Question

Why did consumer sometimes deny for justice

Answer 1

The heavy backlog of cases and delays in the Indian judicial system are once again the topic of much discussion, with everything from government callousness to over-litigiousness to judicial activism being blamed for the 35 million cases pending in the courts at all levels.

There are actually two separate but related problems being spoken about: the problem of delay and the problem of high pendency.

Various factors are responsible for the problems, and in order to address them, it is essential to study the data in depth to try and identify what are their causes.

A recent survey of litigants conducted by Daksh, a civil society organization that undertakes research and activities to promote accountability and better governance in India, showed that more than 60% of the respondents believed that the delay in their own cases was due to the judge not passing orders quickly enough.

While this relates to ongoing cases, it is a reflection of the perception among a large section of the population. It may not be entirely correct on the part of the litigant to attribute all the delay to the judge since the lawyer and the other party are also part of the proceedings.



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However, there is one stage where the responsibility for delay (if any) can be placed solely on the judge—delivery of judgement after arguments are complete. When a case is heard in depth and arguments are advanced by both parties, more often than not, the judge “reserves judgement”—to examine the arguments, do research and write the judgement before delivering it in an open court.

While the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, applicable to civil courts, states that judgements should be delivered within 30 days of arguments being closed, no such time restriction is found in the context of Section 353 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974, which prescribes the manner in which a judgement is to be delivered in a criminal case.

No provisions exist for the time to be taken in delivering judgements by the high courts and the Supreme Court.

The need for a time limit for delivering the judgement is not just to avoid delay, but also to prevent a miscarriage of justice.

A judge who takes too long to deliver judgements after hearing arguments may have forgotten some of the arguments or remembered them incorrectly to the detriment of the parties.