Govt to bring in reforms to reduce litigation delays: Moily

Govt to bring in reforms to reduce litigation delays: Moily

Government has planned to usher in second generation legal reforms that would eliminate litigation delays sharply in the country, and an oversight mechanism for the smooth functioning of the judiciary without infringing on the independence of the institution.

"Now in the second stage, we would like to introduce the second generation legal reforms. At present litigation in India involves delay of over 15 years. The Government would like to reduce this delay to less than 3 years," Law Minister Veerappa Moily told journalists.

He said the government would also take measures to improve the quality of the judiciary by reforming the legal education system and making the country the most preferred destination for investors by setting up international arbitration courts with a mandate to dispose off any litigation within a year.

Moily said the Commercial Court Bill would soon become a law, paving the way for speedy disposal of cases through arbitration.

Lok Sabha has passed the Bill and it will go before the Rajya Sabha now.

The Minister said the amendment of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act would remove the distractions and make the legislation more vibrant.

"The Government of India would like to improve quality of the judiciary through reforming the legal education. We need to make India the most preferred destination of investment," Moily said.

Moily, a former chief minister of Karnataka and Chairman of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, said, "any investment above Rs five crore will be decided in commercial courts within a year."

He said that the Indian government's first priority is to reform the legal education and upgrade the course contents in the 933 law colleges across the country.

"There are more than one million lawyers in India. We intend to restructure the faculty of our law colleges and make them world class".

The second priority for the Government is to strengthen and widen the centres of excellences and establish more National Law Schools, at least one each in each of the 28 States," he said.