Moily's mission

In a country where courts take decades to deliver verdicts, this is sure to sound audacious. Law minister Veerappa Moily is attempting the unthinkable—reducing the life of litigation from an average 15 years at present to one year, and that too in just three years from now. The Mission Document, which his ministry is preparing to be used as a ‘roadmap’ for judicial reforms, backs this high-spirited plan with measures like setting up 5,000 new courts across the country that will work in three shifts—morning, day and evening. “The infrastructure will remain the same but we will get 15,000 courts working to liquidate the 2.75 crore cases that are pending in trial courts, clogging the wheels of justice and entailing a litigant’s endless wait for a decision in his case,’’ Moily said. To start with, there will be gram nyayalays, which will be functional from Gandhi Jayanti on October 2 this year, he said. “In the coming three years, we will set up 5,000 more courts with a clear mandate that it should not take more than six months from the time of filing of a case till its decision,’’ he said and hoped that a substantial percentage of the pendency would be wiped off. These additional courts will be backed by a solid case management plan that includes clubbing identical cases. Importantly, a judge cannot keep his judgment reserved for a long time. “While cutting down delay in completing the trial procedure for each case, there will be a time limit put on every judge to deliver his verdict,’’ Moily said, adding, “The time limit for giving judgments after completion of hearing will also be applicable to judges of the high courts and the Supreme Court.’’ In making functional the additional 5,000 courts, the services of retired judges will be requisitioned both in the trial courts and the high courts, which are also reeling under a pendency of nearly 40 lakh cases. A retired district judge, whose services are requisitioned, could expect a fixed pay of Rs 50,000 per month.

Judicial reforms

In a move to end the “once a litigant always a litigant” curse, the Centre is examining the first draft of a blueprint that promises to reduce the average pendency of a case from 15 years at present to a mere three years over the next two years. The ambitious legal reforms will look to setting a certain timeframe for a trial court to deal with a case and could also look at streamlining the appeals process. The reforms are expected to significantly change the lives of nearly 10 crore litigants involved one way or another in 2.6 crore cases some of which can drag on for decades. With trials often being a labyrinthine process with numerous adjournments, law minister M Veerappa Moily had asked attorney general G E Vahanvati and solicitor general Subramaniam to use their experience in judiciary to suggest a practical ready-to-use plan of action to help the common litigant who is often deterred from approaching the courts for fear of long pendency. The first draft of the blueprint for shrinking the litigation time to just threeyears, prepared by the two top law officers, was recently handed over to the law minister. This draft is expected to form the agenda of national consultation on judicial reforms, scheduled for end-August. An overall improvement of the justice delivery mechanism would follow if the suggested reform is implemented, official sources said. They explained that once the drastic reduction in the life of a trial court docket happens, it would unburden 16,000-odd judges of a huge pendency allowing them to give more meaning to the term “justice”.
THE BITTER TRUTH :
Average litigation time for a case in India is 15 years .
Blueprint proposes reducing it to 3 years by 2011 .
Total pendency of cases in trial courts is 2.64 crore .
Total number of judges is 16,685 of which 3,129 posts are vacant .
Average number of cases per judge is 1,583 .
Total number of persons involved in litigation is nearly 10 crore, excluding family members