01-02-2007, 02:00 AM
<!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> A bad case of backlog
Manoj Mitta & Nitin Sethi
[ 1 Jan, 2007 0352hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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The good
The highest court of the land cross-ed a psychological hurdle on November 3, 2006. A nine-judge bench, one of the largest ever, wrapped up the hearing of a major Constitutional matter â the alleged abuse of the 9th Schedule â in five days flat.
Never before has Supreme Court rationed time so strictly for senior advocates, used to being heard till eternity. It set a new benchmark by adopting the American method of managing judicial time.
All parties had to give written submissions before â not after â the hearing, where judges mainly sought clarifications.
A month earlier, the apex court introduced e-filing, which allows advocates-on-record and petitioners-in-person to file cases from anywhere in the world.
This is the latest in a series of IT applications to make the judiciary more responsive to the needs of a globalising India, like the Singapore model of video-conferencing being used in several states to avoid taking hardened criminals from jail to court for hearing of remand pleas.
The bad
For all the efforts to upgrade the hardware, the quality of the software â judgments â is actually deteriorating. A recent verdict on political corruption was so poorly written, the media misunderstood it and misreported that Supreme Court had done away with the statutory safeguard of taking prior sanction for prosecuting ministers and legislators.
Sometimes the reasoning is so obviously infirm that it emboldens the government to shrug off the verdict. Example: A five-judge bench's ruling to apply the creamy layer rule to SCs and STs in the teeth of a larger bench's decision that it can apply only to OBCs. Faulty verdicts have sometimes grounded perfectly legal executive policies.
Example: Even after the disinvestment policy was upheld by a three-judge bench in the Balco case, a two-judge bench made out in the HPCL/BPCL case that Parliament's prior approval has to be taken every time any public asset is sold.
TOI view
Just now its stock is high because of the justice done in a spate of high-profile cases. Even otherwise, the judiciary has been acclaimed for its activism in filling up vital spaces of public policy ceded by a negligent or pusillanimous executive.
But its fundamentals are still far from sound as evident from its failure to make a dent in the problem of arrears â especially in the lower rungs, which account for the bulk of the 2.5 crore pending cases.
Superior courts are setting an awful example by their disdain for transparency in judicial appointments and accountability.
In the name of independence of judiciary, Indian judges have accrued more immunities and privileges than those enjoyed by their western counterparts.
The bar council's resolution of doing away with addressing judges as "Lords" is a small reform. Far more needs to be done to help them shed their paternalistic mindset and come to terms with the fact that, shorn of legalese, judges are like any other service providers.
Manoj Mitta & Nitin Sethi
[ 1 Jan, 2007 0352hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
The good
The highest court of the land cross-ed a psychological hurdle on November 3, 2006. A nine-judge bench, one of the largest ever, wrapped up the hearing of a major Constitutional matter â the alleged abuse of the 9th Schedule â in five days flat.
Never before has Supreme Court rationed time so strictly for senior advocates, used to being heard till eternity. It set a new benchmark by adopting the American method of managing judicial time.
All parties had to give written submissions before â not after â the hearing, where judges mainly sought clarifications.
A month earlier, the apex court introduced e-filing, which allows advocates-on-record and petitioners-in-person to file cases from anywhere in the world.
This is the latest in a series of IT applications to make the judiciary more responsive to the needs of a globalising India, like the Singapore model of video-conferencing being used in several states to avoid taking hardened criminals from jail to court for hearing of remand pleas.
The bad
For all the efforts to upgrade the hardware, the quality of the software â judgments â is actually deteriorating. A recent verdict on political corruption was so poorly written, the media misunderstood it and misreported that Supreme Court had done away with the statutory safeguard of taking prior sanction for prosecuting ministers and legislators.
Sometimes the reasoning is so obviously infirm that it emboldens the government to shrug off the verdict. Example: A five-judge bench's ruling to apply the creamy layer rule to SCs and STs in the teeth of a larger bench's decision that it can apply only to OBCs. Faulty verdicts have sometimes grounded perfectly legal executive policies.
Example: Even after the disinvestment policy was upheld by a three-judge bench in the Balco case, a two-judge bench made out in the HPCL/BPCL case that Parliament's prior approval has to be taken every time any public asset is sold.
TOI view
Just now its stock is high because of the justice done in a spate of high-profile cases. Even otherwise, the judiciary has been acclaimed for its activism in filling up vital spaces of public policy ceded by a negligent or pusillanimous executive.
But its fundamentals are still far from sound as evident from its failure to make a dent in the problem of arrears â especially in the lower rungs, which account for the bulk of the 2.5 crore pending cases.
Superior courts are setting an awful example by their disdain for transparency in judicial appointments and accountability.
In the name of independence of judiciary, Indian judges have accrued more immunities and privileges than those enjoyed by their western counterparts.
The bar council's resolution of doing away with addressing judges as "Lords" is a small reform. Far more needs to be done to help them shed their paternalistic mindset and come to terms with the fact that, shorn of legalese, judges are like any other service providers.