The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Judiciary must move with the times'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 26, 2006
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Judiciary must move with the times'

Staff Reporter

M.N. Venkatachalaiah delivers Golden Jubilee Lecture of the Karnataka High Court

BANGALORE: The criminal justice system is the backbone of any institution that maintains law and order, and it is crucial to the survival of all other economic and social institutions, the former Chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachalaiah said here on Wednesday.

Delivering the Golden Jubilee Lecture of the Karnataka High Court on "Some thoughts on law's delays, rule of law and personal freedom when fear stalks the land," Mr. Venkatachalaiah said the fact that just five States in the country accounted for 50 per cent of the 3.5 million pending cases, was something the judiciary should seriously contemplate on. It should come with a "quality control method" that banks and financial institutions were applying to solve their numerous disputes. About 80 per cent of these cases were civil while 20 per cent were criminal cases, he said.

"A cut-off date to categorise old cases and those that are no longer relevant and other methods that help solve this problem of pending cases, which can affect society itself, is something that we could all look at," Mr. Venkatachalaiah said.

Citing various examples ranging from the Internet, genomic studies, India's hoary past and the "morass of corruption" in the country, he said the 21st Century was a "stunning century of great development and progress," and even the judiciary must move with the times to face the challenges in justice delivery that technology and human nature pose.

"India now has 430 million children aged under 14; they will all become voters four years from now. Not having a good system of judicial governance can pose problems for India that it is not prepared for," he warned.

Quoting Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University, who has said the world today is divided not by ideology but technology, and at the same time citing the findings of the genome mapping project, which has thrown up possibilities of "making humans" with predisposition towards certain behaviour, Mr Venkatachalaiah said the judiciary must anticipate the kind of cases that a world in the emerging century could bring.

For students of law and jurisprudence, he never fails to recommend the film "To Kill a Mocking Bird," which is about a white lawyer defending the personal freedom of a black American and his "right to be wrong."

For judges, he recommended a set of rules: while resolving a dispute that comes before you, apply a set of rules and precedence or knowledge that is outside your personality, and apply these rules irrespective of who the parties before you are.

He said that in a sense, judges only enjoyed a "reflected glory" since the advocates arguing the case before them gave direction and shape to the dispute.

The former Lokayukta N. Venkatachala presided over the function.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka