February 19, 2002

    Amendment of procedural law is a continuous process. A Bill titled "The Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2000" introduced in the Parliament on December 22, 2000, is pending for consideration and passing. With the passage of this Bill, civil cases would be decided expeditiously in a time bound frame.

    At present, there is no proposal to amend the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. As for the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law Commission of India has reviewed comprehensively the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The Government is awaiting the report of a Committee under the Chairmanship of Shri Justice V.S. Malimath on measures for revamping the criminal justice system.

    Besides, the Government has sanctioned a scheme involving an amount of Rs. 502.90 crore for creation of 1734 Fast Track Courts for expeditious disposal of long pending sessions cases and cases involving undertrials on priority. The schemed is in operation since April, 2001. So far, 923 Fast Track Courts have been set up and started functioning.

    Added to this, a pilot project for the computerization and networking of all courts in the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai has been taken up in the current financial year to serve as a model for other courts in the country. Computerization and networking of courts are intended to augment the capacities of courts in the country and speed up disposal of cases.

    In addition, various steps have been taken by the Government for the speedy disposal of both civil and criminal cases. These include amendment of the Civil Procedure Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, increase in the number of posts of judges, judicial officers, establishment of special courts, tribunals and adoption of alternative modes of dispute resolution, such as, arbitration and conciliation. Lok Adalats have been given a statutory base as supplementary forum of resolution of disputes. The Union Cabinet has already decided to amend the Legal Services Authority Act, 1987 to set up permanent Lok Adalats in public utility segments such as telecommunications, electricity, water and power billing, civic facilities in urban areas, insurance sector etc. while excluding railways and banking sectors for the present, in order to decongest the existing courts and settle the cases arising out of deficiency in public utility services at pre-litigative stage so that people at the cutting edge of public administration are relieved of day to day pin pricks.

    India has a total number of 13,000 judicial officers from the lowest level to the Supreme Court for covering one billion population of the country.