H.R. Bhardwaj

Judiciary occupies a pivotal position in the scheme of Indian constitution. India is a vast country and has a very wide network of three-tier courts — district courts and high courts in the states and the Supreme Court at the top. Indian courts have functioned independently and enjoyed the confidence of the people. With the spread of education and the increased awareness that has come with it, the expectation of the people from the courts is very high. This is a happy sign.

However, for a long time the judiciary suffered on account of lack of proper infrastructure in the courts and the falling standards of legal education. The workload in the courts increased due to insufficient number of judges. Underlining the importance of justice administration, in 1985, the central government took the initiative to hold a joint conference of chief ministers and also of the Chief Justice of India and the Union Law Minister to discuss steps for speeding up the justice-delivery system.

Since that landmark conference, significant steps have been taken to address difficulties faced by the judiciary. A world-class National Judicial Academy has been set up in Bhopal under the Chief Justice of India and judicial academies have also come up in the states. Legal education has been given a thrust with setting up of National Law Schools in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and now in all 16 states.

A major initiative for the computerisation of all the courts, starting from the apex court to the Munsif-level courts, has been taken. In 2007, the government approved a comprehensive e-governance project for the courts. This envisages complete IT enablement of all the courts within five years. In its first phase, currently under implementation at a cost of Rs 442 crore, 13,000 judicial officers have been provided with laptops, printers, internet connectivity and computer training. Almost 3,000 court complexes are being developed for installation of computer hardware and network to facilitate a completely automated court administration system.

The Centre has also brought before the Parliament a Gram Nyayalaya Bill that proposes 5,000 village courts to dispose of minor civil and criminal cases.

It is now acknowledged that access to justice is even more critical for the poor and marginalised sections of our society and it has a direct impact on the levels of poverty. What we need is continued concerted efforts by all concerned to ensure that the justice sector receives the priority and the resources that are required to make a sustainable difference in the quality of judicial services in our country.

If we continue to work in this direction, there is no reason why we would not be able to ensure delivery of speedy and affordable justice to the common man. With the steps being taken, I hope that the performance of the Indian judiciary will improve tremendously and will further add to its prestige.