The Centre is contemplating to set up 7,000 additional courts across the country for speedy delivery of justice, Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan said on Monday.
"There are two-and-a-half crore cases pending in courts in the country. The government of India has decided to set up 7,000 new courts for speedy delivery of justice," Balakrishnan said while inaugurating the Legal Awareness Campaign 2007-08" organised by Jammu and Kashmir State Legal Service Authority in Srinagar.
Balakrishnan said once the new courts are set up and additional judges appointed, the judicial system will see a sea change. "The justice delivery system would improve and justice expedited."
He said the legal awareness programme is aimed at providing justice to those who are most in need of it -- the deprived, the destitute and the downtrodden.
He said there is an urgent need to take up the legal awareness programme as a campaign to make people aware of their legitimate legal rights and dispel their fear of the court process. It can also help to inform people about the alternate dispute resolution mechanism by which they would get their disputes resolved amicably through mediation and conciliation expeditiously and inexpensively, he said.
However, the Kashmir High Court Bar Association stayed away from the function in keeping with its stand of "boycotting all government and other functions till human rights violations committed by security forces on innocent people are not stopped", a spokesman of the bar said.
{{/usCountry}}However, the Kashmir High Court Bar Association stayed away from the function in keeping with its stand of "boycotting all government and other functions till human rights violations committed by security forces on innocent people are not stopped", a spokesman of the bar said.
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