India to set up commercial courts to settle high value disputes, says Moily

New Delhi, Oct 22 (ANI): Union Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily announced here that the government proposes to set up commercial courts to settle high value disputes.

Talking to reporters here on Wednesday, Moily also said that the relevant Judicial Accountability Bill is likely to be tabled in Parliament session beginning next month.

"We are moving to the cabinet for establishment of commercial courts for dealing with high value disputes IS likely that this bill (Judicial Accountability Bill) will come before the cabinet shortly, within a couple of days, and thereafter it will be moved in the winter session of the Parliament," he added.

The 'Judicial Accountability and Standard Bill, 2009' will replace the Judges Inquiry Act of 1968.

Moily proposes to have a slew of judicial reforms to deal with the huge backlog of pending cases, which would slash trials from a torturous 15 years to three years.

"There are more than 30 million cases pending in various courts of the country as on 30th June, 2009. 27.1 million cases are pending in the subordinate courts while over four million cases are pending in the high courts and over 50,000 cases in the Supreme Court.

Constantly increasing number of cases has led to delay in disposal of cases, thereby denying the citizen's access to justice. Presently on an average it takes 15 years for a case to conclude and we would like to propose to reduce it to three years," he said.

The 85th report of the Standing Committee on legal delays says over 24 million cases are pending before courts in the country, some pending since 1950.

The judicial delays are blamed primarily on the large number of vacancies in the post of judges and antiquity of laws. Cases are still conducted by the archaic British era laws such as Evidence Act of 19th century and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1905. (ANI)