Breaking Monopoly and improving Quality of Professional Services

India is reeling under pathetic condition of judicial system that has failed to deliver fast justice as directed under Constitution i.e. right to speedy trials and justice. More than 2.5 crores cases are pending. Some efforts have been made to setup Lok Adalats to speed up non serious cases mainly related to family laws, insurance claims, contractual disputes etc where there is scope for a compromise. But Majority of cases are languishing.

The condition is pretty bad. Successively our legal luminaries and CJIs have been calling for simplification of judicial processes, expanding judicial strength to 3-5 times and make mandatory prior settlement in lawyers chambers or NGOs and intermediaries in accordance with principles of fairness and existing laws , prior to detailed trials in lower courts. It is seen that practically every middleclass and above person in India keeps fighting in courts invoking appellate jurisdictions thus endlessly dragging case and dispute for decades(Salman Case) Even where courts give decrees most of judgment debtors or persons against whom order are passed, fail to obey and again a chain of execution petitions follows that is even more corrupted and inadequate.

Courts don’t have enough powers to jail the violator if orders are not followed in 30 days time or time mentioned in decree (Sahara Case). Result is that India is facing lollipop justice with mostly the law breakers, criminals, court clerks and lawyers are beneficiaries of foul system We can easily call Indian judicial system a system of bails, affidavits and acquittals. The system is only palliative and not curative or punishing at all. One cannot allow endless appeals as every case can’t be heard by Supreme Court or apex councils and system itself is collapsing. It is ridiculous. Injustice is being done in name of justice. 

There is no system to have quality assessment of advocates every 5 years as it should be. Not only a trade test which should be taken online in recognized centers is conducted , but their performance in following areas need to be judged:

1. No of cases filed in each year

2. No of cases decided in each year 3. No of total cases pending with advocate including his associates and team members

4. No of cases won and lost in the settled cases

5. Average time taken to complete the case in each year and minimum and maximum time

6. No of complaints received against advocate from carious client s irrespective of nature of complaints

7. Even Bar councils have to be judged on base of no of complaint settled in 6 months period

The worst performing bottom 10 % should be removed from bar after such reviews every 3 year. Now coming to monopoly of advocates under advocates act. This is very old act and circumstances at that time were different. Legal practice is not like engineer, architect or doctors. Today litigants have full access to court cases, status, case libraries and other plethora of online help lines and websites to investigate and learn about legal position. People have more IQ and literacy rates have gone up significantly. Software are available Agencies should be set up of clerical level staff with 10 years experience to draft appropriate applications/forms/petitions by using a universal drafting handbook in electronic form and should be binding on all courts in India.

Hence in case of those litigants who are atleast calls XII, technically qualified diploma holders, graduates and above should be allowed to be appointed as power of attorney of any person who is known to litigant for at least 5 years, or is relative by blood or marriage, or an NOGO/social activist, or a professionally qualified person like in law related subjects or management or economics and sociology fields and having at least 10 years track record of acceptable work in any profession/service/business and who has no criminal case with 3 years imprisonment pending or any adverse judgment passed against him/her from any court of law/tribunal. This will result in breaking monopoly of advocates taking shelter under Advocates ACT and bar council of India ACT and force them not only to charge reasonable fees and deliver timely and quality service.

It is also important to pass professional services acts to bring all self employed professionals like lawyers, engineers, CAs, CS, architects, surveyors and assessors etc under ambit of law for accountability, customer service and making transparent and honest declaration before relevant authorities and provide severe punishments including jail term, heavy penalties and permanent disqualification to errant. It should be made necessary for all such professional associations to fix fee slabs at 3 levels of such professional and make charging high fees non enforceable and illegal.

The professional associations disciplinary body should be composed of 50% members, 25% eminent civil persons and 25% other professionals not from same field. They should not only handle public complaints but have quasi judicial power to suspend licences and impose penalties and make such order as required to expedite work or make necessary changes at own cost in fixed time. Giving false reports and assessments or neglecting cases of clients before courts or any authority or denying service after accepting brief should be made cognizable offense punishable with 5 years imprisonment and Rs 1 million fines.

Nobody including property dealers should be allowed to practice without due registration process and accountability in respective associations and depositing in an assigned FD of at least Rs 50 lacs. If we look at above arrangement we see there is very bad situation presently which is virtually horrible. Not only judiciary has to be expanded but revamping of all associations is needed and monopoly of all professions should be done away with to promote competition and accountability. We will write about criminal justice system separately.