Whether Central Plan to clear pending cases by 2012 will

NEW DELHI: The Centre for the first time made public its plan to deal with the huge pendency of over three crore cases in the trial courts and high and told the SC that it was preparing a roadmap to ‘liquidate’ the backlog in courts by the year 2012.

Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam told a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathaisvam that “the Centre is looking at liquidating arrears in courts by 2012 and a roadmap is being prepared for that purpose”. This could cheer up litigants who have been spending years running to courts in cases as the average lifespan of a litigation in Indian courts is close to 15 years.

The Centre, sources said, was planning to reduce the average life of a litigation to a mere three years by appointment of a large number of adhoc judges to tackle the 2.64 crore of pending cases in the trial courts and 38 lakh cases pending in HCs. This assertion from the SG came during a hearing on a petition on the state of affairs relating to 1,700-odd fast track courts that were set up nearly 10 years ago.

 

Whether Central Plan is just to clear pending cases by 2012, without ensuring Quality Judgment just to reduce the number of litigations?  If you want to know, why I am raising this question, should study the following documents.

 

Copy from the Magazine : Right to Know, January, 2007 Issue.

EXPEDITIOUS JUSTICE DELIVERY SYSTEM : Milap Choraria

 

This is my strong belief that if the Model for Civil Procedure Code, innovated by me could have been adopted, in its entirety, then adjudication of any civil dispute could have been made possible within two years fixed time from the date of filing. To ensure such a system, no much of new infrastructure or judicial workforce was required, as the non-judicial work which is consuming maximum time, presently performed by the Judicial Officers, would have been transferred to the panels of the Advocates, under a payment mechanism. I reproducing the said Draft from the Civil Writ Petition No. 151 of 1996 filed before the Supreme Court of India. In view of the Information I gathered under the Right to Information this is necessitated to say that before submitting the aforesaid Model, in the aforesaid Writ Petition, I also sent it to the then Chief Justice of India Mr. A. M. Ahmadi, by Registered Letter dated 3rd March, 1995:-

DRAFT FOR MODEL OF CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE

In view of the considerations, that Justice means Justice in time, the Petitioner had prepared a model of Civil Procedure Code to suggest the replacement against the existing Civil Procedure Code. All concerned may agree with that “Justice delayed Justice denied” in real sense due to long-long-time-taking procedures adopted under the said code for Civil litigations. Such serious situation is responsible for increase of crimes related to such civil litigations.

 

In the year of 1983-84, the Petitioner had made an in-depth study of Civil Procedure Code and its 51 Orders, 703 Rules, and thousands Sub-Rules, besides 151 Sections and several hundred sub-sections and found that the object behind these provisions were to ensure free and fair justice. Butter mixed with honey will be poisonous. Likewise, good Civil Procedure Coder prepared in the line of law in United Kingdom, in India, became instrumental to misuse the Administration of Justice to harass and blackmail the opponents. Some people files litigations thinking that they can obstruct the object of opponent for several years. A democracy cannot survive for a long time unless Justice is protected and ensured. Having this concept in mind, the petitioner had written about the said Model of Civil Procedure Code to the then Law and Justice Minister Shri Ashok Sen by letter dated 15th March, 1985 by Regd. Post. In view of Reforms, Globalisation and open Market Economy, the said Model Code has now became more important and the petitioner have understood that their Lordships are eager to evolve a Judicial system under Free, Fair and Fast adjudication of the litigations can be possible. The main reasons for delay in litigations are unwarranted adjournments of trials on various grounds, interlocutory proceedings, which is removed in his model, from the business of trial courts and Advocates have given much more responsibilities, in depth involvement in Administration of Justice and made accountable to their clients.

 

Model Code was prepared to ensure the Free, Fair and Fast Justice within time bound program described as under:-

Service of summons                                             40 Days

Collection of documents by the

 Advocates of defendants                                       60 Days

Filling of the Defence                                             60 Days

Interrogations and answers from both

 side parties                                                          60 Days

Recording of evidence                                            90 Days

Finding of Facts                                                     90 Days

Judgments                                                            60 Days

Maximum adjournments permissible                       60 Days

                                                                         520 Days

Execution of Judgments  (If Appeal not filed)          180 days         

                                    Total                             700 Days

Under this model code, adjudication of litigation, is divided in to four parts. Up to the interrogatories and answers, the record of the suit will kept with the court of the Registrar at a Sub-division level, who will also maintain Registers for the following business:-

a)            Registration of all litigations in one Register irrespective of any Police Stations under the Sub-division.

b)            Publication of a List of the Penal of Advocates; (the entire list of Members of a Bar Association of a Sub-Division will constitute such list on seniority basis.

c)         Filing of the evidences recorded by the Penal Advocates of the litigation who will be appointed on rotation basis.

d)            Allotment of litigations for the courts of Munsif on rotation basis to record findings of facts.

e)         After return of the file of litigation from the concerned court of Munsif, allotment of litigation to a court of Asst. Dist. Judge to pronounce its Judgment.

