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Be sensitive to poor litigants’ needs, CJI tells judges
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, November 18
Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir today asked the judges to be sensitive to the needs of poor litigants in order to dispense timely justice to them.

Law officers and courts should ensure that the marginalised sections of society did not suffer due to the nitty-gritty of legal procedures, the CJI said in his valedictory address at a two-day international conference on Equitable Access to Justice: Legal Aid and Legal Empowerment organised jointly by the Department of Justice and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Citing an example, he said a girl student, who lost her leg in a road accident in Bihar, did not get compensation for seven years as she had not filled in a form known as the memo of presence. After noticing her at a function, he intervened and ensured immediate payment of Rs 5 lakh to the girl who was now joining a medical college, Justice Kabir said.

Referring to the mounting arrears of cases in courts, the CJI said most of the countries across the world were facing the same problem and the only way to deal with it was to getting the disputes resolved in people’s courts such as Lok Adalats, obviating the need for taking them to regular courts.

Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, who delivered the inaugural address at the two-day meet yesterday, said the disposal rate of cases had definitely gone up. But the pending cases were on the rise as more and more cases were being filed in courts due to increased legal awareness among the people. Kumar was responding to a query as to why the government was unable to effectively address the problem.

To another question, the law minister said the government would retain in the Judicial Accountability Bill the bar on Judges to comment on the functioning of other Constitutional organs.

“It will remain in some form,” Kumar told reporters.

The Bill, passed in the Lok Sabha during the Budget Session this year, would be presented in the Rajya Sabha in the winter session beginning later this month, the minister said.