1. TOPIC : Citizen’s Appeal - Expeditious and
Timely Justice to all
‘Justice at your Doorsteps’
A Structural Amendment Procedure to ‘Change’
Justice Delivery System in India
Team VASNI (The Change)
Vishwas Nath
Antara Ghosh
Sonali Mishra
Neha Pundeer
Ichchhit Jaiswal

2. High Court
Supreme Court
Pending(Start of
Year)
Fresh cases filled
cases resolved
Pending(End of
Month)
Subordinate Courts
Present Scenario

3. Proposed Solutions

4. 1) Improving Quality of the Work Force
a) Law Education :
• Setting up regulatory institutions for Law Schools like ‘Independent Regulatory
Authority for Higher Law Education’.
• Institutes as well as research scholars should focus more on innovation rather than
reconstruction.
• A rating system should be introduced for all law schools irrespective of their
establishment.
• Financing of Law Schools and impartial unification in examination pattern is also
required.
• Easy Availability of Free internship courses for law students.
• Practical aspects of legal education such as moot courts, judgement writing etc.
should be dealt along with syllabus.
b) Lawyers :
• Grading of Lawyers on the basis of educational background, potential and
experience by a reputed team at district, state and national level to upgrade their
skills to the top levels .
• For Improving and Aiding the needy individuals through free workshops and
internships followed by award of merit on passing examination of the learned skill.

5. 2) Increasing the Potency of the Judges
Appointment of Judges:
• Selection criteria of the high court and supreme court judges must be transparent
and available under RTI.
• Shortlisted candidates to appear for interviews in front of an unbiased panel.
• For lower courts Standardizing Various Judicial Appointments like PCS (J)
introducing more of practical aspects to assess the potential candidates.
• Removal of Quota during the appointment of judges, especially for Lawyers.
• Judges should be allotted cases on the basis of their specialisation on a branch of
Law improving efficiency exponentially.
• Deciding the number of Judges by the formula:
The number of judges in a court is decided by dividing the average institution of
main cases during the last five years by the national average, or the average rate of
disposal of main cases per judge per year in that High Court, whichever is higher
• Increase the retirement ages of Court Judges to 70 years .
• Potential of retired members of judiciary can be utilised for conduction and
chairing of Internships, deciding cases by way of ADR etc.

6. 3) Up gradation of the Court Infrastructure & Increase
in the Court staff
• Increase in the ICT infrastructure.
• Increment in the number of Court managers & clerical staff .
• Separate specialised courts in Embassy, RTO etc...
• Legal awareness camps for the citizens within and outside the court premises.
• Implementing the concept of ‘Mobile courts’ on a larger scale across the nation.
• Increase in the Budget allocation for the state judiciary which according to present
statistics is just 1% of the annual budget of each state except Delhi.
• Formation of Block/Tehsil /village courts.
4) Accountability for the cases disposed
• Setting up of a national committee with one delegate from each state to account for the
Statistics and present status of cases to the concerned authorities.
• Classification of the cases by the Section Officer at the district & session court should be
implemented at the grass root level.
• The Section Officer be made accountable to the State delegates for their job assigned.
• The State delegates in turn be made accountable to ‘National Assessment Authority’
constituted for the same.

7. 5) COMPUTERISATION
• Online dispute resolution for petty cases.
• Interactive Voice Response System should be upgraded.
• e-FIR, e-Plaint, e-written statement etc. mechanism should
be put in practice.
CASE:
A plaintiff files a e-plaint in the court and the defendant on
issuance of summon , files a e-written statement. Thus the
judge will come to know the cause of action- prima facie.
The parties will be called for first hearing to present their
evidence and if so required for the second hearing to
produce the witnesses. The procedures can therefore be
set flexible thereby reducing unnecessary delays in giving
hearing dates.

8. 6) Removing Pendency
• Step 1 :
• Step 2:
• Step 3: Prepare Time Table for all assigned judges.
• Step 4:
Classification of Cases
Petty Grave
Assign Judges
Retired
Judges
High
Court
Supreme
Court
District
Judges
Session
Judge
Civil
Judge
Submission of report of cases
Cases disposed Assessment of cases

9. 7) Procedural Changes
• The mentioned clause ’Unless court deems fit’ in the procedural laws should
be substituted by ‘Unless Exceptional Circumstances Arise’ to affectively
reduce the summon time .
• The procedural practices like ‘summon , execution of decree , ...’ in CPC and
CRPC should be amended and brought into implementation at the earliest .
• A mandatory resort be made by the courts to move to tribunal for specific
cases.
• Mandatory free & competent legal services to be given to the needy .
• Amendment of the CPC provision & its parallel acts in public interest, for eg :
section 80, Order V.
• A provision should be made to send the copies of plaint to defendant before
filing the same in the court.
• Revision power in criminal cases should be exercised either by HC or Session
court not both .
• In case of new case filings identification details such as current bank account
number, pan card number etc should be made compulsory .
• This will be especially helpful in case of appellate jurisdiction while sending
summons wherein punishment can be imposed if the summons are not replied
by the respondents within the stipulated period.

10. 8) Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR)
&
Online Dispute Resolution(ODR)
• Encouraging Cases to be solved through the ADR on account of the benefits.
• The Judicial Training Institute of India Should set up a separate cell for training
individuals for negotiation skills – a must for ADR.
• Formation of a ‘ Sarvoch Lok Adalat ’ wherein the Principal district and session
judge remains the chairman of this statutory body while senior civil judge
remains a secretary in every district. Collector, commissioner of police, DGP, SP
(Rural), and ZP CEO along with social workers are part of 15-member DLSA
panel who act as ex-officio members of this Adalat, the biggest advantage of it
being that its decision cannot be challenged in any court of Law.
• Organizing these Adalats at district levels.
• ODR is a form of online resolution of cases which can be implemented for
speedy trails of cases and can be effectively implemented once the quality of
ICT infrastructure improves .

11. 9) Challenges and Risks
Challenges :
• The Computerization of various processes may lead to an eventual increase in
Cyber Crime.
• Reduction of summon time period may have some genuine cases suffering .
• Implementing the Practical approach based curricula in the initial run won’t be
easy .
• Initially Gradation of lawyers will lead to a friction .
• The Lawyers in the top most grades will create economical problem by increasing
their consultation fees .
Risks :
• The State Exchequer may find it difficult funding all the ventures.
• Absorbing talent and keeping it intact to train the upcoming workforce will be a
herculean process.
• It will be a difficult for the court in a state with weak government machinery to get
their orders implemented.

12. References:
•Law commission of India Report 221,Report 229
•Mission Mode Program
•National Knowledge Commission recommendation
•http://www.supremecourtofindia. nic.in/.
•National Consultation Report
•National Centre for State Courts
•http://www.causelist.nic.in/
•Official website of Maharashtra Government
•Press information Bureau of India
•http://lexisnexus.co.in
•www.lawand otherthings.blog spot.com
•Report 239(Virendra kumar Ohri vs union of India WRIT 341/2004)
•Malimath commitee report