Use of technology for listing of cases

The Listing of cases involves application of mind and is currently done mechanically by
judge or the person assigned by the judge in the lower court. This process has a great chance of
human error. The quantum of data is huge and it would be better if a computer application is
developed to systematically allocate dates in regular matter taking into consideration various
variables. This exercise would make the system more predictable and efficient. It would be
sensible to devise a fair criterion and incorporate this in computer software, which would list the
cases and also give the dates for adjournments based on a rational basis.

Frequent Transfer of judges

The frequency of transfer of judges in subordinate judiciary is very high. This means that
a trial does not stay with a single judge for its lifetime. Therefore the judges do not get time to
effectively plan and manage the case docket. These transfers tend to make the judges as
‘outsiders’ in the court system, whereas lawyers are permanent and entrenched and this affects
the mind-set of the judge. They are not able to effectively control the case flow and exercise
sanctions over the lawyers.

Pre-trial settlement in civil cases

Settlementrates can have a huge impact on overall pendency rates in civil disputes. Inthe
other Commonwealth jurisdictions (that, like India, are based on anadversarial common law
system), it is not uncommon for over 70% of civilcases (and sometimes going up to 90% or
more) to settle before going to trial. 1 In India, on the other hand, settlement rates in civil disputes
areshockingly low. One survey pegs the rate at around 5%. 2 This shows that all the cases
registered remain in the system till its conclusion by the court. Therefore the central challenge
forcivil justice reform in India is to design institutions and processes thatincentivise settlement
over the course of a case. This could be possible only if there is “outcome date certainty”and
parties to litigation are inclined to go for settlement. What needs to be done is to incentivise

1
Barry Walsh, Pursuing Best Practice Levels of Judicial Productivity in JUDICIAL REFORMS IN INDIA: ISSUES
AND ASPECTS 186 (Arnab Hazra&BibekDebroy eds., 2007). He reports that in Australia, the settlement rate is
reported to be at 70%, and in Ontario (Canada), the settlement rate was consistently over 90% between 1978 and
2000.
2
supra note 27, at 176
settlement of cases on or before the first date of trial or ata later stage. For this we need to
address the practice of civil litigation and createinstitutions that support a culture of settlement.

The lack of a comprehensive repository of the law (All statutes andregulations)

The repository must be arranged in a way that it is easy for ordinary citizen and litigants
to figure out what are their rights and obligations. This requires 3-step reorganisation of all the
Indian codes by collection, compilation and consolidation, whereby laws arere-arranged and
consolidated by subject-matter, similar to the various Titles inthe US Code.This exercise would
help in curbing the aspect of over-regulation and also clarify the inconsistent laws. This would
make the legal texts more clear and remove ambiguities in the existing laws.