Experts suggest code of conduct for lawyers

In fact, continuing the season for discussing judicial reforms in the country, today seemed to be a special day with two sitting high court judgessuggesting reforms and the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court proposing measures to be undertaken to dispose off cases speedily. (see box).

In his suggestion that set many in the audience thinking, Justice P Shah stated that the shortage of rooms in the sessions court could be met with a shift system. “So the first judge comes in the morning at 7:30 am, attends to his administrative functions and hears cases from 10:30 am to 1 pm. The next judge sits immediately on the cases till 5 pm and then attends to his administrative functions. In this way, the courts can function to their full capacity,” he suggested.

Justice Shah deplored the vacancies in the Bombay High Court where against the sanctioned strength of 60 judges around 15 seats are vacant. He pointed out that the judge to population ratio in the country was lowest at 5 per million while for USA it was 50 and 75 for Canada. Among other changes, he suggested that the examination-in-chief where the witness is first examined in trial courts can becut short through an affidavit filed by the witness. The cross-examination can then be started based on this affidavit. “In England there is an institute of records, which trains people on how to record evidences within a time frame,” he explained.

Similarly, Vahanvati noted that one has to accept the shortage of judges, and work to use “judicial time” properly. Delaying moves by lawyers like misleading courts, suppressing documents which would give a clearer picture on the case to the judges as well as seeking unnecessary adjournments should be discouraged. Moreover, lawyers should keep their arguments brief and not underestimate the capacity of the judges to understand, he added.

“There are many unripe cases on the board, which should not have been there in the first place. Like where affidavits have yet to be filed, or have not been filed where one gets 150 reasons for adjournments,” he pointed out. In England since April 1999, a new system of “active case management” has been set in place,under which the office of the court monitors cases filed and if the directions on affidavits is not done on time, the case is struck off for default, he added.

He also criticised counsels and senior counsels for not being in the court in time for the hearing despite charging “atrocious” fees. He suggested that action should be taken against lawyers employing such an attitude and that they should be heavily penalised.

Justice A V Sawant in his speech criticised the incessant adjournments taken by lawyers. He stated that a sessions court lawyer had presented him with a book on 150 reasons for adjournments practiced in Indian courts. "These include illness of wives, daughters, sons, drivers and only excluded their dogs," he said.

Blue print of corrective measures

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has come out with a blue print on adopting measures to tackle the pendency of cases which number over a lakh, Chief Justice Y K Sabrahwal said today. The blue print was formulated at a high-levelmeeting of administrative judges and senior lawyers on Friday, he told reporters after inaugurating the first Loknyayalaya at the city civil and sessions court here. It involves undertaking measures such as reducing matters from weekly and daily board, awarding costs for not filing affidavits in time, avoiding adjournments of cases and also discouraging frivolous public interest litigations by imposing costs.

PTI