Shyam Sudan
There is a popular saying that justice delayed is justice denied. Frequently people use this term in the context of our judiciary when they got a poor and delayed response from the judicial system of our country. Judiciary is playing a very pivotal role in our country. It is not logical when we say that we have a very poor structure of judiciary system. Reality is that our judicial system gives strength and power to our democracy. But the bitter truth is that as compared to our population size we have a very minimal strength of our judiciary. Basically our judiciary is overburdened and overloaded with work and pending cases .Now days there is custom of everyone to knock the doors of our judicial institutions in their every kind of matter. However, there is nothing wrong in this culture because every citizen of this country has the constitutional right for this. Judicial activism is the privilege for everyone. But, sometime due to overburden of cases in our judiciary people cannot get the desirable result in a stipulated time. Here in our courts the number of judges is very limited. In a single hearing it is quite tough to resolve the issues of appellant due to one or other reasons. But now a day’s people are demanding for instant justice, which is not possible in every case .There are lot of PILs and other pending cases waiting for their grievances. Now the question is that how can we reduce the burden of cases from our courts so that every appellant get the desirable justice. There is an urgent need for decentralization process in our judicial system. However, there are lot of subordinate courts and other legal bodies for this purpose. But, people generally chose the higher courts for their issues and cases. If at lower level we empower our legal bodies in this direction, then we will reduce the burden of our higher courts. It is needed that at every Panchayat level for local issues of public legal power must be given to Panchayat members for this purpose. Only then people can get the instant justice for their issues. At Panchayat level if we frame a legal body of some expertise members, they can solve the small dispute of public. This out of court legal body must be empower in a such a way that their decision must be binding on the appellant. However there are chances of nepotism and favoritism in this structure. But if we add one or more members from bureaucratic background we can give strength to this lower level of judiciary system. For criminal and cases of rare nature we can knock the doors of our superior courts .But for small family disputes and other minor cases, Panchayat legal body should be given power .However there is already provision of Janta Darbar and other such kind of initiative in our country. But we have seen that people generally not satisfied with the working and design of their system. Recently government has launched a historic initiative of back to village programs. But, due to less cooperation of people they have not even got a better execution. For, such kind of ground level of initiative there is need of proper awareness of the public. Before launching the initiative of Panchayat legal body, there is an urgent need for the mass awareness of public. Only then we can achieve our target and minimize the burden of our courts in future. In this digitally advance era if still people use the dictum of justice delayed is justice denied, then it is mockery of our system and designing.
