, and in high courts, about 40 per cent. Indian courts are therefore only operating at just 75 per cent of their already extremely poor capacity. And so the new openings must be filled out immediately. This will help to reform the judicial capacity of the system.

Court management

The Indian judiciary needs a dedicated branch of the registrar, administration, and management. India today dreams to become a completely digitized society. We were, to a large extent, productive. But oddly enough, the Indian judiciary is left behind. This would help save a great deal of time to and from paperwork. A computerized program should be in place which minimizes human discretion.

Courts need a separate list of court/administrative personnel to better streamline the legal process. Today this sort of automated procedure is used for many government programs such as passport issuance. But courts, which are much more loaded and pendent than other public services, continue to operate without a sensible administrative infrastructure. For example, also in higher courts, judges spend precious time arranging trials and times and appearances before the court.

India needs to create a judicial service to provide the resources required to ensure the smooth running of courts. In the UK, the service has a qualified workforce that works to support the court system, ranging from recruiting procedures, internal infrastructure management, and caseload delivery systems. India requires a specific framework, preferably at the state level, to consider and implement the judicial system’s resource needs, staffed by administrators and helmed by retired magistrates.

Case management

Case management is a systematic method for monitoring resources and incidents in a dispute as it moves through the court system, from inception to settlement. Our politicians tend to have the idea that it is not possible to dedicate attention to case management because of the overwhelming number of outstanding litigation. However, this is not valid. During a lecture given at the Delhi Judicial Academy around 15 years ago, a U.S. federal judge who practised case management told the judges that he had started with about 3,000 cases in his jurisdiction and reduced this number to about 300 in three years.

India is famed for issuing adjournments and encouraging parties to manipulate judicial delays. This can be addressed by modifying legal rules to restrict the number of circumstances that adjournments are granted. Justice allows the court to provide plenty of time for thorough trials to include adjournments in emergency cases. In the Indian scenario, we achieve neither justice nor productivity.

Modifying the evidence and the procedures of the court and reducing the number of delays, continuations and adjournments permitted by the court can help in management.

To impose fines or sanctions on the party which delays and demands continuance and adjournment. Penalties and fines on parties failing to file the required papers or evidence on time. To ensure adherence, the timeline for the completion of the case requires a clear set of penalties, especially for the party deviating from the timeline. The data or records of each judge for the disposal of cases should be made public and ideally incorporated in decisions to raise judges to a higher bench.

Infrastructure

Since the colonial period, the physical architecture of Indian courts has not improved much. Both in overall scale and the number of courtrooms, courts need to expand, but they still need to enlarge to meet the additional personnel needed in the back office and registrar, as well as physically handle the number of lawyers and parties or the regular court footfall. Specific items, such as the number of bathrooms, parking spaces, waiting rooms, etc., did not increase to keep up with the population or a load of incidents. Even the courtroom at lower levels lacks basic infrastructure. This has to be looked upon for the betterment of the system. To deal with the rise in the number of people and cases represented, Indian courts must physically increase in size.

Faster trail

There are innumerable pending cases in India. The cardinal issue with the current judiciary is that the trials for such cases are so slow that it might take ages for them to be resolved. The judges must have a faster trail process in India. A successful start will be to declare the creation of a new court in each district, naming thousands of new magistrates. The Law Commission has consistently recommended hearing cases, avoiding postponements and arriving at speedy verdicts. That is only possible if the case-load per judge is sufficient. It will be a big move forward to create an Indian Judiciary Service and create a wide pool of qualified, committed judges that will increase the pool of talent available for promotion to the higher court. A further goal is improving the system of selecting judges and keeping their work to account. The executive and the legislature will play a part in the process.

Judicial delays must be cut down. Citizens should have easy access to the courts. This includes successive Chief Justice, judges, governments (central and state), prosecutors, registry workers, scholars, and academics — working together to ensure that litigants have better access to justice.

The answer to dealing with the enormous backlog of cases is not just increasing the number of judges or filling vacancies, though both would help. Innovative approaches such as developing new courts of appeal, exploring IT technologies that can simplify workflows as reported by India’s Chief Justice, constructing improved facilities that enable access to courtrooms are some ways forward to chip away from the current backlog. A mission to that end must be set up under the leadership of the Chief Justice. This mission will ensure that the Indian judiciary is known not only for the eloquence of its substantive judgments but also for its ability to deliver justice quickly, independently and in a way that keeps the public’s faith intact. Much as Chief Justice Kania had foreseen when, in 1950, the court first opened its doors to the public.

