BY Tricitynews Reporter
Chandigarh 01st
April:- Chandigarh
based Think Tank- SUVICHAR- and Army Institute of Law (AIL), Mohali, organized
a Seminar on the need for Legal Reforms with special emphasis on the
Recruitment of Judges.
Legal luminaries and
professionals debated on the issues so that the huge backlog of cases can be
cleared, and suggested immediate action to balance out the ratio of judge’s
vis-à-vis the population.
M L Sarin, Senior Advocate and a
founder member of SUVICHAR was the key speaker on the occasion. Vivek Atray,
Convenor, SUVICHAR, and three students of AIL also presented their point of
view in the debate.
M L Sarin said that various studies
have been carried out by the Law Commission and others to go into the question
of clearing the huge backlog of pending cases and Supreme Court has given
direction to the Government to provide better infrastructure and more manpower
to the judiciary in each State so as to to increase the ratio of the number of
judges to population and bring it as close as possible to the developed
countries.
M L Sarin said that a
criminal case takes 20 years or even more leading to uncertainty with wide
spread speculations and holds true the common maxim ‘justice delayed is justice
denied’.
Vivek Atray said that SUVICHAR is a
forum of thought Leaders who have experience of and insight into various key
sectors that are an integral part of our society’s functioning. SUVICHAR seeks
to give back to society and the nation inputs and guideposts that can enhance
the ability of people to deal with a plethora of issues and also to provide
thought leadership in certain macro-level aspects of nation building.
Suvichar participants
agreed that the procedure to be adopted in clearing names of the High Court and
Supreme Court judges as laid down in ‘Supreme Court Advocates on Record
Association case’ should be finalized at the earliest and delay of over two
years in finalizing the procedure is already leading to backlog of pending
cases.
The participants also
agreed to establish an appropriate procedure to keep a tab on the judicial
system on disposal and pendency of cases in courts.
Student of
AIL Madhavi Sandhu participating in the debate suggested participation of all
three wings, legislature, executive, and the judiciary to infuse
important safeguards into the appointment process.
Ayushi
Vashisht suggested scrapping the 20-years old system plaguing the Indian
judiciary and restoring NJAC which ensured appropriate checks and balances
which institutionalized the system of appointment of judges in a transparent
way without favouritism or nepotism.
Kudrat
Dutta Chaudhary opined that constitution of an Indian Judicial Service could be
another workable option to create robust judicial system to identify
meritorious students through competitive examination and ensure quality
standards through uniform training procedure.
