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POLITICALLY
CORRECT
And
Justice In Time
An
open letter on judicial reforms to Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley and
justice in time
By
P. Chidambaram
Dear Arun,
 I
depart from my usual article format and write this as a letter to a reform-oriented
minister for law. I must confess that I was disappointed when you were
moved around thrice in the space of 12 months. It must have been quite
unsettling. Be that as it may, now that you are the law and justice minister,
I would urge you to seize the opportunity.
No doubt
you wish to make plans for the long and medium terms. My advice is leave
those plans, for the time being, to one of your more reflective joint
secretaries. I doubt if your Government is playing a five-day cricket
Test match. More likely, it is a one-off football match. You have 90 minutes
to score. Conceded that the Opposition is anything but hostile, there
are other ways-for example, a serendipitous event like torrential rains-in
which the match could come to a premature end. I would urge you, therefore,
to quickly do one thing-any one thing-that will leave your imprint on
the Government.
My suggestion:
tackle the arrears of cases in courts. The backlog of pending cases is
a monumental shame.
In the Supreme
Court alone, there are 21,567 cases pending, out of which 8,472 cases
are pending for more than two years and 645 cases for more than 10 years.
For all the high courts together, the corresponding figures are 32.04
lakh, 18 lakh and five lakh. Let me not even refer to the pendency of
cases in the lower courts-those numbers are mind-boggling.
I believe
you are a practical man looking for practical suggestions. Here are some:
1. There
are several experienced judges in high courts on the verge of superannuation
who because of their low seniority do not have a chance of being considered
for appointment as judges of the Supreme Court. Many of them have excelled
as trial and appellate judges on the civil side or the criminal side.
Select 10 such judges and appoint them as ad-hoc judges of the Supreme
Court. Let them sit as two-judge benches and hear the old cases only.
The arrears of cases will be wiped out in about 500 working days. (By
the way, this suggestion found a place in the 1991 Congress election manifesto.)
2. Repeat
suggestion No.1 for high courts by choosing suitable district judges.
3. The chief
justice of India, the attorney general, the president of the Supreme Court
Bar Association and you should prepare a list of senior advocates who
(waiving the age limit) are otherwise undoubtedly qualified to be high
court judges. The chief justice should make them an offer and tell them
they do not have the option of saying no! Each one should be asked to
agree to serve for eight continuous weeks in a year, for five years, as
an ad-hoc judge of a high court of his/her choice. It will be a form of
compulsory service akin to military service. Many will accept and the
few who may decline will invite public opprobrium.
4. Give
two law clerks to every judge of the Supreme Court. Thank God, there are
outstanding young men and women graduating from the National Law School,
Bangalore, and some other universities. Let them clerk for two years each
on a modest stipend. Once the law clerks are in place, the chief justice
should make a rule that, in all cases listed for final hearing, the rival
parties will submit written arguments (not exceeding 20 pages) two weeks
in advance and limit oral arguments to one hour for each side. Once written
submissions are filed, many of the cases will be concluded in 30 minutes.
5. Set up
an in-house three-member panel (judge, lawyer, civil servant) to grant
or refuse permission to file an appeal in the Supreme Court by any government
department or agency. Just before filing the appeal paper-book in the
Supreme Court, the intending appellant should present its paper-book to
the panel and also be allowed to make brief submissions. If permission
is refused, the appeal shall not be filed. No doubt this will add three
days to the process but the advantages are manifold. Change the panel
every year.
Depending
on your response to these suggestions, we can discuss long- and medium-term
plans.
Happy
New Year.
Yours
sincerely,
P. Chidambaram
(The
author is a former Indian finance minister and a TMC leader.)
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METRO TODAY
As
the Government brings in more people and mops more money in taxes, it
must be seen to be rewarding those who come forth and pay up, writes India
Today Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 