Merit appointment

By the term merit appointment, we mean that the appointment of judges must be based on their qualification and their ability. The Indian judiciary, in contrast, tends to appoint the judges based on caste, race and religion. It is a shame that a system that appoints judges on these merits, and as is seen to do so, is eluding us, with two approaches being tried — executive-led and judicial collegium-led. That is because criteria are not explicitly set out. The perfect procedure should be a board of appointments, composed of the Chief Justice, two senior judges and the executive members. That will ensure checks and balances, as well as speed up the entire cycle by providing a skin in the game to the government, requiring it to be kept responsible for the decisions taken. It will also uphold judicial primacy and be in line with the need for judicial freedom.

The system must also consider women in the appointment. It is so heart-breaking to see that despite so many women in law school, very few join the litigation field. In any profession, the few who have to face the prejudices are mostly women. A common corollary is a minimal appearance at the table. When one moves up the current ladder the difference decreases. Just 10.89 per cent of high court judges as of 23 March 2018 were women. Today the number in the Supreme Court is 9.09 per cent. When we go up the ladder of the judiciary the number of women fall sharply. The pyramid has to go on for the betterment of the judiciary structure in the country.

Better investigation

India lacks an investigation policy. A lot of innocents who are falsely accused get punished due to the lack of investigation. They suffer from mental abuse and harassment, There are several instances where this factor has been proven. A trial court on January 6, 2018, dismissed a lawsuit filed against a senior scientist at the electronics department, Narayan Waman Nerurkar, dating back to 1987 as entirely untenable. Dr Nerurkar had been accused of releasing a German radar test paper that his maker intended to sell to the Indian army. A photocopy of the report was sent by a courier service to a foreign address who, for some unknown reason, wanted to open the packet it was intended to deliver overseas and discovered a classified paper about military affairs, and told a particular CBI officer who was then present at the Bombay office of the courier company for some unexplained reason.

Nambi Narayanan’s story is legendary. A scientist leading India’s efforts to build a cryogenic rocket engine at the Indian Space Research Organization, Thiruvananthapuram, he was falsely accused, along with some others, of leaking technical details of the project in 1994. He spent fifty days in prison, he said he was being tortured. In 1998, he was cleared by a CBI investigation. But it ruined his reputation, his life was in total disarray. The National Human Rights Commission has directed Kerala’s government to pay him Rs 1 crore compensation.

Hierarchy reduction

The term ‘higher judiciary’ is difficult to embrace. The term “higher” connotes a hierarchy in itself. When one speaks of the higher judiciary, does one talk of the inter-court or intra-court setup? A federal judge is better than a Munsiff. A section bench is higher than a regular bench inside a Supreme Court and a separate bench higher than the section as well as the regular bench from the precedent point of view. The Supreme Court is better in that way than a district court, given that appeals flow to the former.

Otherwise, there is little difference between the essence of the duties done at any stage by any magistrate. Artificial distinctions are sometimes made intra-court, particularly with the Chief Justice’s office. There is no other difference in the Constitution. By naming the “lower” judiciary the district courts’ and the magistrates’, severe disservice is done to their role and significance in the administration of justice. We will discontinue using terms steeped in the hierarchy. Overall, the courts should be more aware of the transformative force of words than any other organization.

Conclusion

For a long time in India, there have been disputes regarding the system of judiciary. Judiciary is considered as one of the most important pillars in the framework. The 70 years of judiciary system has reformed itself in many ways. Irrespective of these reforms, there is still a lot of development that must be made. Probably the important thing to humanity is an efficient and effective judiciary system. Because India’s judicial system doesn’t seem very efficient, reforms are required. Policy litigations make up about 46 per cent of all court cases. Thus, under the guidance of the Law Ministry, the PMO is driving the judicial overhaul and the national legal strategy.

