Justice Ramana Outlines Ways to Reverse Pendency

• Supreme Court judge, Justice N.V. Ramana, has outlined a three-pronged approach, with special focus on alternative dispute resolution, to reverse the nearly 4 crore pendency in courts across the country.
• Justice Ramana, who is next in line to be the Chief Justice of India as per the seniority norm, was speaking at the First Justice J.S. Verma Memorial ADR and Client Counselling Competition, organised by the Department of Law of the Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies (MAIMS) of IP University in association with National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).

ADR:

• The senior SC judge said improving judicial infrastructure through use of e-platforms and setting up of more courts, settling disputes at pre-litigation stage through counselling, strengthening the existing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism would go a long way in clearing the huge pendency of cases in courts.
• Justice Ramana said delays in litigation should be mended by referring disputes to ADR for settlement.
• ADR, he said, would provide succour to millions and would prove to be an effective counter to reduce pendency.

Adr mechanism in india:

• Indian judiciary is one of the oldest judicial system, a world-renowned fact but nowadays it is also well-known fact that Indian judiciary is becoming inefficient to deal with pending cases, Indian courts are clogged with long unsettled cases.
• The scenario is that even after setting up more than a thousand fast track Courts that already settled millions of cases the problem is far from being solved as pending cases are still piling up.
• To deal with such a situation Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) can be helpful mechanism, it resolves conflict in a peaceful manner where the outcome is accepted by both the parties.
• The concept of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism is capable of providing a substitute to the conventional methods of resolving disputes.
• ADR offers to resolve all type of matters including civil, commercial, industrial and family etc., where people are not being able to start any type of negotiation and reach the settlement.
• Generally, ADR uses neutral third party who helps the parties to communicate, discuss the differences and resolve the dispute.
• It is a method which enables individuals and group to maintain co-operation, social order and provides opportunity to reduce hostility.
• To deal with the situation of pendency of cases in courts of India, ADR plays a significant role in India by its diverse techniques.
• Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism provides scientifically developed techniques to Indian judiciary which helps in reducing the burden on the courts.
• ADR provides various modes of settlement including, arbitration, conciliation, mediation, negotiation and lokAdalat.
• Here, negotiation means self-counseling between the parties to resolve their dispute but it doesn’t have any statutory recognition in India.
• ADR is also founded on such fundamental rights, article 14 and 21 which deals with equality before law and right to life and personal liberty respectively.
• ADR’s motive is to provide social-economic and political justice and maintain integrity in the society enshrined in the preamble.
• ADR also strive to achieve equal justice and free legal aid provided under article 39-A relating to Directive Principle of State Policy(DPSP).

SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT