Indian legal system in for a total revamp
November 4, 1999, 21:00 Hrs (IST)
Chennai: The Indian government is planning to revamp the centuries old judicial system based on the British model so as to reflect the country's culture and ethos, junior Minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs O Rajagopal has said.
Speaking at a function organised by the Madras High Court Advocates' Association (MHAA) here, Rajagopal said there were several anomalies in the acts and rules laid down by the British because they knew only the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and all of it may not exactly fit into the Indian scenario.
Moreover, some of the laws had been formulated more than two centuries ago and have long since ceased to be effective. "These are outdated and they require changes," Rajagopal said, adding that there will be a "deep study" to reform the judicial system.
The minister said the government proposed to form a judicial commission to look into the whole system and to suggest radical reforms in the way justice is dispensed in the country. "We will have a judicial system rooted in the culture of this country, which is capable of meeting the modern requirements of the fast moving society," Rajagopal said.
The government planned to set up three more law schools in different parts of the country on the lines of the National School of Law in Bangalore, he said. The three new schools will be located in the northern, eastern and western parts of the country.
"With these institutions coming up with latest equipment, manpower and scientific facilities, I hope that legal education will be much improved," the minister told a distinguished audience that included Madras High Court Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan as well as three other federal junior ministers, A Raja, N T Shanmugham and N G Ramachandran.
"One new school in the eastern part of the country is located in Calcutta under the name of the National University of Judicial Sciences (NUJS). N R Madhava Menon, the founder-member of the Bangalore school, has already assumed charge as the vice-chancellor of NUJS," he said. Work on the other two schools, in the west and the north, is still at the planning stages.
Rajagopal said the process is on to fill vacancies of judges at the earliest. There are many vacancies in most benches -- the high court here is short by 12 judges.
Some two million cases are pending in Indian courts -- the Madras High Court alone has 357,975 of them -- mainly because of the lack of adequate number of judges.
Rajagopal said the government would consider favourably the suggestion by Justice Balakrishnan and others that additional funds be provided to modernise the Madras High Court.
All four junior ministers were sworn in on October 13 in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
(India Abroad News Service)
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