Should Judiciary be Outsourced?
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 02 January 2011
This query is : Resolved
Pendency of Court cases is on the rise as lakhs of litigations are lying for decades together. This is solely attributed to the fact that the quality of Advocacy to handle the complexities involved in the Indian Laws. Ultimately Justice gets delayed and thereby denied. In this modern era every profession or business or even services resort to Advertisement. However due to unnecessary restrictions imposed on legal profession the legal intelligentsia gets depleted as many brilliant law students prefer or take up jobs taking up Law Practice or Advocacy. In fact, to tackle pendency Government should not hesitate to even outsource the functions of judiciary or Judicial Administration System. Statistics speak very badly that only 23% of law graduates take up the profession which is the lowest globally whereas in any developed country 98% of them are engaged in Law Practice. I feel there is an inherent bug emanated from the Britishers which needs to be fixed and add respect and values to make Advocate Profession attractive to any youngster to take up as a career. Experts to share their honest opinion on this subject and suggest methods to speed up the judicial process to facilitate Justice reach the common man.
R.Ramachandran
(Expert) 02 January 2011
Dear Mr. Partha,
Running of the Government of a Country, Nations Security Apparatus, Law Enforcing Agencies and Judiciary cannot ever be outsourced.
The problems in India is quite complex. It is not due to dearth of Advocates that the cases are piling up in court. Rather it is because of legal awareness (and equally lack of awareness) every one approaches the court. Unfortunately, people to judge ratio is very very low. To add to the trouble, even the sanctioned strength of judges is not there. There are at least 1/3rd vacancies existing in High Courts and District Courts through out the country. Please see the attached file showing the judicial vacancies as per Supreme Court website. Further more, unlike in other countries, there is no time target fixed for disposal of the cases. There ought to be serious judicial reforms only then there can be some solution to the issue. But outsourcing of judicial functions is certainly not a solution.
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 02 January 2011
I recall and share a few points written to a leading newspaper introspecting the reasons for the same about twenty five years back with regard to pend-ency: (I brief as under)
1. Legal awareness can be facilitated if Basic Law topics are covered as one of the compulsory subjects in School.
2. Make Law profession attractive or lucrative to youngsters by prescribing value added ethics in the profession mandatory.
3. Appoint an Expert Committee comprising of eminent jurists to revisit and redraft every Statute which were simply copied from the aged old British Regime.
4. Review every Judicial Administration Layers to get married to Science and Technology.
5. Make every officer of the court (Advocates) as paid Government Servants at par with Gazetted Officers.
6. Except law graduates no other professionals change their basic line of profession in general. Hence, suitable legislation must be made to ensure that students who pass out from any law college are compulsorily engaged in the Advocate job to assist in all court related matters as paid Government servants.
7. Identify all areas of paper work related to court matters to either get it outsourced or mechanized so that young advocates are not demoralized to handle petty jobs which otherwise should have been carried out by Court Staff.
8. ....list is too long
When I now review these aspects after twenty five years, I am afraid though it attaches great importance, none has taken its positive direction. Why not Mr.Veerappa Moily and his colleagues introspect on all these issues.
Raj Kumar Makkad
(Expert) 02 January 2011
I do agree with Parthasarthi Sir. This subject is very important and it has various aspects. It is matter of long discussion and requires a consensus. There are contradictory views of different people on these vital matters.
mahendrakumar
(Expert) 03 January 2011
a very relevant subject for discussion.
see the present fate of consumer protection act. It was brought with a time limit of 3 months to settle the case.
Meanwhile,any where in the world,judicial services are outsourced?
It is heard that in US, even issuing of passport is entrusted with private companies.
R.Ramachandran
(Expert) 03 January 2011
The simple reason is, no one in power is really interested in ushering in such people benefiting reforms.
These topics and ideas have been left to the Forums like this and as 'topics' for occasional seminars where dignitaries take part, make promises and go away.
R.Ramachandran
(Expert) 04 January 2011
Dear Mr. Partha,
I think Mr. Veerappa Moily appears to have heard you.
See the following editorial in today's Indian Express:
TIME BOUND JUSTICE ...
The Union law ministry’s proposal to make the delivery of justice time-bound and also enlist the right to justice as a fundamental right strikes the right chord. However, our experience in the recent past with ambitious bills that don’t see the light of day, despite sounding good, tells us that much of this may remain in the realm of words and come to mean little in practice. As reported in this newspaper on Monday, the law ministry seeks to set a time-table for the disposal of individual cases and create a system whereby courts deal with similar cases in a cluster format. Besides, an undertrial —
as long as he’s not accused of terrorism or anti-national activities — will be released on bail after a specified time has lapsed, without recourse to judicial prerogative. Systemically, a three-tier case management set-up will increase the jurisdiction of small-claims courts, allow new fast-track courts and a new multi-track system.
