Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 23: Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy (JKSJA) today organized a workshop during which ways to fast-track pending cases in courts were deliberated in length and breadth.
The workshop “The bottlenecks responsible for causing delay in disposal of civil cases, and suggested measures for tackling backlog and pendency” was organised in connection with Research Project allotted to the State Judicial Academy by the Department of Justice, Government of India.
JKSJA has been assigned the project under Physical verification of case files of two Districts: Udhampur and Budgam of Jammu and Kashmir with the data on pendency available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) to identify causes for pendency and map a way forward to reduce delay and introduce effective data collection mechanisms, identifying the bottlenecks responsible for causing delay in disposal of civil cases in courts and possible policy and procedural changes necessary for reduction of pendency and a study on Court Management techniques for improving the efficiency of subordinate courts.
During the workshop, eminent lawyers practising civil law in the courts at Jammu participated in the deliberations.
D. C. Raina, Advocate General, highlighted the need for bringing about appropriate changes in the procedural and substantial laws in view of the changing dynamics of the law, pattern of Litigation and the working atmosphere.
Rahul Bharti, M. U. Salaria, Ajay Gandotra, G. S. Thakur, Deepika Mahajan, Seema Anand, Vandana Sharma, Neena Mishra, Rashmi Bajaj, Vandana Mehta and Deepali Sharma were the prominent speakers in the workshop.
It was suggested by the speakers that to clear the backlog and to tackle with enormous and ever-increasing pendency, there is a need for a sufficient number of Judges, keeping pace with increasing population. Further, the judicial system has to be modernised and the latest ICT tools and techniques are required to be adopted to facilitate the Judicial processes.
The research team headed by Director, JKSJA as Project Director, Harbans Lal, Retired, District & Sessions Judge and Professor Sameer Gupta participated in the workshop and discussed various aspects of backlog and pendency in the Courts and the way forward.