New Delhi, February 16
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today asked the judiciary and lawyers to find a way out to clear the backlog of over three crore pending cases and face the challenges of economic globalisation.

“An obvious area of concern is the large number of cases pending in courts especially in trial courts. I would urge the whole of the legal fraternity to pool their knowledge, wisdom and experience to find ways and means to tackle this problem,” Singh said in his inaugural address at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Bar Council of India (BCI).

This was necessary for providing speedy and affordable justice to millions of people, especially the poor and weaker sections of society. In this context, “it is of critical importance that the Bench and the Bar work together in ensuring the rule of law”, the PM explained.

At the same time, he reminded the gathering of the fast changing times, marked by an expanding Indian economy and its integration with the global scenario. This posed newer challenges to the Indian legal fraternity which required a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of multilateral legal and judicial architecture and the principles of public and private international laws.

Pointing out that the number of cases relating to intellectual property rights and enforcement of international commercial agreements was on the rise, he advised the advocates to equip themselves with the expertise necessary to handle all these new types of cases in emerging areas.

Delivering the presidential address, Chief Justice Altamas Kabir lamented the “falling standards” of the legal profession. He said lawyers were sometimes not fully and adequately ready for presenting their cases in courts. “There are many reasons for the falling standards,” he remarked without explaining.

Justice Kabir also took note of the mounting arrears of cases and called for adopting alternative disputes resolution (ADR) mechanisms such as lok adalats and mediation for settling disputes.