Reduce pending cases in courts, says Moily

PANJIM, JULY 25
Union Minister, for Law and Justice Dr M Veerappa Moily has sought cooperation of Chief Justice, Judges and legal luminaries of High courts, District Court and other courts in reducing the large number of pending cases in various  courts in  the country in next four to five years.
He said the Central Government has made a special provision of fourteen thousand crores of which Rs five thousand crore have already been released to states and balance will be released soon. He told the states to prepare road map for five years in this respect.
Moily was speaking at the Regional meeting on implementation of 13th Finance Commission Recommendations in improving justice delivery and other matters in the city today.
Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, Law Minister of Chattisgarh Ramvichar Netam, Chief Justice of Bombay High Court Justice Mohit Shah, Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court Justice Mokhopadhya, Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court Justice Jagadish Bhalla, Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh Justice Rafat Alam, Law Secretary  Neela Gangadharan, Advisor TK Vishwanathan, Judges  of High Courts, Law Secretaries and other legal luminaries attended the regional meeting.
Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava, Law Secretary Pramod Kamat, Secretaries in the state administration graced the occasion.
Speaking further Moily said, this is the fifth meeting in the series being held in the country. Indian Judiciary is the largest, excellent judiciary in the world. However, Justice delivery needs to be improved.
Moily told the states to prepare their own state Litigation policy within a year. This he said will improve the pace of justice delivery system. He said there are 62 vacancies in the region and these vacancies will be filled soon.
Union Minister dealt upon various issues like classification of cases, fast track courts, E-courts projects, setting up of more CBI courts and Family Courts and related subjects.         
The Union minister told the states to improve the justice delivery system through morning and evening courts. Some of the states like Gujarat has shown encouraging results he said. Regarding Lok Adalats he said Law Secretaries of the states should make efforts to hold more Lok Adalats to dispose the cases. He said guidelines of Central Government to spend the amount allocated to states, make it clear that the amount should be spent on improving justice delivery system through Lok Adalats, Mediation centres, strengthening of present legal system. The amount should not be spent on construction of buildings.
Referring to Goa where about 28000 cases are pending Moily said, with some efforts Goa can become arrear free State as far as pending cases are concerned. He also said, Goa can be developed as Centre for International Arbitration.
Kamat said, efforts of the Prime Minister are to touch the hearts of common man. Law and Justice directly touch the hearts of common man. Kamat said, Goa has started video conferencing to record the witnesses. He said, Goa is the only state in the country to set up children’s Court besides Juvenile courts.