If the Union Law and Justice Ministry has its way,the Indian judiciary will soon adopt the Six Sigma concept to improve its efficiency. Six Sigma is a new-age process improvement tool,which helps companies in developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Many companies,some of them Indian too,have adopted Six Sigma tools to beef up productivity as well as service delivery. While senior functionaries of the Ministry agree that the idea sounds far-fetched,what with efficiency generally considered the last word associated with the Indian judiciary,they assert that it is not unachievable. A concept paper in this regard prepared by Union Law Secretary T K Vishwanathan,which will be sent to the Chief Justice of India,contains many other recommendations to speed up the judicial process and make the judiciary more transparent and accountable. All this,ministry sources say,will be implemented if the CJI puts his stamp of approval and once the Rs 442-crore e-courts project,being implemented in all court across the country,is completed. The court set for itself a target to reduce the average number of days for finishing a case from 35 to 29. Enthused by the highly successful experience at Bedfordshire,the UK Government is already working on a plan to implement the scheme in other areas. In its concept paper,the Law Ministry has also mentioned the need for the judiciary to prepare and release Annual Judicial Statistics Report,and also for various ministries and state governments to prepare judicial impact statements along with bills and amendments to current laws. These statements would give the Government a rough idea about the likely increase or decrease in court cases once the new law is enacted. The ministry also wants the judiciary to set time standards to define how long it should take for each court to dispose a case from the date of its institution. In fact,case management,as this is referred to worldwide,has already been favoured by the Supreme Court in the Salem Bar Association case.
