Ensuring speedy justice

  THE Chief Justice of India, Dr A.S. Anand, is taking stock of judicial reforms to be taken up — when he has at his disposal a tenure of three years as the Judicial Head of India. In a seminar held at New Delhi recently, he has rightly drawn the attention of the government towards the inadequate ratio of judges in India but as it is rightly pointed out in the editorial, “Ensuring speedy justice” (Dec 11) that first step to be taken by the government is to fill 145 vacancies at various High Courts as early as possible to minimise the delay in dispensing justice.

Even before that the C.J.I. immediately after his appointment expressed his desire to provide inexpensive justice which of course should be the priority and deserves all applause. For a commoner these cardinal judicial principles — inexpensive justice, justice at the doorsteps and speedier justice — are of utmost value and importance. Any step taken for achievement of these goals is indeed laudable on the part of the person sitting on the highest seat of justice.

Basically, the problem of delivering justice at the grassroots deserves utmost attention, which involves quite cumbersome procedures. During the seminar, the President, Mr K.R Narayanan rightly and candidly expressed his feelings for simplification of legal procedure. The delay at the original jurisdiction, apart from other factors, is to be attributed to centuries-old enactments, one of which is the Indian Evidence Act promulgated in 1872. In the present changed scenario the provisions of that Act do not fit in on various counts.

Secondly, it is desirable that temples of justice should not be situated at much distance. A seat of justice should be close by so that inexpensive speedier justice at the doorsteps is available to a commoner.

Above all, there should be one Indian Judicial Service like IAS and allied services and all judicial recruitments should be made through this commission — a Central commission with C.J.I. as its Chief and other members like Chief Justices/Judges of High Courts and even persons from Bar. A special enactment is the dire requirement for this purpose.

But just recommendations of committees and commissions are not sufficient. Special enactment to implement is the need of the hour and will be in consonance with the spirit of your editorial to correct the system on a warfooting to create the right and congenial conditions for disposal of age old cases, thereby ensuring speedy justice and ‘Justice’ as spelt in our Constitution to secure to all citizens social, economic and political justice within its true meanings.

SHASHI K. GALHOTRA
Abohar

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A railway clarification

Apropos of the report captioned “Plea to upgrade railway stations” published on 5.11.98 in The Tribune, it is stated that Garh Shankar, Saila Khurd and Jaijon Doaba railway stations were converted from block stations to flag stations on September 5, 1998. The conversion of these stations into flag stations was done on administrative grounds and this has not affected passenger as well as parcel services in any way.

The booking clerk posted at these stations is authorised to issue passenger tickets for any class and any station against any type of concession order or full payment. Booking of luggage and parcels can also be done at these flag stations.

As far as goods traffic is concerned, there is hardly any potential at these stations as not even a single wagon was booked to from Jaijon Doaba railway station from 1.4.97 to 31.10.98, and only six and 12 wagons were booked during the same period at Garh Shankar and Saila Khurd respectively.

This office has also not received any request from HSB fertilisers, Shahpur or ABC Paper Mill (Saila Khurd) regarding the opening of railway siding or supply of full rakes of goods. However, if promising potential of goods traffic is identified in the near future, suitable action would be taken to tap the same.

The fear expressed in the report regarding the hampering of or denial of train services to the people of the area after the conversion of these stations into flag stations is entirely baseless, as 55 flag stations (excluding that of Garh Shankar, Saila Khurd and Jaijon Doaba) are already being operated over Ferozepur division without any complaint from the travelling public.

CHANDRALEKHA MUKHERJEE
Chief PRO, Northern Railway
New Delhi

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Not BJP’s fault

This refers to an article “Lok Sabha member for ninth time” in The Tribune dated December 20. It is quite informative and throws good light on the personality of Mr P.M. Sayeed, the new Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and also about the people of Lakshadweep.

However, it would be unfair to blame the BJP, as has been done in the article, for its initial opposition to this Congress candidate. The convention was first broken by the Congress, when they put up their own candidate, Mr Sangma, against Mr Balayogi, the candidate of the biggest party alliance led by the BJP. Since the Congress had broken the convention for the post of Speaker, the BJP was fully justified in paying in the same coin. This is what Lord Krishna practised and preached in Mahabharata war, to Pandavas and Arjuna.

As a matter of fact the BJP deserves to be given credit that it ultimately agreed for unanimous election to make his election graceful.

ANAND PRAKASH
Panchkula

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Danger spot

Recently a fatal accident was reported from Housing Board roundabout, Manimajra. A number of accidents have taken place earlier also, some of them very serious. It seems the roundabouts have not proved to be the right concept and are being dismantled and replaced with traffic control automatic light signals. This roundabout is fit case for early action.

JYOTSNA KHANNA
Panchkula

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Rail torture

On September 24 I was travelling with my family on Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Jalandhar. Upon arrival at Jalandhar at 9.30 p.m. the train did not give us adequate time to alight and moved forward whilst my son was on the platform, I was in the train and my wife and grandson were in the process of alighting. Consequently my wife and grandson got trapped in the gap between the train and platform and were pulled out by my friend and his bodyguards who had arrived to collect us.

I attempted to pull the emergency cord from inside the carriage to stop the train. However, to my horror it kept on moving gaining its full speed. Other passengers also attempted to stop the train with emergency cord without any success. I remained trapped inside the train filled with anxiety, stress, and concern for my family and alighted only at its scheduled stop at Beas.

I approached the Station Master at Beas and after informing him of this incident, I requested him to contact Jalandhar station with a view to finding the condition of my family. He stated that he will inform them of my whereabouts and also would establish the requested information. In the meantime the Station Master arranged for Frontier Mail train to make an additional stop at Beas so that I could be ferried to Jalandhar.

Upon arrival at Jalandhar when I informed the Station Superintendent of this incident, he expressed total ignorance and was not aware of any telephone contact from Beas station. When I spoke to the Superintendent he showed no interest in me and took it casually. He did not take my details or assure me that he would investigate this incident. His attitude further compounded my stress and anxiety.

Upon arrival at home I discovered that my wife had sustained serious injuries to her left leg and left foot and she had been taken to a doctor for treatment. Throughout the duration of these holidays, my wife had been in great pain and depression and stayed at one place confined to bed. This incident had ruined our family holiday due to an incident that is attributable to the Indian Railway industry.

This incident is a clear breach of health and safety guidelines. The driver of this train had failed to ensure passenger clearance before moving the train forward. The guard of this train had given the train operator a false indication of “safe move” without ensuring passenger clearance alight and board. The safety equipment in the carriage failed to operate when it was most needed. Furthermore, the Station Superintendent of Jalandhar had failed to record this incident and take appropriate action to stop repetition of this kind.

The railway authorities should investigate and take appropriate action against the train driver and guard. Due to this accident my family holiday in India had been ruined and my wife is still suffering from the injuries. I hold Indian Railways (Shatabdi Express) fully responsible for this incident and ask it to recompense my travel and medical expenses. The Indian Government always encourages foreigners to spend their holidays in India. However, incidents of this nature do not support their aspirations and would work towards decrease in overseas visits to India.

M.S. PADDA
Cranford (UK)