Revamp the Judiciary

A Better Deal in Judicial Matters

The judiciary was encountering problems in settling the pending cases in the courts for the past decades. But there could not be any substantial solution in reducing the quantum of cases pending final disposal. The petitioner waits for long period of time and gets disheartened is/and finally dies before the disposal of his/her case in favour or against! Even in some cases, the judge who initiated the proceedings does not live to see the end result of the case. The case goes on for unlimited time extending to Life time!
Has anyone in the judiciary or elsewhere thought of this peculiar state of affairs of the court cases? I do not think, anyone has taken a serious note on this important aspect in anyone’s life. When we have a Limitation Act for all official matters including representation to the Legal authorities, why we do not have “ Limitation “ for finalizing the court cases within a short time frame?. To have an effective control over the legal proceedings I have suggestions as note below.
1. The procedure of engaging a lawyer for the petitioner and separate lawyer for the defendant should be stopped forthwith. Instead there must be a Council of Legal Experts consisting of senior judges/lawyers to go into the details of each case, examination of witnesses, records, and site inspection etc as necessary. Witnesses should not be unwieldy, numbering 100 or more, but limited to 2 or 3 according to the merit of each case.
2. Separate advocate pleading for the complainant and the accused will always vitiate the whole process in different stages, as each advocate will try to excel over the other in the matter of interpretation and tactics, thereby drifting off or bypassing from the core issue on hand. Such situations will cause delay and also postponement of the case for unlimited period of time. Thus, the prolonged hearings and delay thereof will cause discontentment in the minds of the litigants resulting in loss of credibility of the Judiciary in public mind.
My personal experience has prompted me to write this note.

The procedure, I suggest is similar to the one that is adopted in the case of ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES BY SOLE OR PANEL OF ARBITRATORS, with a definite time frame.



M P Abraham IRSE (Rted)
Chartered Engineer
& International Valuer and Arbitrator.