'Convert courts into virtual organisations to speed up disposal'

Bangalore, Oct 25 (UNI) Former Chief Justice of India M N Venkatachalaiah today advocated adopting 'customer focus model' in Indian courts, acting on a virtual organisation philosophy to dispose of cases at a faster pace.

Delivering a lecture on 'Some thoughts on Law's Delays, Rule of Law and Personal Freedom', organised as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Karnataka High Court, he said that with 27 million cases pending in various courts, of which 50 per cent were concentrated in just five States, there was an urgent need to bring in a business model as far as disposal of cases was concerned.

Mr Justice Venkatachalaiah, who during his tenure strived for early disposal of cases, said there was a need for a more streamling the judicial system.

''All law institutions should work with a target. There should be a cut off date for disposal of each case, otherwise a particular set of courts should take over the cases for quick disposal. We can draw example from the New York Commercial Court that deals with commercial disputes, which has such a mechanism that has inspired the judicial system in England to take a leaf out of it,'' he said.

Mr Justice Venkatachalaiah said that out of the 27 million cases pending, about 19 million were criminal cases. Of this, 3.4 million cases were pending in various high courts. There has been a steep rise in criminal cases.

Regretting that India was at the bottom among the league of nations when it came to integrity and public life, he said ''the mindset of some of us is still in medieval and there is no effort to change the feudal mindset.'' He called upon the judges and other judicial officers to ensure that they apply themselves to a set of rules and get over the temptation of applying ad-hoc rules while dealing with any case.

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