New Delhi: In 1993, when a young Sunny Deol standing before court said, “Tareekh Pe Tareekh Milti Hai Par Insaaf Nehi Milta‘ (You get date after date but you don’t get justice),” the dialogue reverberated across India. For many Indians, especially those awaiting justice from the Indian judicial system, the scene from Rajkumar Santoshi’s Damini has an expression of an angst that had remained unexpressed for decades.
Pendency in Indian courts has long been one of the core issues affecting justice delivery in the world’s largest democracy. As such, the Supreme Court has now come up with 12 things it wants every court to do in order to quicken the judicial process and ensure speedier trials.
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The directions, issued by a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar, are:
1. All district and taluka level courts shall ensure proper execution of summons in a time bound manner. Those have to be then monitored by principal district judges and after collating the statistics they shall forward the same to be placed before the committee constituted by the High Court for its consideration and monitoring.
2. All courts at the district and taluka level shall ensure that written statement is filed within the prescribed limit under Order VII Rule 1 and preferably within 30 days and to assign reasons in writing as to why the time limit has been extended.
3. All courts at districts and talukas shall ensure after pleadings are complete, the parties should be called upon to appear on the day fixed and record the admissions and denials in the court. The court shall then direct parties in the suit to opt for either mode of settlement outside the court and at the option of the parties shall fix the date of appearance before such forum or authority and in the event of the parties opting any one of the modes of settlement directions be issued to appear on the date, time and venue fixed.
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4. If the event of the party’s failure to opt for ADR namely resolution of dispute as prescribed under Section 89(1) the court should frame the rules for its determination within one week preferably, in the open court.
5. Fixing the date of trial shall be in consultation with advocates appearing for parties to enable them to adjust their calendar. Once the date of trial is fixed, it should proceed accordingly to the extent possible on day-to-day basis.
6. Judges of district and taluka courts shall as far as possible maintain the diary for ensuring that only such number of cases can be handled on any given day for trial and complete the recording of evidence as to avoid overcrowding of the cases and as a sequence of it would result in adjournment being sought and thereby preventing any inconvenience being caused to the stakeholders.
7. The counsels representing the parties may be enlightened of the provisions of Order XI and Order XII so as to narrow down the scope of the dispute and it would also be the onerous responsibility of the Bar Associations and Bar Councils to have periodical refresher courses and preferably by virtual mode.
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8. The trial courts shall scrupulously, meticulously and without fail comply with the provisions of Rule 1 of Order XVII and once the trial has commenced it shall be proceeded from day to day as contemplated under the proviso to Rule (2).
9. The courts shall give meaningful effect to the provisions for payment of cost for ensuring that no adjournment is sought for procrastination of the litigation and the opposite party is suitably compensated in the event of such adjournment being granted.
10. At the conclusion of trial the oral arguments shall be heard immediately and continuously and judgement be pronounced within the period stipulated under Order XX of CPC.
11. The statistics relating to the cases pending in each court beyond 5 years shall be forwarded by every presiding officer to the Principal District Judge once in a month who shall collate the same and forward it to the review committee constituted by the respective High Courts for enabling it to take further steps.
12. The committee so constituted by the chief justices of respective states shall meet at least once in two months and direct such corrective measures to be taken by concerned court as deemed fit and shall monitor the old cases (preferably which are pending for more than five years) constantly.
