Citizens Initiative for Peace

Former CJI on Judicial Reforms

KG Balakrishnan, Former Chief Justice of India, outlines the areas of reform with a view to improve the justice delivery system throughout the country in his address at a seminar. Excerpts from his speech

I am extremely happy that a seminar is being held on “judicial reforms”. “Judicial reforms” is a theme, which is so much of talked about but too little done. Indian judicial system has a long history right from the pre-British days. In the 18th century a uniform pattern of judiciary emerged and during the British regime high courts were established in presidency towns. Thereafter, in 1937, the Federal Court was established to hear the appeals from the high courts. Because of complexities of personal laws of Muslims and Hindus and various customs and practices, there were initial difficulties in administration of justice.

After Independence, we wanted to have a systematic judicial system throughout the country and many new subordinate courts were established in various parts of the country. We have now got a network of over 14,000 courts all over India and these courts are dealing with four crore cases. Out of 14,000 judges, the working strength would be about 12,500 judges and nearly 4,000 cases are being handled per-judge. This is too high as compared to the average load per-judge in other countries. The general impression of the people is that a large number of cases are being delayed and, if any case is filed, it would take years to get a relief. This impression about the performance of Indian judiciary is not fully correct. Out of total pendency of these cases, only 40 percent cases are less than one year old. Ninety percent of delayed cases are pending in the subordinate courts. We should have a national planning and management system for the administration of justice.
What the Indian judicial system lacks is a systematic plan at the state and national levels to overcome the delay and arrears of cases. Our national judicial academy is preparing a proper case management system to avoid the delay and arrears of cases. We want long-term reforms on various aspects. We should have

(i) legislative reform to remove the bottlenecks that are adversely affecting the adjudication;

(ii) strengthening of the Bar;

(iii) strengthening of legal education;

(iv) legislative reform to strengthen the powers of judges to control judicial processes to ensure just and efficient outcomes in line with international reforms in this direction; and

(v) satisfactory framework for judicial accountability. These broad outlines have to be discussed and designed by competent people and a planned outlay should be submitted to the government.
We should also address the question as to how our courts are crowded and to what extent this situation could be remedied. There could be so many administrative reforms that can prevent the number of litigation coming to courts. In a large number of cases pending in courts, especially in higher courts, government is one of the parties either as defendant or as appellant. These litigations are on account of lack of proper governmental administration. If the decision-making authorities take firm, independent and impartial decisions, the citizens would not normally be driven to litigations. Lack of proper and good governance largely contributes to the number of cases in subordinate courts. For example, weak and inefficient revenue administration, which results in poor land rights recording system is the main reason for large number of civil litigations. If the revenue administration is streamlined and every one in this country is given proper title deeds with computerised diagrams, a large number of land disputes could be avoided.
In states where the revenue administration is poor, there are large number of civil cases and these disputes relate either to title or boundaries of their properties and these cases could be avoided, if proper re-survey operations are done and proper revenue records are maintained by the authorities.
Now, a large number of financial institutions are trying to recover money through criminal proceedings by making use of the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act. The courts have become the collecting agents for these financial institutions. Most of them are privately owned by people who engage in the practice of giving usurious loans. Because of these types of cases, trial of ordinary criminal cases is seriously hampered. A large number of motor accident claims are pending in various Tribunals. In some states, it takes more than four/five years to settle the claim despite the fact that large number of cases are settled through Lok Adalats. The insurance companies should have proper settlement methods whereby they must acknowledge their liability and disburse the amount to the claimants even before they come to courts. Such a streamlined procedure is not available in our system. When the claimants are before the courts, the insurance companies are not in a position to settle the claims even in cases where they admit their liability. Considering the large number of cases pending in various courts, it is better that we should have a “structured formula” whereby insurance companies can pay the amount and those who are dissatisfied with the settlement can approach the tribunal for enhancement.
This is also the situation in respect of land acquisition cases. The amount awarded by the land acquisition officer has never been reasonable or proper. The parties are driven to litigation in large number of cases. At the district level, if there is a district-wise high power committee to fix the compensation at a reasonably good amount, most of the claimants may accept it and only very few would resort to file land azcquisition cases for enhancement. As regards criminal cases, there are other contributory factors which cause large pendency of cases. In some of the cases, the investigation is tardy and inefficient and takes long time to file the final report. Even after we have achieved advancement in science and technology, the fruits of such scientific developments are not being tapped by the police to have investigation in a scientific manner. We do not have enough scientific laboratories and many a time the report of the forensic laboratory is delayed inordinately. Inept policing and weak prosecution are hugely responsible for slowing down and protracting the criminal trial in many courts. We are trying to have a planned approach to delay and arrears reduction. We are trying to have national minimum court performance standards that will set the minimum that the people of