A Power Agent went ahead in registering Sale Deed of a property despite the fact that the General Power of Attorney given to him on that property got cancelled by the principal.
A fraudulent person files multiple Writ Petitions & CRP in the high court on one and the same property with different cause of actions which are more or less relevant to each other.
Suits seeking partitions on one and the same property filed in the same court by two different parties.
Persons accused in criminal cases and sentenced with imprisonment evade arrest and either the court or the police never bother to apprehend the persons unless otherwise the complainant takes up the matter and no other third person is allowed to take up to the notice of court or police.
These are few lacunae in our judicial system that have come to my knowledge on the suits faced by me. There may be so many others. One may wonder how our judicial system be responsible for such issues ? What the Law Ministry and the judicial department doing ? Our laws have been framed during the British period. Don’t we need to change it according to the date ?
Today, We are living in the age of Computer Technology. Unfortunately, the judicial system is using the computers only for listing the Cause List, publishing the judgments in the web site and for other trivial matters instead of type Writers.
Take for example the Income Tax Department. It nabs the tax evader by capturing the income details from its employer, banks & other sources and produces Annual Income Statement for each and every PAN Card holder. How this has been made possible ? It lists out the salary/pension received, interest earned from the deposits made in the bank, investments made etc. all by linking Aadhar Card, PAN card etc.
In the same way, each litigant should be asked to furnish his/her Aadhar Card details while filing a suit so that the court officials can ensure that how many litigations are being faced by the litigant, the court, the nature of the suits etc. and the judge can arrive at an approximate idea about the litigant. Secondly, duplicate litigations by the litigant can be easily identified.
Another point is that whenever a civil suit is filed on an immovable property, the concerned Registration office should be notified and an entry should be made to that effect in the respective books maintained by the Registration Department, Also, when the dispute is resolved, the judgment should be entered in the respective book so that innocent buyers will be aware of the legal dispute on the property.
Not stopping with that, the Registration Department should give access to its web site so that the judge could access the web site and find out whether any dispute over the property is already pending and in whose name the property is registered etc.
It is funny to mention that a civil dispute on one and the same property was pending in one and the same District Court in Cuddalore being filed by three different litigants who are not blood related claiming ownership of the property. The frivolous part is that the advocate who represented all the three suits on behalf of the petitioner is one and the SAME Advocate. What a pity ? Can’t we eradicate this menace ? By establishing a proper data base and queries software, most of the fraudulent litigations can be avoided.
When it comes to the notice of the court that the suit filed is a false and fictitious one, no further action initiated while delivering the judgment. In one of the false suit filed by my opponent, though the judge came to the clear conclusion after examining the petitioner and witness and declared that the suit filed was a false one, he let the petitioner go scot free by simply imposing a penalty of mere Rs. 3500/-. Such callous judgments against the innocent victims who suffered mental agony, financial constraint and loss of valuable time are not compensated and the culprits go on hunting some other property.
Another sour example is the Madras High Court order on the amendment made by the Tamil Nadu Government empowering the District Registrar to annul the fraudulent Registration if it is brought to his notice after conducting an indepth enquiry. The court in its order after cancelling the amendment made by the State Government mentioned that the amendment did not get the consent of the President of India before making the amendment. I am pained to note that no eminent lawyer spoke about it. There is Law Ministry at State level as well as at Centre Level. Are they not aware of the amendment ? There is a Government Pleader. Doesn’t he aware of the fact ? Should he keep quite till the case got dismissed by the Honourable Court ?
Most of the suits filed by the common man in the court takes decades to get the final judgment. The suits filed can be grouped together by categorizing them with the help of computer and solutions could be arrived at at short period of interval. Where common cause is reported, the court should order the concerned government to enact suitable amendment to the law governing it. Simply entertaining writ Petitions filing against Govt. Officials for turning down down the litigant’s application/petition/prayer submitted and it should be curtailed at the admission stage itself if the petitioner has not followed the guidelines. To cite an example, a petitioner filed a Writ Petition seeking the prayer to quash the District Revenue Officer order who refused to entertain the appeal petition submitted by her to reconsider the order of the DRO made in the year 2013 and she made the request in the year 2023. That is the lady requested to cancel the Order of the Revenue Department dated 2013 seeks revision in the year 2023, well after a gap of 10 years. Is it justified ? Cant the court reject the Writ Petition at the admission stage itself ? Writs of such nature increases the burden of the court keeping a heap of petitions pending and wasting precious court time.
It is high time that judicial department and the law ministry to take a stern action with Iron Hands and reform the judiciary.
Views / Opinions / Suggestions from others are most welcome.
Balaji Bakthavathsal
