Delay in justice

Sir,
Law provides the people with an opportunity for their overall development in the society by minimizing the conflicts of interest between them. And, for the protection of rights and interest of the people of the land, law is backed by sanctions providing remedies to the people to seek justice by virtue of the third pillar of the state exclusively delineated as Judiciary. It is the vibrant and vital part of our system as the defendant in the civil cases and the accused in the criminal cases are provided with the opportunity and right to defend them of the accusations in the court of justice. In between seeking justice and deliverance of justice there are a lot of pre-requisites and formalities of rules and regulations and prescribed procedures governing proceed­ings of the court which is often time consuming but unavoidable for the purpose. This aspect in the way of seeking justice results in the long term procedures. Therefore, the delay in justice relates to the delay in actual deliverance of justice or passing of the final order into the matter after the round up of the entire proceed­ings in full conformity of the prescribed procedures in respect thereof. The set-up procedures provide remedies in terms of appeal on the part of the party not satisfied of the judgment of the lower hierarchical court. In view of delivering the justices it is an efficient mechanism but on the other hand it is time consuming which sometime leads to many false detentions and no satisfactions to the parties or other beneficiaries. Justice delayed is justice denied is an old saying. If the justice is not delivered timely to the sufferer it loses its importance, and violates the human rights. It is reported that more than 3 million cases are pending in the High Courts of the country and about 20 million cases are pending in the subordinate courts. Victims have to go through a harrowing time while seeking justice. This arises out due to lack of infrastructures and our country has the least number of judges per million populations in the world which ultimately affects the justice system in the country. We often hear about such justice delivered after the death of the justice seeker or after it has become redundant or useless for him. This old procedure of delivering justice needs to be manipulated and developed in a more efficient and compatible in the modern scenario. In order to do away with the over burden of the law courts, we should introduce a scrutiny system for proposed prosecutions so that only the bonafide cases are agreed for prosecution and sent to courts. It is to reflect one of the basic problems which are faced by the people to seek justice by means of judiciary in the country.
Rohit Charbathia
The Law School,
University of Jammu

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