Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi On Judicial Reforms & Justice Delivery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVM_2cQuHY0
You know the field of administration of justice is a field full of paradoxes.
In India, we have the highest and the fanciest flights of juristprudence, the most sophisticated, nuanced doctrines. In the bench and in the bar, the best and the brightest in the world. A vibrant pulsating democracy. A dynamic legal system. Among doctrines like PIL, like basic structure, judicial review of a scale and magnitude which would make the judges of Marberry and Madison blush. No other place on planet earth has judicial review of the kind we have here.
And yet the paradox, the sad paradox is that we must hang our head in shame when we turn to the scourge of Aar's backlog the battle of the bulge. The theme of this address
we have been sermonizing, lecturing, seminaring, talking for the last many many decades on this scourge of errors, pendency, delay etc. And yet under our very nose from the 2018 figure of 3.5 crores which if you tell any foreigner is shocking enough from the 2018 figure of 3.3 crores we are now and this is a figure 2 years old July 23 a parliamentary stated figure of 5.02 02 crores.
Under our very noses, we have climbed the wrong hill and achieved the wrong milestone. How long will we blame COVID? How long will we keep on appointing committees, commissions?
My favorite quote about these bodies is what a wag once commented which I love to repeat.
A committee is the group of the unfit appointed by the unwilling to do the
unnecessary. So you can keep on appointing them and getting their reports till the cows come
home. But under your noses the areas have ballooned from 3.3 crores to 5.02
crores.We have to change our entire perspective and follow Gandhi G's dictim. Customer
is king. This system is not for you the potential lawyer, me the current lawyer
or him the judge. This system is for that customer. The litigant Gandhi G called him customer is king.
That perspective has to change. The litigant more often than not that
customer wales. He says,
"Every case resolved promptly is a reaffirmation that the law exists for citizens and not the other way around
that the citizens ex exist for the law. If we do not pull up our socks,
indeed our shoes and legs, we are going to suffer from Igbal's
famous and unforgettable words about the unpardonable sin he said.