Framers of our constitution felt that an independent Judiciary system is necessary to guarantee fundamental rights of citizen. With this in mind our judicial system composed of Supreme Court, High Court,District Courts, Magistrate Courts and Civil Courts, came in to picture. Even though we have courts at different level to reach common mass , we are not able to deliver justice to people.
Corruption has it’s men in our court rooms. Judges are being bribed to make decision in one party’s favor, court personnel are paid off to slow down trails or to make a complaint go away. Legislature or the executive uses their power to influence decisions.
People are unaware of their rights, they don’t know the procedure to go to the court to get justice. We have provision of appealing to the highest court by means of an ordinary postcard as simple as that , but people are unaware of it.
Apart from this, backlogs hampers the most. There is 40% shortage of Judicial staff in India which results in cases pending for decades. Many times people simply resigned because they can’t afford the cost of running a case for so long.This negative experience causes cascading effect and creates a black picture in minds of people. They have a perception that whichever court one goes, he will not get grievance but instead have to pay the burden of lawyer’s fee.
Certainly India needs education and awareness about the judiciary policies which already exists. We can hope that Lok Pal bill will help in curbing the corruption and this malaise will be thrown out of system. Fast track courts definitely reduce the time period of trials, but if we have 0% vacancies in our court rooms , we might not need fast track courts.
We have plethora of laws for different crimes but the need of the hour is ensuring people report their cases and they get justice within time with minimal spending. Opening online portals to register complaints can be done under E-Governance scheme. Since a lot of domestic violence and crimes against women go unattended we need involvement of women in our judicial system so that system doesn’t look alien to women. Courts like Kangaroo village courts should be abolished to restore the faith of people.
Undoubtedly a transparent and independent Judicial system is the backbone of any republic and democratic country and we are fortunate that we have one for us. Now it is in our hand to make sure that it is corruption free, easy to access and reaches every Indian Citizen.