A universal rather than a particularistic mode of approach explains a great many of the defects of judicial administration. Litigiousness is a strong characteristic of human nature. All over the world a forensic display attracts the admiration of the multitudes. Curiously, legal technicalities are despised; at the same time, their ingenuity is applauded. Disappointed litigants are not always silent. In their defeat they appeal from 'law ' to 'justice'. Lawyers as a class have too much to gain from maintaining the intricacies of their art and to simplify it to great extent would make their services unnecessary. For many reasons legal institutions lag behind changes of public opinion much more than other institutions. The procedures in the Civil and Criminal Courts have become too technical, cumbersome, expensive and slow. There are too many appeals. It was the best when it was introduced in the social and political ethos of that time, but it now has become a rainsoaked blanket on the back of a common litigant. The judges, lawyers and defendants have now vested interest in this procedure.
Chief Justice Shri P N Bhagwati in his Law Day speech delivered in 1986 says:
There are still unfortunately in our country a few lawyers and jurists who ostrich-like want to bury their heads in sand and refuse to recognise the new change which is taking place in the judicial process as a result of public Interest litigation. Trained in the old British tradition of adversary justice and born and brought up in an era where the doctrine of laissez faire prevailing and with their minds fossilized and overtaken by senility, they find it difficult to reconcile themselves to new wind of change which is roaring down in ancient corridors. They are intellectually still living in the first half of the 20th century or perhaps even the 19th century and cannot grow out of that mould. They are so much accustomed to treading the beaten path that they cannot tolerate any departure or change. To them the justicing process is merely an intellectual exercise where judges and lawyers can display their learning and scholarship; the have-nots and the handicapped, the lowly and the lost have no place in their scheme of things. They want the judiciary to continue dispensing justice processed in the ramshackle and anachronistic Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence because for them those who dispense justice as votaries j of this jurisprudence and demi-gods. But these so-called champions of justice do not realise that there are large masses of people in the country who are entitled to justice and if they do not get it soon, they will one day storm the highway and destroy those who claim it to be their exclusive right to walk along it. Fortunately, as a result of Public Interest Litigation, the weaker section of the people, the disadvantaged segments of the community are now for the first time looking up to the courts as their protector against injustice. So far the courts had been inaccessible to them. But now their problems can be brought before the courts and justice ensured to them through the strategy of Public Interest Litigation. A near revolution is taking place in the judicial process, notwithstanding the unreasoned criticism of a few who live in ivory towers and palatial buildings, unmindful of the misery, suffering and exploitation of the underprivileged segments of society who constitute over 50 percent of the population of this country.
Chief Justice Shri P N Bhagwati in his Law Day speech delivered in 1986 says:
There are still unfortunately in our country a few lawyers and jurists who ostrich-like want to bury their heads in sand and refuse to recognise the new change which is taking place in the judicial process as a result of public Interest litigation. Trained in the old British tradition of adversary justice and born and brought up in an era where the doctrine of laissez faire prevailing and with their minds fossilized and overtaken by senility, they find it difficult to reconcile themselves to new wind of change which is roaring down in ancient corridors. They are intellectually still living in the first half of the 20th century or perhaps even the 19th century and cannot grow out of that mould. They are so much accustomed to treading the beaten path that they cannot tolerate any departure or change. To them the justicing process is merely an intellectual exercise where judges and lawyers can display their learning and scholarship; the have-nots and the handicapped, the lowly and the lost have no place in their scheme of things. They want the judiciary to continue dispensing justice processed in the ramshackle and anachronistic Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence because for them those who dispense justice as votaries j of this jurisprudence and demi-gods. But these so-called champions of justice do not realise that there are large masses of people in the country who are entitled to justice and if they do not get it soon, they will one day storm the highway and destroy those who claim it to be their exclusive right to walk along it. Fortunately, as a result of Public Interest Litigation, the weaker section of the people, the disadvantaged segments of the community are now for the first time looking up to the courts as their protector against injustice. So far the courts had been inaccessible to them. But now their problems can be brought before the courts and justice ensured to them through the strategy of Public Interest Litigation. A near revolution is taking place in the judicial process, notwithstanding the unreasoned criticism of a few who live in ivory towers and palatial buildings, unmindful of the misery, suffering and exploitation of the underprivileged segments of society who constitute over 50 percent of the population of this country.
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