Now the Petitioner would like to present a brief note on the orders of Model suggested Code which will ensure the Justice within prescribed period irrespective of all consideration.

MODEL OF ALTERNATIVE CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE

ORDER-I:            Parties to the Suit (against the existing Order I and part of Order XXII) : All interested parties have right to file, participate or defend any suit subject to bear full actual cost including damage due to suit, if failed to establish his / their claim or defence.

ORDER- II:            Suits (against existing orders II, IV, VII, XI, XIV): a plaintiff shall file the plaint in prescribed form along with duplicate copies of all documents in his possession and on which he relies to file the suit; list of documents which would not be in his possession but at the same time, he relies his claim giving the name and address of possessors of such documents, if plaintiff knows; suggested issues; list of witness all pleadings with full facts and full court fees before the Registrar of Trial Courts at a sub-division  (There will be no provisions for amendment of plaint or pleadings)  

ORDER-III:            Recognised agents and pleaders (against existing Order III) : The Advocate of the plaintiff would be accountable to serve the summons and Advocate of the Defendants would be accountable to receive the (copy of the) plaint and other documents from the Court of Registrar. Such Advocates would work in real sense as court officers as well as agents of their clients.

ORDER-IV:            Summons:

(a)        The Advocate being the agent of the plaintiff as the Court Officer in concerned litigation would serve the, summon within 30 days from the date of filing of litigation through his own men as well as by Regd. Post. If in both manner, the service of summon is not possible, he will publish notice in two local newspapers of sub-division stating suit No. name of the Court of Registrar, name and address of the plaintiff and defendants and himself, without referring the cause of the suit. The date of publication of such notice should be treated as service of summons.

(b)        Copies of the plaint and all other documents would not required to send along with the, summon, but shall be deposited with Registrar, from whom, the Advocate being the agent(s) of defendant(s) would, collect such copies within 7 days from the date of service of summons.

(c) The Advocate of the plaintiff would be empowered to sign the summons in the capacity of court officer in the concerned litigation.

ORDER-V:            DEFENCE (against existing Orders VIII, VVV-A, IX, XII and XXIII): The Written Statement under existing code would be replaced by the word defence. The opposite parties shall file their defence within 60 days from the date of service of summons in the same manner of the plaint, alongwith Xerox copies of all documentary evidence in his defence, if any, have in his possession, list of any documents if not in his possession with name and address of possessors of the same, if he knows, list of witnesses in support of his defence, and list of additional issues, if any.

ORDER-VI            Documents (Against Existing Order XIII): The discovery of documents would be submitted alongwith the plaint. Under the model Code, the possessor of any documents relating to any litigation automatically become the Receiver of the particular documents in his possession for time being, till disposal of the concerned litigation and should supply True Photocopies of such documents on payment of cost within 7 days from the date of notice from the Advocate of either side in the said litigation.

ORDER-VII:             Adjournment: (Against existing Order XVII) Adjournment for total period of 60 days between the filing of the litigation and Judgment can be granted by the District Judge only.

ORDER-VIII:            Interlocutory Orders:

Interlocutory orders like temporary injunction can be granted by the Appellate Court only, which will not effect the adjudication of the main suit at trial courts.

ORDER-IX:            Affidavit, the provision will remain as existing, under order IX.

ORDER-X:            Interrogatories:

(a)    Under the proposed code, interrogatories will become a necessary part of the proceedings of the suit, which also will help judiciary to give findings and judgments on the more stronger basis.

(b)    After filing defence by the defendants, in a suit, both the parties will, if any, make a questionnaires in a prescribed form within a limited period, upon opponent parties who in his turn shall bound to make answers within prescribed times in prescribed form, otherwise shall be debarred from contesting the suit.

(c)    ORDER-XI:            Jurisdiction:

(d)    Instead of present jurisdiction of trial courts based on Police Station, all Civil Suits within all Police Stations under a particular Sub-Division shall be comprised as one Jurisdiction to be vested in the Court of Registrar of such Sub-Division.

ORDER-XII: Recording of Evidences:

(a)    A Court Officer would be appointed for this purpose from penal of Advocates amongst all members of local Bar of a Sub-Division which shall be declared on the first day of each year, without delisting anyone, but on the basis of seniority.