Themes related to judicial appointments, judicial activism, judicial accountability and digitalisation attracted stakeholder attention. Several government-appointed committees and commissions have made recommendations on how to set the system right. Many of them, however, remain unimplemented. A judicial system is made up of three elements — laws, institutions and the staff involved. Laws and organizations are not self-executing, so it is the workers that implement the program. To a large degree, the inadequacies of legislation and structures can be resolved when qualified, and committed practitioners are the people who run the structures.

There are other judicial changes desperately needed in our country. As a stable and effective conflict settlement and justice delivery mechanism, which is not only essential for social security but also economic prosperity would draw more foreign investors. Things have changed, and people are involved round the clock nowadays. But the Indian judiciary still operates early. They have summer holidays, winter holidays and even more leaves. When we bear the burden of three crore backlog events, it is not appropriate. A fast-track judiciary must be placed in motion so that crucial proceedings can be submitted immediately to the Supreme Court without losing time.

This is also crucial for the courts to realize that certain kinds of crimes must be heard as early as possible, as in cases of rape, the claimant does not wait for justice for 10-20 years; in cases of crime where the odds of punishing innocents are strong due to police pressure to act quickly, the courts do prosecute those cases as soon as possible so that the State itself will not give birth to the victims.

It is worth recalling from the preface to the report of the Justice Malimath Committee: “Everything has been said already, but as no one listens, we must always begin again.” (Andre Gide). A launch can be made today (again), and with the “nudges” proposed by many organizations in the Indian Justice Study released in New Delhi on November 7.

References

• https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/how-to-reform-the-judicial-system/story-mCyeVh58HL7TbcLUMaDS3K.html

• https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-70-years-of-indian-judiciary-opinion-the-courts-must-reform-so-that-they-can-preserve-seven-must-dos/302680

• https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/testing-judicial-reforms/article30279727.ece

• https://www.indialegallive.com/top-news-of-the-day/news/a-long-overdue-reform-in-all-india-judicial-service-79888

• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/cursor/why-there-is-an-urgent-need-to-reform-indias-judicial-system/

• https://iasscore.in/national-issues/judicial-reforms

• https://www.civilserviceindia.com/subject/Essay/why-india-needs-judicial-reforms.html

• https://www.thinkpragati.com/think/manifesto/7515/legal-reforms-start-with-the-lower-judiciary/

Why India needs judicial reforms?

- Sharanya Sanjay

The Indian democracy, being the largest in the world, is upheld by its judicial system. While the source of the judiciary’s power is the constitution, its strength comes from the faith of Indian citizens. Lack of faith would lead to chaos, where people would hesitate to, if at all, approach courts in pursuit of justice. The prevalence justice in our society is highly dependent on the judiciary, which is why its efficiency is integral to the success of the social order of India. As long as the citizens of India believe in the mechanisms and integrity of courts, the judiciary remains the interpreter of laws and the determinant of social justice that it should be. Unfortunately, there are issues that restrict the reach of our laws to all Indian citizens.

One of the most prominent concerns our country is facing is the sizable backlog of cases in courts. There has been an accumulation of cases in the Supreme Court, in the 24 High Courts and in subordinate courts. As of August 2018, the National Judicial Data Grid indicated a logjam of almost 2.8 crore cases in courts. This issue can primarily be attributed to a shortage in judges. The number of judges appointed all over India is far less than the total capacity of judges approved.

The requirement for judicial reforms is highlighted by the fact that the limited supply of judges to cater to the vast demand for the attention of courts by accumulating cases has led to a rise in the figurative price of justice. Those who approach courts not only incur the litigation costs, but also spend a large amount of time in wait. As William E. Gladstone said, “Justice delayed is justice denied”. Furthermore, there is a possibility that an increase in the efficiency of the judicial system could curb crime rates. The proximity of penalty for committing a crime that is brought by judicial efficiency would have the psychological effect of deterring crime.

The independence of the judiciary is integral to the structure of our country. However, past situations coming under scrutiny have proved that even the judiciary may be prone to corruption. Judges who can be influenced by politics may create prejudice in courts, despite the principles of natural justice that demand trials without any bias whatsoever.

Corruption within courts makes the integrity and fairness of the judiciary questionable.

Judicial overreach is another issue that calls for reform. A past example of overreach that has been criticized is when Supreme Court ruled that operators with cancelled 2G licences must stop their services. The line between the judiciary and legislature must not be blurred. It is crucial to distinguish clearly between beneficial judicial activism and detrimental overreach to sustain the organs of the country and maintain their respective functions.

