A GOLDEN GIFT: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam receiving a memento from Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Cyriac Joseph during the court's golden jubilee celebrations in Bangalore on Friday. With them is Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Friday suggested that the Karnataka High Court take the lead in introducing a system of out of court settlement of litigation and disputes in villages by involving unbiased and reputed persons at the local level.

Mr. Kalam, who inaugurated the golden jubilee of the High Court here, said this would enable on-the-spot settlement of a large number of cases in rural areas, leading to a harmonious atmosphere.

The President suggested the creation of a mobile legal aid system and holding of Lok Adalats and the networking of all dispute-settlement systems.

This would provide transparency and many would come forward to get their cases settled. Eventually, early settlement of a number of cases would bring down the pendency in courts and provide rural people the much-needed peace, which should pave the way for development.

During the last five decades, the Karnataka High Court has dealt with many critical cases of national importance and has handed down landmark judgments. Mr. Kalam said this should be made available to the young lawyers and judges to serve as a guide in delivering justice.

Human rights of many persons were violated based on the allegations levelled by interested persons and groups. "In addition, we can use systems such as societal reforms, delivery of justice at the rural level itself through intervention by rural societal leaders, age analysis and grouping of cases and use of ICT as a catalyst for delivering speedy justice as the Karnataka High Court was already doing," he said.

To a question asked by a schoolgirl on eradicating corruption in public life, the President said the agony of the young mind was reflected in this question.

The self-esteem of every Indian was affected when someone says India was a corrupt nation. It was the duty of parents to be transparent in their daily life and the children should take an oath from their parents and question them, if they did anything wrong. The parents, he said, should assure their wards that they would be honest.

Mr. Kalam asked the judges to spare time for eliminating corruption and to suggest streamlining and re-engineering of procedure that would make people transparent and remove the possibilities for corruption.

Mobile courts

He advised them to organise the conduct of a systematic analysis of the "age" of the pending cases in the High Court and in the district and sessions courts. On examination, they might find that the parties involved in old cases were either not on the scene or they might not be interested in pursuing the case any more. If the process was followed systematically, 20 to 30 per cent of the pending cases could be settled in one go. He had learnt that such a procedure had been adopted in the Delhi High Court.

Advising the judicial fraternity to make use of the successful programmes in agriculture, nuclear technology, Defence research, space technology and recently in information technology and pharma sectors, he said this could be used for evolving a "Judiciary Programme Management Group" with empowered the team of IT and legal professionals for reducing the pendency of cases in Karnataka.

This programme management group must have the authority to create mobile pendency clearance courts which can move to various districts and blocks for hearing the cases in the village itself and provide speedy justice.

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