P K Mam
The fundamental principle in democracy is to keep executive away from judiciary. (The deeper the inherited malady, the longer it takes to put things on right course). Democracy means protection of civil and fundamental rights of a citizen. SC has the overall authority to oversee that citizens’ fundamental rights are not infringed in any manner by executive as well as parliament. In India, with 130 crore citizens and with democratic pattern allegations/ counter allegations will always be raised. Further, the number of pending cases in various courts as on 31/3/22 as per Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju are 4.70 crore Instances too are when judicial decisions are affected by various internal and external factors, including legal, personal, ideological, and political influences. Thus, the sanctity of law is disregarded or overstepped for petty political gains by the law implementers resulting in both piling up of the cases and denying the justice in time, all against judicial ethics.
The citizens should have judiciary that can yield justice in time without delays, work independently without external interference and more importantly to deliver justice in time to poor and needy without delay. Need justice system to prove itself responsive and timely to societal needs so as to save and protect the spirit of law abiding citizens instead watching situation with frustration and helplessly. Reportedly, the present collegium system of appointment of judges doesn’t seem to be correct, not transparent; and not accountable. Hence, NJAC Act, 2014 was enacted by the Narendra Modi government to regulate the procedure to be followed for recommending names for appointment as Chief Justice of India and other judges of Supreme Court and Chief Justices and judges of High Courts and for their transfers. But it was struck down by Supreme Court in Oct 2015. However, the only thing required now is to speed up the reintroduction of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Bill in parliament with modification as may satisfy the constitutional framework that exists. As Parliament is representation of Indian Citizenship, any disagreements between Judiciary & Executive could be referred to parliament and voting sought for. Yes, the selection team should be sensible, honest and above all affiliations.
The crux is that team under (NJAC) should work with integrity, zeal, honestly, timely and save Govt from brain scratching as well. This seems, to begin with, the way out to deal with the mounting pending court cases (More than 5 crore), besides other things stated below (illustrative but not exhaustive)
a) Judicial cases at state level should be disposed off at High court level. Only cases of national importance which require the attention of highest court should be referred to Supreme Court.
b) More powers to Lok Adalats.
c) Domestic cases to be settled at Block level, appeal with Tehsil level
d) Land property revenue cases at Tehsil level, appeal with District level
e) All terror linked cases to Special courts and appeal with Special judges at High Court level.
f) All constitutional cases to lower courts at Supreme Court and appeal with higher judiciary at Supreme Court.
g) Burden on Supreme Court to be reduced for giving time to priority cases
h) All appeals other than constitutional cases to be disposed off at High Court level.
i) Minor cases to be tried in block, tehsil, district courts
j) FERA, tax violation, frauds to be heard under Special category reserved courts.
Well for over 75 yrs we are seeing very little has been achieved in this regard. The judicial system is facing difficult challenges like deficient infrastructure, shortage of administrative staff and huge vacancies of judges. All of this is known both to Court and Govt. Still why isn’t anything changed? Corruption, inefficiency and incompetence need to be tackled. . The modest and moderate methods like petitioning, protesting, begging is not going to change anything. Police – judicial system need overhaul. We need a revolution. That’s when change will come. A matter of utmost concern and demands prioritization & resolve.
Recently, Law Minister said that AI can help in reducing the back log of pending cases and sustainable justice delivery. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur released an AI-based method to automate the reading of legal case judgements. They developed two deep neural models to understand the rhetorical roles of sentences in a legal case judgment.
Government has already launched e-courts, and their reach has to increase more to solve the backlog of cases we deal with. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court and High Courts have been able to function online. Electronic courts bring a justice serving platform that is more time saving and performs efficiently with better case and court management facilities. As information will be available digitally, chances of misplacement of crucial statements, frequent adjournment of dates, flaws for submission of data or evidence will be greatly reduced. Evidence of eyewitnesses who cannot be present in person can be recorded through online mechanisms. In sum, a big push is to needed to switch over to AI system instead of bogged down with outdated system and procedures to deal with alarming pending case problems. A new concept will require technological back up for big transformation in which various aspects of our judiciary its figuration, digitization, pending cases problems, selection procedures, judicial proceedings and all allied aspects be linked to AI technocrats. Further, the reform process could also facilitate use of local language of every state while hearing cases on day to day basis to receive justice by common man, as recently suggested by our Prime Minister. Need of hour, the Govt should display will to undertake the judicial reforms, the Opposition the sense to support it and Judiciary the desire to allow it to be implemented so as to remove many other flaws too in existing federal system in country. Our Prime Minister has a bent of mind and desire to selflessly serve country. Let us wish he can fulfill his desire to provide unbiased justice to the public in all spheres of life and thereby fulfill his aspiration for equitable justice in the country. True leader, keeps his eyes focused on goal and uses anger and a tough exterior only to achieve his goals so that objectivity is not lost.
