“That system has its obvious flaws; judges do not agree easily on things. But given the politics of the day, I think it is perhaps the best system in the circumstances,” he said.
Justice Nariman was speaking at the Committee Room of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords, on the topic ‘Origins and Development of Parliament’.
Pertinently, Justice Nariman urged the Prime Minister to form a committee to tackle excessive government litigation.
To a question on whether enough was being done to speed up the justice system in India, he said,
“The obvious thing is to cut down arrears by government not litigating. Government, it is a massive litigant. Just get rid of them, it is so simple for government to get rid of cases. Government itself must pay down its own litigative abilities. The Prime Minister must sit down, appoint a committee and have that community and deliberate as to which way we can completely declog the courts of this country.”
He lamented that not enough was being done in this regard, and advocated the appointment of ad-hoc judges to clear the huge backlog of pending cases.
“A lot more could be done. It is a very complex problem, and there are about 20 things that need to be done simultaneously and there has to be a consensus between government, between the Chief Justice of the country and all those involved. It is a difficult question but it requires solution. I have my own solution but then I am out! The first solution is that you have ad-hoc judges appointed in every court”.
Source: Barandbench
