The five-lane track to speedier justice

The scale of the problem has reached mind-boggling proportions as none of the proposals made over the years to reform the lower courts translated into action.Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley is only the latest to make such proposals.

But the ambitious multi-pronged strategy he unfolded on Friday at a specially convened conference of state law ministers appears more promising, since much of it involves immediate action.

Jaitley called for the immediate creation of five fast-track courts in every district backed by a range of legislative changes to expedite the judicial process. What remains to be seen is whether Jaitley will display the necessary resolve to see that his scheme takes off and reverses the trend of arrears in the lower courts as well.

To his credit, Jaitley has already prepared the ground for that by introducing a Bill in the last session of Parliament to amend the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).The CPC Bill fixes time limits for every stage of the litigation. The CPC Bill also contains time-saving innovations such as private courier services being used to serve summons.

The second prong is the nation-wide network of 1,734 fast-track courts due to start functioning this very year on April 1. Thanks to the munificence of the Finance Commission, the Law Ministry has its disposal Rs 509 crore allocated precisely for the purpose of treating the chronic ailment of judicial delays. Jaitley has urged the states to ensure that they set up the fast-track courts with the Rs 200 crore being released in the current financial year.

The Centre will be funding the fast-track courts for five years. Jaitley suggested that the best of the judges be posted at the fast-track courts, which are envisaged to handle about 20 lakh cases a year.

They are meant to accord priority to the cases related to the thousands of undertrials languishing in the jails for years merely because of procedural glitches. Generally, the rationale behind the fast-track courts is to dispose of all the older cases.

The third prong is to make procedural amendments to a clutch of laws that account for a very substantial part of the arrears. They include:n Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act pertaining to cases of bounced cheques. Before any summons are issued to the alleged offender, the complainant is made to go through a rather time-consuming process to adduce evidence on the otherwise straightforward facts involving the bounced cheque.n Provisions related to maintenance for destitute wives and children in the Criminal Procedure Code, Hindu Marriage Act and Special Marriage Act: Though the question of maintenance in cases of dire need, these provisions do not fix any time limit on the courts to decide the applications.

n Accident claims: The insurance companies have a record of using every trick in the book to put off legitimate claims of accident victims. The law aids them in doing so as there is no statutory time limit on the courts to dispose of the cases.n Land acquisition law: Many of the affected persons, especially farmers, are made to run around the courts for years to get compensated for the land they have lost to some development project. Delays occur because the laws concerned do not fix any time limit.

All these laws however are administered by ministries other than the Law Ministry. So Jaitley says he is coordinating with those ministries to try and push through the necessary amendments at the earliest.

The fourth prong of Jaitley’s strategy is to spread the gospel of computerisation in courts around the country. In fact, they already have a role model in the Supreme Court, which could not have brought down the arrears without resorting to information technology.

With the help of computers, the apex court sifted the backlog of cases to classify them subject-wise. That enabled it to dispose of batches of cases involving similar questions and thereby avoid unnecessary delays.

Another important proposal is to persuade all public utilities around the country to adopt the quasi-judicial mechanism of Lok Adalat, as an in-house, pre-court remedy to aggrieved citizens. Somebody who has been given an excess electricity bill, for instance, has the option of going before the Lok Adalat attached to the electricity board.

The Lok Adalats are meant to arrive at consensual decisions to prevent litigation in petty cases. The Lok Adalat decisions have the force of law as they function under the National Legal Services Authorities Act.

Though they are all long overdue, Jaitley’s reforms will materialise only if he wins the support of the legal and judicial communities, who have a vested interest in the status quo.

All the money that is being spent and all the Bills that are proposed to be enacted may make little difference to the lot of the litigants unless he gets the cooperation of those two powerful lobbies. That is where his stiffest challenge lies.