Innumerable plaintiffs in India discover to their grief that due process is a punishment. Moreover, the delays result from procedural conventions under judicial control. While individual judges often prove their credentials, the systemic faults compromise speedy justice delivery. Our backlog of cases is therefore staggering. In fact, the Supreme Court has spoken out about litigants’ right to speedy justice and free legal aid. The law ministry, proposing a review of the legal aid system too, has decided to push the current proposal despite apprehensions of the judiciary’s disagreement with time-bound cases.
Why all this sounds futile is the important judicial legislation still pending, such as the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill. Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily had set out an ambitious reform agenda, but little has moved. For judicial reform, while the judiciary has to walk the extra mile, the executive must engage the former in dialogue. Behind the appeal of the right to justice as a fundamental right, lies the overhaul needed by the judicial system. Ironically, it’s the gargantuan backlog and number of undertrials that can ground the proposal for speedy justice. Besides epic ambitions, more realistic action is what the law ministry should be looking at.
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 04 January 2011
I still have the apprehension that these news clips will become lip service as I had seen in the past many Law Ministers or even Prime Ministers, make such false promises only go away from the memories of Public. In fact, unless criminals or law offenders are eliminated from the Political stream,(or banned from contesting elections) Judiciary will always be taken up for a ride. Law Makers should first be CLEANEST OF ALL....
Guest
(Expert) 04 January 2011
Mr.Parthasarathi Loganathan Sir,
(1) I think you should change the style of asking our opinion on this topic. It is wrong to ask an honest opinion of Experts (who are all advocates) and who are all in active practice and handling cases of either petitioners and/or respondents. So you cannot gather an honest opinion on disposal of cases through private agencies. But I observed from an angle of an advocate/common man and express my comments:
(2) Please look at the angle how our judiciary works. Courts are only sit at one place and dispense with justice. It is the outside world that brings work to judiciary. Only when the outside world (i.e., Govt. agencies, public in their personal lives, corporate world, etc., etc.,) come with clean hands and await justice, the justice cannot be dispensed with 100% merits by the judiciary.
(3) I am the last person to find fault with Advocates, since the parties concerned are the best authors of their-own lives and actions at the outside world and they committed mistakes in leading their lives safely and securely (both contractual and informal), the justice will get delayed by the major patch work of the Advocates in setting right the cases. If everything is alright, the justice will not take more time.
(4) Please don't forget the lethargy or over-smartness of the Police of our country. If an investigating officer is interested, he would produce the witnesses promptly in the next date before the Court and if he is not interested, he would let the trial go for any number of years. So Police Department should be dealt with iron hand.
(5) The Public Prosecutors are paid hefty sums by the Government according to number of hearings. This will encourage the PPs to take more adjournments and keep the cases alive. So the Government shall fix number of hearings for PPs. So they should be dealt with iron hand.
(6) Further, there should not be any procedure as "Dismissed for default" and instead a law should be brought to make judges read each and every page of the pleadings and pronounce judgments based upon merits once and for all based upon the evidences putforth by the parties.
(7) "Dismissal for Default" and "Restoration of Suit" causes heavy damage to the system of speedy disposal of cases.
(8) The Supreme Court should not hear cases of property disputes and other personal matters, since due to delay and cost involved, litigants grow aged and many die before seeing the final judgment.
(9) The age factor should be taken into account while admitting a case by the Court. Final Hearing date should be fixed at the time of admission itself, so that the petitioner will be rest assured of his final judgment. In case of any postponement of final hearing, it should not more than three months.
(10) Further, there should not be more weightage of judicial pronouncements where the law is clear to avoid ambiguity among intentions of various High Courts in arriving at decisions.
(11) The President of India with the help of jury should be given power to settle the law if the courts give different opinions on a topic. And that decision should be Gazetted immediately and published in all journals and magazines.
(12) The Contempt of Courts Act should be renamed as "The Punishment for Non-implementation of Court Orders Act" and should be invoked strictly particularly against the Government Officers. The fines should be heavy and they can be recovered by the parties by filing E.Ps. and by attaching Salaries of the Erring officials. Then only the noble value of the Court Orders will prevail.
(All the above or most of the above will never happen)(Atleast I should thank all those who patiently read the above in full)
Parthasarathi Loganathan
(Querist) 05 January 2011
Thanks for sharing your honest opinion Rao Sir. Such nice introspection will surely make things to happen in real-time.
