At the time when Indian justice system already faces a “case overload” of 4.5 crore pending cases at various level, various other blocks are also present on the way of justice seekers. Although justice system has various shortcoming today, such as poor infrastructure, my recent experience have exposed a great void, which needs to be timely corrected.
One of the most difficult phase for a petitioner today is approaching the Apex court.
Although English is not a native Indian language in any part of India, it is used as a court language in the supreme court. From petitions and replies to judgements, English is the language used. Even the RTIs and executive orders etc. obtained by official means, in regional languages have to be translated to be used in the court. This makes it a herculean task for a rural Indian, educated in regional language to even understand court proceedings, orders and judgements.
Even when the lengthy and exhaustive phase of collection of various documents, translation and filling of petition is over, it is no certainty that the petition would be fully heard by the court. Everyday masses of petitions are dismissed by the court to never see daylight again.
Many petitions are deemed to be unfit for variety of reason. Apart from legal parameters the importance of presentation skills and submission can never be ignored.
Disposal of petition is the end of the journey for most of the petitioners, the last resort is use the remedy of review petition, which is to request a review of the dismissal, but this review is usually done by the same bench which dismissed it earlier, by default. It is rare for a review petition to result in acceptance of petition.
While dismissing a petition, a detailed explanation, justifying the step or clarifying the case laws is not usually provided. This leaves the petitioner clueless of the shortcomings in his efforts.
It is the need of the hour to bring procedural reforms to fill this void. While dismissing a petition, a detailed explanation must be provided and every review petition should be transferred to a separate bench to review. It should also be allowed to challange a dismissal of petition before a larger bench.
As India completed it’s 75 years of independence this year, all organs must work to fulfill the dream-ideas of the Constitution makers about a modern India.
