No more Bhopal-like delays, promises Veerappa Moily

The death toll was over 15,000 and the injured and ailing numbered in lakhs, yet the case took more than 25 years and resulted in sentence of two years for the guilty.

A shell-shocked government, facing public outrage and scathing criticism, has now promised that there will be no more Bhopals, and should there be another , justice will be swift and potent.

Law minister M Veerappa Moily on Wednesday announced a ‘national litigation policy’ to make the government an “efficient and responsible litigant”. The new policy would have monitoring and review mechanism to prevent “delay or neglect” of important cases such as the Bhopal case. The policy will come into force from July 1.

It isn’t just Bhopal. The Ruchika Girhotra molestation case involving a former Haryana police chief, SPS Rathore, also hit the headlines for its undue delay, with a verdict coming out 19 years after the case began.

Then there are the cases of former railway minister, Lalit Narain Mishra, who was assassinated in 1974, which is still pending, and the controversial Ayodhya land dispute, being heard since 1992. Moily had earlier expressed his concern about delayed justice and cited these two cases.

Moily said he hoped a “sensitised and sensitive” government would represent all these cases so that there was “no delay or neglect” at any stage.

Moily also said the secretariats of the attorney general and the solicitor general would sift the “meritorious” cases from the “frivolous” matters that the government has filed in different courts, review them, and drop them to reduce litigation.

The government is believed to be the biggest litigant and a major contributory factor in the backlog of 3.5 crore cases across the country. The policy is expected to cut average pendency time from 15 years to 3.

Meanwhile, the policy document also said the government could not afford the fees of some lawyers the way some litigants can. It also admitted to “malpractices” in the payment of fee to lawyers who appear for the government and said such “malpractices in relation to payments must be eliminated”.