Gujarat National Law University suggests measures to Centre to reduce cases backlog

The Gujarat National Law University has suggested the union government to do away with the practice of bringing 'retrospective amendments' to the tax law to bring down the backlog of cases pending before various courts in the country. The suggestions were made following a national conference on backlog of cases and court management recently organised by the varsity in association with the Ministry of Law and Justice.

The various suggestions provided to the Centre for reducing the pendency of cases include drafting of laws in simple language to save time and efforts of the court; continuous upgrade and training of court managers; creation of permanent positions instead of ad-hoc ones; creation of research cell under the guidance of judges; and setting-up of pre-litigation counselling forums in all police units.

The varsity has also suggested the use of private prosecution for speedy trial of criminal cases; raising awareness on alternate dispute redressal mechanism; police should be allowed to negotiate between contending parties before registering an FIR; court managers should be given more powers; and using online database for sending summons and collecting online information about convicts and updating the database.

This apart, the Centre has been also suggested to ensure the use of video-conferencing to record the statement of witnesses; using artificial intelligence to assist judges in case disposal; judges should not be burdened with paperwork; bifurcation of pending cases in order of importance; and upgrading the skills of court managers with the latest technological advancement, to bring down pendency of cases.

Ministry of Law's director (judicial reforms) CK Reejonia, during the conference, had said that it is important for the state governments to implement the recommendations of the National Mission for Reforms in Pendency of Cases. He added the handling of backlog mainly depends upon the state governments and the Centre has a very limited role to play in it.

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The varsity also suggested the use of private prose- cution for speedy trial of criminal cases; raising awareness on alternate dispute re-dressal mecha-nism; police should be all-owed to negotiate betw-een contending parties before registering an FIR