Slow Judiciary = No Judiciary

Including The Tale of Noida Extension

The fate of over a lakh homes in Delhi NCR, one of the largest industrial and residential hubs of India, is hanging nowhere due to judicial interference at a time when physical structure of buildings are almost ready and hundreds of crores have already been pumped into these projects. After sleeping over farmers PIL for almost a year, judges have suddenly woken up to their responsibility of providing justice to them and ordered the local governing authority and builders to return land to farmers citing their exploitation.

JUSTICE IS SUPREME

But what’s the logic behind such a decision at this point of time. Due to mass construction activities, the land has been rendered useless for farming and will be of no use to farmers. Even builders would not be in position of to provide refunds to investors due to losses that they will suffer in abandoning half built projects and if more such projects were stopped they would not be even able to relocate them.

So, who would you blame for such an irresponsible behaviour? Farmers!! Who filled the case or Realtors, who started construction after getting possession of land? Or may be the investors who dreamt of owning their own house? I would blame the JUDICIARY. Had judiciary acted on time I am sure that the loss would have been much less. But as it has been till now, the judicial machinery in India is cumbersome and is marred with delays. They never look at cases on urgent basis and infact just keep on giving future date in synchronization with the famous dialogue…..

तारीख पे तारीख| तारीख पे तारीख|

The GoI has to understand that by not investing in judiciary, it is denying people the right to have free and fair justice. Already Judge to people ratio in India at 6 per 10lakh people is one of the lowest in the world and is behind even Bangladesh. Going forward this could create resentment among people and can have serious social and political implications. I think, GoI has forgotten the famous saying,

‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied’

There are lakhs of cases pending in courts; and many of them are of such a pity magnitude that if tried they could be solved through out of court settlements. Fortunately the process has started, albeit at too few places like Delhi and the response has been amazing. Disposing off thousands of cases in a day through ‘special courts’ is a not a mean achievement and the same should be applied elsewhere.

In addition to this, cases like that of traffic violation should not be referred to courts instead there should be separate office to deposit penalties. Also, jail terms of less than 1 year should be stopped and a steep fine should be imposed on culprits, this would prevent additional burdens on both courts and prisons.