After months of deliberation, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice on Saturday unveiled its Vision Statement for bringing down the backlog of cases and speeding up the justice delivery system. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the two-day ‘National Consultation for Strengthening the Judiciary towards Reducing Pendency and Delays’, Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily said the creation of a National Arrears Grid, focus on selection, training and performance assessment of judicial officials and introduction of procedural changes were some of the proposals which could be immediately put into practice.

The proposed National Arrears Grid, whose main job would be to ascertain and analyse the number of arrears in each court and to oversee reduction in pending cases, shall be headed by a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court. It would also include the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, the Attorney General of India, the Solicitor General of India, Chief Justices of three High Courts, Director, National Judicial Academy and a representative of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The Ministry also proposes to submit a report to the Prime Minister about the goals achieved by the Grid on January 31.

In another interesting proposal, the Ministry has suggested that courts function in three five-hour shifts for which 15,000 new posts of judicial officers would be created for a two-year period. These posts would be filled from among retired judicial officers, lawyers, and others. Moily also proposed that retired Judges of the High Courts and senior advocates be offered one-year contracts to hear cases on weekends and in the evenings.

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