(b)    Recording of the evidences of the witnesses would be duty of this penal;

(c)    This will be the duty of the plaintiff/defendant to produce his witnesses: before the Court Officer within prescribed time to record evidence in presence of the both side Advocates and parties and within the area of court compound;

(d)    Evidences given by the witnesses would be recorded by the Advocates from the said penal on the rotation basis, and in presence of parties and Advocates of both side parties, and signatures of the witnesses, Advocates, of both side parties as well as parties would be taken over in the prescribed form on which evidence would be recorded.

(e)    Evidences would be recorded in triplicate with the help of carbon paper and one copy each would be served to the first Plaintiff and defendant respectively just at the moment of recording of evidence and original would be submitted before the Registrar of the Trial Courts. Xerox Copies of recorded evidence shall be supplied to other plaintiffs or defendants, if any, after certifying as true copy by the Penal Advocate / Court Officers.

ORDER-XIII: FINDINGS: On the basis of allegations, claims made by the plaintiffs the defence filed by the defendants, answer made by both side parties against interrogatories submitted by either party and evidence recorded by the Advocate Penal, the Court of Munsif will make its findings of facts on the prescribed form.

ORDER-XIV: Judgment and Execution of Decree:

(a)    On the basis of findings made by the Court of Munsif, the Judgment of the suit after hearing both parties, would be given by a Sub-Judge, who will be assigned the Suit on rotation basis, considering all facts relates to merit of the case and legal side of the suit. If decree is passed, a copy of finding as well as Judgment would be served upon defendant's Advocate fixing the date of execution of decree. No separate case will be required to be filed for execution of decree under proposed code, but this will be duty of the court to execute the order of decree, if not appealed.

ORDER-XV: COST; If plaintiff succeeds in establishing his case on the basis of merit, he will be entitled to get entire actual cost of the suit and damage caused thereof incurred by him. On the other hand, if he fails in establishing his claim on the basis of merit, he would be compelled to pay all actual expenses and damages incurred by the defendants. If any case lost by either party for the technical or any ground of law, no order would be passed as to the cost.

·         She against he in case of female.

 

After information received under RTI. Act, 2005, from CPIO of the Supreme Court, Letters were written to Dr. Abhishek Singhvi, Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court and Justice (Retd. CJI) A. M. Ahmadi,

 

On 31st May 2006, I served a letter through Registered post to Ld. Shri Abhishek Sighavi, Senior Advocate of Supreme Court, contending therein that: “In the year of 1983 I innovated a New Model of Civil Procedure Code which I forwarded to the then Hon'ble Chief Justice of India Mr. A. M. Ahmadi, through a Registered Post Letter dated 3rd March 1995 and also referred in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 151 of 1996 filed and moved before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. As per advice made by His Lordship, I also forwarded my aforesaid Suggestions to the Law Commission of India by letter dated 6th June 1996 posted through Registered Post”.

 

“During the year of 1996 some Newspapers reported that a Committee or Group was appointed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and also time and again referred your views, giving impressions that you were holding the Chairmanship of the aforesaid Group/Committee. Thereafter, Section 89 Amendment was passed in 1999 in respect of Civil Procedure Code. My impression was caused that some of my suggestions were adopted in the amendment, which may fail to give any results, unless my Complete Model of New Civil Procedure Code is not considered in its entirety. If my suggestion would have been accepted then implementation of the aforesaid Amendment might not have met the fate of being suspended by the then Minister of Justice due to opposition from Indian Bar Associations and also owing to the vagueness and contradictions in the wording of the Section 89 Amendment. Under the suggestions made by me, no much infrastructure could have been required and neither the existing work of the Advocates would have been affected, since under the mechanism suggested by me, some Non-Judicial Court work could have been transferred on equal distribution basis upon all the Advocates, giving them a meaningful real status of the Court Officers”.

 

“After enactment of the Right to Information Act, I tried to get some information from the CPIO of the Supreme Court. In the meantime, it came to my notice that in the “NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, 1998” an article under heading: Reform of the Indian Civil Justice System: Limitation and Preservation of the Adversarial Process by Hiram E. Chodosh, Stephen A. Mayo, A.M. Ahmadi & Abhishek M. Singhvi was published. I am trying to get information to connect linkage between my suggestions and aforesaid Article, since so far I have not been able to get the requisite information under RTI Act, 2005 from the CPIO of Supreme Court. In this respect letters received from the CPIO of the Supreme Court are enclosed herewith (therewith) for your ready reference.”

 

“Therefore, I am interested to know whether (the) aforesaid study group was constituted by the Hon'ble Supreme Court under Judicial order or Administrative Order or that group was constituted by the then Hon'ble Chief Justice of India Mr. A. M. Ahmadi, in his personal capacity?”

