Punjab CM calls for streamlining judicial system to remove d

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal called for a drastic joint initiative by governments and the judiciary for meaningful legal and constitutional streamlining of the judicial system to ensure that justice was brought within the reach of the poor and the downtrodden and cumbersome procedures were done away with.

He also underlined the need for sweeping administrative and judicial reforms to make the delivery of justice and services easy and simple for the common man.

‘There is a widespread and fairly justified perception that our legal processes are too cumbersome and costly for the common man to secure timely justice,’ Mr Badal said in his address at the All India Joint Conference of Chief Ministers of States and Chief Justices of High Courts.

‘Delay in justice is a dangerous thing as it leads to a sense of alienation and encourages the tendency among the aggrieved to take resort to illegal, uncivilised and even violent means to secure justice,’ he said.

Mr Badal referred to the common impression that justice under the present dispensation was not only delayed and denied but had actually gone out of reckoning as a civilized option. He called for a ‘drastic recasting of attitudes, re-working of constitutional mechanisms as well as strengthening of the judicial infrastructure especially in the form of enhanced manpower strength’.

He said that the Union Government must help the states financially to help them widen the network of judicial services.

‘We all must resolve to work jointly to ensure that justice is made available to everyone, especially the poor,’ he added.

In another significant observation, the Chief Minister also appealed to the judiciary to discourage the tendency for filing of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to stall important governmental projects for development and economic growth of the region. Mr Badal lauded the lead taken by Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice T S Thakur on the issue.