Judicial Reforms 2.0

Economy has been in the news around the World, for all the wrong reasons. Diplomatic tensions between states, global trade wars and an unforeseen slowdown in the demands across various sectors mainly have resulted in some of the fairly well performing world economies to soar. The situation in the Indian Ecosystem is no different.

And in this event of an economic slow down, there are lot of steps that the government of India needs to take to make quick revivals and bring the growth figures back to normalcy. A lot of suggestions,arguments and debates are being commenced over this with active participation of experts from the industry and the academia. All we can hope is for the government to lend ears to these suggestions that evolve and take proactive measures to make a faster revival.

Short term plans are the key here. However, structural reforms which will have long term economic and social impacts needs to be taken as well. And there isn’t a better time than now to take bold steps as the government has the mandate from the people. Also it has the required funds received from the RBI’s reserve capital .

We have close to 40 million cases pending in our courts awaiting justice and settlements out of which close to 60 thousand of them are in the honorable supreme court. Numerous governments have done the talking on clearing this mammoth backlog over the years and almost every political party demands a push for this while in opposition but doesn’t show the political will to take steps while in power. This holds true for the present government as well, even though some of the loyalists might disagree.

India ranks 163 out of 185 nations in the category of enforcement of contracts in the ease of doing business 2018 rankings by the World Bank (it was 178 in the 2014 rankings). Even after passing a much appreciated amendment to the Special Relief act , back in 2017, we have not seen much improvement on this account. It would be interesting to see how things turn out when the rankings for 2019 comes out. The ease of starting a business also needs to improve a lot to match international standards as it still struggles in the bottom half of the rankings.

As we aim for a 5 trillion dollar economy in close to four and half years from now, this bad a situation is unacceptable and unhealthy at the same time. Hence out of all the structural reforms that requires a push, Judicial reforms should be made to stand upfront , no matter how long the queue is. This is one such area , if implemented sternly, which will enhance the trust of the citizens in the system by ensuring faster justice , ease the way of living by ensuring smoother economic activities and also ease the way of doing business by settling issues quicker . A holistic socio-economic impact -Isn’t it ?

Some of the practical steps that often come up in the academic discussions on this topic are listed below.

1. Increasing the number of judges is something every Indian would suggest on this account . We have been traditionally short of Judges especially in the lower courts and this cannot be overlooked. As per the Economic survey, India requires close to 2300 new judges appointed across the lower and higher courts who should dedicatedly work to clear the pending backlogs within the term of this government (before May 2024). Appointment of these new judges and the recruitment of corresponding non judicial staff should be made quickly. May be some tweaks would also be required on the current system of appointing judges in order to improve it’s efficiency
2. We need to set up fast track courts to address priority disputes blocking infrastructure developments and higher order business settlements. This would put the economic activities in the country, both in the public and private sector, back on its wheels. Apart from that, special benches of Supreme Courts could also be installed in multiple cities outside Delhi to eradicate difficulties in to and fro travels for needy litigants.
3. Increasing the retirement age of the SC and high court judges by an year or two till the process of back log clearance is completed is also a plausible option as many such cases go on hibernation once a judge in the bench looking after the concerned case retire.
4. If we look at the conviction rates of the accused in criminal cases , we should be feeling absolutely ashamed. The prosecution fails in proving the cases more often than not. There are many layers of issues that leads to this pathetic state ranging from inefficiency of the police force , lack of accountability, interference from the top political brass,incompetency, lack of co-ordination between different departments involved(cyber crime wing,forensics etc) and many more. State governments would have to be instructed to act big on this front to introduce police reforms (Workforce upskilling, better quality infrastructure at work, separating law & order wing and criminal investigation force, basic forensic training for every official from the grade of a Head constable etc could be a good way to start with) and the central government should be generous enough to help with the amenities for this without any hassle.
5. Our Apex Court works for 190-192 days an year while the lower courts work as any other public sector organization for close to 240 days. It is high time, the public demands to take these privileges from the privileged class of judges off.
6. Transparency of judicial process is another problem that genuine litigants often have to bear with. The non-judicial staffs are often seen taking advantages of the prevailing opaqueness by delaying registration of cases,misplacing case records and avoiding timely issuance of legal notices or orders, particularly in lower courts. And this takes an enormous toll on the duration of the cases and at times, the verdicts as well. If we take these processes online along with rapid digitization of records where litigants know exactly where the petition stand, the efficiency of the system will improve drastically and unnecessary adjournments by the counsel citing technical glitches could be avoided .
7. Usage of AI and text analytics could help law firms in digging through old judgments and research. Also , NLP instruments like IBM Watson could help in finding out glitches in legal documents or charge sheets filed by the investigation agencies, and would ease the work of both the parties and improve the quality of the trial as a whole. There are a few startups in India like Practice League and Case Mine already working in this field serving around 100 law firms in validating the quality of the contracts (again a very important area of concern). And it would be great if the law commission and the ministry could consult with these organizations to understand the actual scope , expand if needed and also the feasibility of the implementation.
8. We shouldn’t shy away from recruiting necessary interns from the law schools so as to help with the process of clearing up the backlogs. Such an internship before graduation will help the law grads to gain a better perspective of the world they are getting into.
9. Mandatory training on the scope of technology in the judicial process should be included in law school curriculum which would help in creating thousands of digitally aware lawyers across India. Apart from that, there should be periodic review and updates in the general curriculum to match international standards.
10. Archaic laws that are irrelevant to the context of modern India, needs to be scrapped. Also laws with loopholes which are often misused, needs amendments and the parliament should have healthy and faster discussions over these and pass the required bills at the earliest possible instance. Apart from that , with the kind of influence ,digital platforms brings in the lives of modern citizens and the number of cyber crimes committed on a daily basis, bills should be drafted after extensive research on what all restrictions on the usage of digital evidences in the courts could be removed and what all digital records could be treated as new forms of evidences.

When all/most of these suggestions (there might be many more of them) are implemented; the current polity, whose economic and social decisions are influenced by the lack of trust on institutions, would start trusting the system more and it would reflect in their decisions and actions. Yes, For all these to get implemented and start showing results would take a lot many years . However with higher level of trust & sense of justice, better ease of living and ease of doing business, both the Indian economy and Indian polity can see greener pastures more often than not.