NEW DELHI, July 7:
Courts may have to work in different shifts to clear heavy backlog of pending cases estimated over three crores, Law and Justice Minister Salman Khurshid said today.
Mr Khurshid said his Ministry was working out a mechanism for having different working shifts for courts to ensure speedy disposal of pending cases.
“We are working very rapidly towards ensuring the disposal of pendency in courts and to see how can we address this through nights, morning and evening working shifts of courts and even by having courts sit over weekends and by having more of alternative dispute resolution,” he said.
“There is also a need to look at what cases pertaining to what laws actually clog up the courts, like the section 138 in the Negotiable Instruments Act that is clogging up the trial courts and etc”, said Mr Khurshid while addressing a national conference on ‘Law and Economics’ organised by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
Sharing the concerns over the issue of delay in appointment of a member in the legislative tribunals, he said it was an issue of serious concern and the problem being faced by the government was that these were the specialist tribunals and the people mandated to select a personnel for these tribunals had to ensure that their conscience allowed them to make that selection.
“We cannot appoint a generalist for a specialists’ task this is the reason why it’s taking some time and now since there is a proliferation of tribunals we will have to see that the supply base for the tribunal’s personnel is also widened and we will see what can be done about that,” the Minister explained.
About the inter-ministerial panel’s report that the government will miss the deadline on spectrum allocation set by the apex court, the Law Minister said the telecom ministry had a very hard task to perform and the government was hopeful that everyone would co-operate in this regard.
“Since the Supreme Court has categorically said that we won’t be given any extension this time round lets just hope that we meet the target,” he said.
Talking about the government’s stand on the 2G spectrum, Mr Khurshid said, “We will go by the directives given by the honourable court, there are certain issues that need some clarification and we have gone to the constitutional bench by the way of presidential reference and we will wait for the advice given by the court.”
Responding to concerns regarding the government’s seriousness towards passing the two key anti-corruption bills—The Whistleblower Protection Bill and Grievances Redressal Protection Bill, Mr Khurshid said all these Bills were in Parliament at various stages of processing and the Government was absolutely committed to passing these Bills.
Speaking at the conference acting Chief Justice, Delhi High Court A K Sikri talked about the necessity to have economic analysis of law.
“It is imperative for the lawmakers and the policy makers to regulate the conduct through law. Besides, it is equally important for the judges to understand the economic impact of their decisions while deciding about the cases,” he said. (UNI)
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