Prez: Generation passes awaiting rape case verdicts, end adjournment culture

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 1

Highlighting the problem of inordinate delay in justice delivery, President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday urged judges to end the “culture of adjournments” to ensure speedy justice, particularly in rape cases.

Addressing the valedictory session of the two-day National Conference of District Judiciary here, the President said, “When court decisions in heinous crimes such as rape come after a generation has passed, the common man feels that the judicial process lacks sensitivity.”

“It is a sad aspect of our social life that, in some cases, resourceful people continue to roam around fearlessly even after committing crimes while the victims of their crimes live in fear as if those helpless people have committed any crime,” she said.

“The condition of women victims is even worse because often people in society don’t support them,” Murmu lamented, as CJI DY Chandrachud, other Supreme Court judges, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, high court chief justices, over 800 district court judges and lawyers listened to her with rapt attention.

The President had recently expressed deep anguish over the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata and urged society to confront the pervasive violence against women with renewed urgency. “No civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities,” she had said. Describing the pendency of cases as a big challenge, the President said all possible efforts were needed to be made to change the “culture of adjournments”, which caused unimaginable miseries to poor litigants.

“We know and hear about white coat hypertension. Many people get high blood pressure in a hospital environment. Similarly, I think the common man gets high blood pressure when he visits the court. This can perhaps be termed as ‘black coat syndrome’,” she said.

“Poor people from villages are afraid to go to the courts. They become a participant in the judicial process only under great compulsion. Often they tolerate injustice silently because they feel that fighting for justice can make their lives more miserable. For them, going away from the village to the court even once causes great mental and financial pressure,” she said.

Listing challenges faced by the judiciary, including those relating to evidence and witnesses, Murmu said it required efforts on part of all stakeholders and called upon the judiciary, government and police administration to work in close coordination to find solutions.

Noting that faith and reverence towards justice has been a part of our tradition and people considered every judge as God, the President said, “Every judge and judicial officer of our country has the moral responsibility to respect dharma, truth and justice.”

“At the district level, this moral responsibility is the lighthouse of the judiciary. The district-level courts determine the image of the judiciary in the minds of crores of citizens. Therefore, providing justice to the people through district courts with sensitivity and promptness and at a low cost is the basis of the success of our judiciary,” she said.

Murmu also released a flag and insignia of the Supreme Court on the completion of 75 years of its establishment.