After waiting for a long, on 21st August, 2006 I sent a letter to Hon'ble Mr. Justice A. M. Ahmadi, former Chief Justice of India, contending therein that “I may, please, be permitted to invite your kind attention that while Your Lordship was Chief Justice of India, I had posted a Letter dated 3rd March 1995, through Registered Post, containing a 'Model for Civil Procedure Code', innovated by me, which subsequently I also referred in a PIL being a Civil Writ Petition No. 151 of 1996 along with a few more suggestions. On 29th March 1996, I moved the aforesaid Writ Petition and at that point of time your Lordship was please to appreciate such acts and suggestions made by me and also suggested me, by way of verbal observation, particularly with reference to the aforesaid 'Model for Civil Procedure Code', to forward the same to the Law Commission of India and you were also kind enough to orally permit me for making a reference of Your Lordship's such observations. Accordingly, I forwarded the same to the Law Commission of India by Registered Post. I have suffered a lot of problems from the Supreme Court, which amounts to the denial of justice to me, under influence from some one, as I have the impression and feeling that some of the renowned and reputed Senior Lawyers of the Supreme Court were eager to see that justice is not done to me.”

 

“After enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005, I started gathering information including file notings from the different files and from the different Public Authorities including the Supreme Court. From the information, till now I have been able to gather under the RTI Act, 2005, it appears that Your Lordship particularly in the Writ Petitions that were filed by me your good-self some how or other could not act in accordance to the Oath that you had taken under the Constitution of India. Thus a severe damage was caused to my fundamental right to justice.”

“With reference to the aforesaid Model, and also information gathered from the Supreme Court, I sent my Letter dated 31st May 2006 to Ld. Mr. Abhishek Singhvi, Senior Advocate of Supreme Court, but he declined to comment anything by not replying the same. I have a copy of the entire Article published in the 'in NYU, Journal of International Law and Politics, 1998, under the caption, 'Reform of the Indian Civil Justice System: Limitation and Preservation of the Adversarial Process by Hiram E. Chodosh, Stephen A. Mayo, A.M. Ahmadi & Abhishek M.  Singhvi'. In the aforesaid article Your Lordship's name also appeared in an individual capacity. Page 13 of the aforesaid Article makes it amply clear that the respective Study group was initiated by the Supreme Court, prior to the month of February 1996. Therefore, the aforesaid suggestion made by Your Lordship on 29th March 1996, i.e. subsequent to the formation of the aforesaid study group, to send my suggestions including the 'Model for Civil Procedure Code' to Law Commission of India clearly appears to be an indication of serious biasness of Your Lordship, in the matter.“

“From the aforesaid article it is further clear that this was prepared, during the same period when Your Lordship held the Office of the Chief Justice of India. Hence, the question arises that why the file relating to formation of the group is not in the records of the Supreme Court? It is a well known fact that Mr. Abhishek M. Singhvi, is a powerful politician and belongs to the powerful Congress Party.”

 

“That in the context of the aforesaid Article, I must refer that there is no doubt that Your Lordship would have got the number of the Litigations in the Supreme Court reduced to a considerable level, but, at the same time, the important question still remains to be answered that whether the new procedure adopted/initiated by Your Lordship to reduce the number of litigations was based in conformity to the due considerations and obligations of protecting the basic structure of the Constitution and also the basic tenets of Jurisprudence to ensure the FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO JUSTICE? Wiping out the patient itself, instead of the decease, can in no way be described as a proper solution. Only one, who understands the root cause of the problem and works to remove such cause from the very root itself, can help in providing the solution.”   

(I also referred some of the facts in support of my doubts, in a separate sheet attached therewith.)

 

Supreme Court Judgment

For that infringement of the fundamental rights of the Petitioner caused under the State sponsored blackmailing activities caused by the Mafiadom, become absolute, when Writ Petitions filed by the Petitioner, causes miscarriage of justice, abuse of the judicial proceedings and orders without jurisdiction or under bias, by not hearing on merit, similar to observations made Per Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri J. (for C.J. and himself, Variava and Patil JJ.) made at Para 23 in Judgment Dated 10th April 2002 388-426 (2002) 4 SCC and further made Per Banerjee, J. at Para 62, 68 and 69.

 

That grave situation is created even by the Supreme Court of  India, Judgment Dated 10th April 2002 388-426 (2002) 4 SCC as under Para 62 that “does it, however, mean and imply a closed door even if the order of this Court depicts that the same stands in violation of natural justice adversely and seriously affecting the rights of the parties or the same depicts manifest injustice rendering the order a mockery of justice”.