Above are the main reasons that indicate the need for judicial reforms in India. Possible solutions are as follows:

Measures should be introduced to promote transparency in proceedings to avoid bias. Former Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam once stated in an interview that the best way to tackle corruption in courts is through grievance petitions before the Chief Justice of respective high courts and the CJI, by litigants.

More judges must be appointed in courts. The Supreme Court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) act in 2015, declaring it unconstitutional. A renewed version of this idea and goal could help effectively appoint more judges. If the shortage of judges and courtroom facilities were suitably addressed, the logjam of cases could be cut down with the increase in efficiency. Competence is key. Appointed court officials must have a good level of qualifications and skill to ensure legal disputes are resolved expeditiously.

There should be an established mandatory pre-litigation process in place to discourage frivolous litigation to conserve the court’s time.

An independent executive body could be set up solely to ensure the enforcement of judgements issued by the court, to improve faith in its effectiveness.

- Sharanya Sanjay

https://www.civilserviceindia.com/subject/Essay/why-india-needs-judicial-reforms.html

What would happen to an individual or a company if it gets battered, by the Judiciary, continuously and repeatedly over the past 30 years? Particularly, when there has been no fault or wrongdoing on the company's part? Well that is exactly the plight of Baroda Electric Meters Ltd. (BEM), and of its Managing Director. While the judicial atrocities have been numerous on various fronts, to enable a deeper study on the topic, in this page, we will restrict ourselves to those atrocities that are related to Land Survey #384 of Karamsad Village, located in the State of Gujarat, India.

This page on Land #384 gives the atrocities and abuse meted out by the Indian Judiciary against us, BEM Ltd. Land Survey #384 ad measuring 2 acres is located in village Karamsad, the birthplace of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Iron Man of India. We will show how a Civil Court has abused its powers to issue an injunction against us - an injunction that an upper (District) court calls as illegal, in capricious, erroneous, against sound legal principles, and suffering from perversity. Unabashed, the lower court delays its own judgement further for 10 long years!

BEM Ltd. has been unfortunate to receive this disputed #384 land from Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) in exchange for its prime freehold land. GIDC had approached BEM in 1963 with a proposal to build an Industrial Estate in Karamsad. BEM believed that GIDC's intentions are noble and in the interest of the nation; hence BEM expressed its desire to help GIDC. Accordingly an agreement was signed in 1973 and an Exchange Deed signed in 1989. GIDC and the District Collector's office had managed to keep hidden from BEM a botched up Land Acquisition prior to the signing of the Deed.

The distraction, due to ensuing litigations of Land #384, has cost the Company BEM Ltd. dearly - loss of over 280 direct jobs to its employees, and over 1000 indirect jobs to its vendors. Loss of annual turnover of Rs. 7 crores in the 1990's , or approx. Rs. 100 crores this year. Loss over over Rs. 80,000 crores to the nation in terms of reduction in electrical distribution losses and other revenue savings through its innovative projects that could not see daylight due to the judicial distraction. Unbelievable but true!.

Mahatma Gandhi was a barrister and knew how to defend himself. Well, I am not a lawyer and I am not able to identify a lawyer that is non-corrupt, trustworthy and reliable in the existing judicial system. When I find that my lawyer to be corrupt, I could probably go to the judge and lodge a complaint. But where do I go when I find the judge itself to be corrupt? The feeling that an Indian citizen gets while facing a corrupt judiciary, seeking justice, is similar to the feeling that a woman gets when she is being sexually assaulted - defenceless, weak, crippled, vulnerable and powerless.

The manner in which the Indian Judiciary is currently being run is as though it is set up to serve the interests of just the advocates and lawyers and not the petitioner nor the defendant. In a majority of the cases currently being heard in Indian Courts, neither is the actual petitioner nor the defendant anywhere in the scene - only their signature on the Vakilatnama! This has led to situation where the lawyers of both the opposing parties join hands to 'fix' the judgement to suit themselves rather than the parties they represent.

Readers are encouraged to join the #WeToo movement, a social media initiative aimed at correcting the corrupt Indian judiciary that is posing to be a roadblock in the path of progress of the nation.