Excessive adjournments delaying justice: Hamid Ansari

Describing court adjournments as "cancer", Vice President M Hamid Ansari today said that excessive adjournments are a primary cause behind the "delay in delivering justice".

"It is sad, but true, that the litigants seek and the court grants adjournments at the drop of a hat. Adjournments have grown like cancer, corroding the entire body of the justice delivery system," Ansari said, quoting order of apex court judges.

"Reasons for delay in justice delivery are well-known. Excessive adjournments is a primary cause, while other reasons are- shortage of resources and capacity and long-winding arguments by counsel," Ansari said after inaugurating new campus of Gujarat National Law University here.

The Vice President is on a three-day visit to the state. He will be travelling to Gir Wildlife Sanctuary, the last abode of Asiatic lions in the next two days.

Ansari, who shared the stage with Gujarat Governor Kamla and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, added that the Supreme Court had recently bemoaned the frequent adjournments for the flimsiest of reasons in the case Shiv Cotex vs Tirgun Auto.

Referring to justice delivery in a scenario, when the process takes two or three decades to reach finality, Ansari said that there is a pendency of over 56,000 cases in the Supreme Court, of which, around 36,000 cases are over a year old.

The pendency in High Courts and subordinate courts as on 31 December 2010 was around 3.2 crore cases, of which, around 85 lakh cases are over five years old, he said.

In many instances, it is the state that is the biggest and enduring litigator, forcing citizens and business to sustain substantive and notional losses, as cases drag on in the labyrinthine justice delivery system, Ansari said.

"The certainty of long gestation for resolution (of cases), coupled with heavy costs to sustain the legal process, has given large corporates added incentives to threaten or institute legal proceedings on civil matters," Ansari said.

It is usually individual citizens, poor and marginalised, who bear the brunt of inadequate or non-existent alternate dispute-resolution mechanism and extended judicial processes, he said.

Speaking on the issue of ethics in the legal profession, Ansari, quoting a report of Law Commission of India, said that it has presciently noted that 'the ethics of lawyers have also become questionable.'

The Commission, in its report, states that though there is a Bar Council that "has to look after the ethics of the lawyers," it has "rarely taken action against tainted lawyers," Ansari said, quoting the Commission's report.

"A mission-mode approach is proposed to improve the infrastructure of subordinate courts under the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms, which was approved by the government last year," Ansari said.

The government has also accepted the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission to provide a grant of Rs 5,000 crore to the states for improving the justice delivery system over the five year period 2010-2015, he said.

The government has begun implementing 'e-court projects', which targets to computerise 12,000 courts by March this year, Ansari added.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the new campus of GNLU, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said, "It has been an issue of concern these days that majority of the promising young bright law graduates are joining the corporate practices."

"Can we create an environment, in which, after completing the education, no matter how bright the law student is, he can render services for next five to seven years to get justice for the common man. I think, we need to create an environment, so as to serve the nation," Modi said.

Modi said, Gujarat has been the first state in the country, which worked towards getting the people justice at the cheapest possible prices.

"Gujarat is the only state even today, which can provide justice to the poorest of the poor and the richest at a meagre 0.35 paise through the Lok Adalats," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Gujarat Governor Dr Kamla said, "Within our constitutional framework, the judiciary has been conceived as the upholder of democracy and human values. Many people believe that doors of the judiciary should be open to all."

"However, our experience tells us that recourse to justice has always been an expensive proposition. Many of the disadvantageous sections of the society are unable to afford the huge cost of litigation," she said.

Supreme Court Justice Anil R Dave, while addressing the law university students said that GNLU is on way to become a world-class school in the field of law. Its own building, for service to legal education, will make it stand tall and proud in the eyes of the world, he said.