It
is my immense pleasure and privilege for being with you on the occasion of
Lawyer’s Meet organised by the Bar Council of India. I extend my greetings
and good wishes to all members and officers of the Bar Council of India present
here today. You are all key players in our ongoing determination to
provide legal aid and access to justice to all our citizens. Access to
justice should not be understood to be reaching out in geographical
terms. Access to justice means fair adjudication of disputes arising in the
society both through formal and alternate methods of justice100 delivery. On one hand, there are formal
systems of justice like courts and tribunals which are available to a person120 when he is in need of fair
resolution to a dispute or an issue. On the other hand, there are traditional
but fair systems of adjudication, which can be peer groups, village
elders, village panchayats or any other form of alternative dispute
resolution, including mediation, conciliation and arbitration.
I am very clear in my mind that the formal systems of justice delivery
consisting of courts, judges, and lawyers, will never be able to meet
growing demands of justice delivery in200
our country which is populated by more than one billion people. What is
important is creating a society which has less of disputes, a society which can
resolve disputes through its own local mechanisms in a fair manner. If not240 possible, we can at least provide alternative
dispute resolution mechanisms in a formal or informal manner which costs less
and provides quick resolution of disputes. The point which I would like to make
very strongly is that by talking about access to justice if we mean that we
are going to establish a court and provide a Magistrate in each300 and every village, I think it
is a wrong idea and not practically achievable and it is not
affordable also. Access to justice has another angle of affordability. One
may have plenty of something around him which he needs badly but it is of
no use if it is not affordable for him. This is the story of
access to360 justice in our
country. As large sections of our population are not economically well off,
their capacity to access the justice delivery system becomes limited. As
a result, though a citizen of India is free to engage the best lawyer400 in the country to secure a
favourable but a genuine result, he may not be able to achieve that due
to the cost factor. This is not a hypothetical situation but
a finding brought out by a study conducted by National Law University
students which brings out that 75 per cent of those given harsh punishment
like death penalty belong to economically and socially backward and
weaker sections of society. Though our justice delivery system, in
principle, is not480 a class-based
system, the data brought out by the study hits very harshly at our face
that in practice500 due to
various factors, especially the cost factor, our system may have become a class-based
one. Now it is our duty to stand up and correct this anomaly failing
which it may result in miscarriage of justice. One of the fundamental
factors brought out by this study is that of affordability. We know that
engaging of best lawyer either at High Court level or at the Supreme Court
level is a very costly proposition even for an upper middle-class person.
If that is the case, what will be the fate of 60 per cent of lower
middle class600 and poorer
sections of society. I am of the opinion that at the subordinate courts
also, if the system is not affordable for 60 to 70 per cent of the population, we
cannot say that we have achieved access to justice for all. Now my brothers
and sisters, tell me where we stand and where we are headed to. I
would also like to stress one thing very clearly that this issue of
affordability can never be tackled by the Government as this
responsibility primarily depends upon all of you. If as a responsible citizen of
this country you want700
to ensure the access to justice to all our fellow citizens, you all need to
think about this cost factor720
and how to do something about it. There are three ways by which we can reduce
the high level of litigation. These three ways are: avoiding litigation; adopting
alternate dispute resolution mechanism; and adjudicating quickly. Litigation
can be avoided if all of you advise the clients to avoid litigation. Resorting
to arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism needs to be
encouraged at every level. The alternative dispute resolution mechanisms
are not only quicker in disposing of the disputes but800 also bring down the pendency in the
courts as well as the cost of litigation. If the Bar and its members advise the
clients to opt for alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, I am sure
in the days to come, this840
will become popular. There are about 2.6 crore cases pending in various courts in
our country. We are struggling to draw up plan to clear the
pendency. The Code of Civil Procedure was amended with a single point
agenda to speed up disposal of cases. Have we achieved it? If we have not
achieved it, have we thought900
about why we have not? Where have we gone wrong? As the intention
behind the amendment is noble and very close to the hearts of people, we need
to reflect on these issues and come up with solutions for the obstacles in
speeding up the disposal. Failure to achieve the desired objective is because
the stakeholders have not owned it960
up. We have envisaged a National Litigation Policy 2015 to contain
frivolous or unwarranted litigation by and against the Government. This will
address the problem of increasing load on the judicial system. The policy
outlines mechanism to reduce1000
filing of cases by or against the Government. It aims at avoiding unwarranted
litigation and making the Government as an efficient and responsible litigant
by having recourse, inter alia, to alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
So, my dear friends, better access to justice, avoiding litigation and
promoting alternate, cost effective and quicker justice delivery are the
challenges that the legal profession must face in order to better the delivery
of justice. As officers of the Court, legal professionals are critical
stakeholders1080 in the
justice delivery system and shoulder great responsibility in the functioning of
a vibrant democracy such as our country.1100
Whatever steps are taken to further this ongoing effort of providing access to
justice, particularly to those who need it the most, you have the continued
support and commitment of the Government. I would welcome any suggestions from
all my advocate brothers to make the justice delivery system accessible
to the common man. With these words, I conclude and once again thank the
organizers and every one of you for giving me this opportunity.1174
