Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur shared the dais on Sunday and mutually agreed that India is a “bright spot” in the global economy. But the top judge, in a reality check, pointed out that India continues to be one of the lowest ranked in the ‘Ease in Doing Business’ list of countries.
Chief Justice Thakur said foreign investors continue to be wary of India’s labyrinthine and delayed justice delivery mechanism.
“We have over 3,000 foreign companies with operations in India. In 2015-16, there has been a 29 percent increase in foreign direct investments. We wish to overtake China and the United States by 2050... Yet we are ranked 130 among a total 189 countries in the Ease of Doing Business,” Chief Justice Thakur said in his address at a global conference on arbitration organised by NITI Aayog at Vigyan Bhavan.
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The Chief Justice said investors feel that Indian courts would delay justice due to them. “The need for strengthening our judicial system is deeply connected to our ambition for economic growth.”
According to him, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms like arbitration, mediation and conciliation would become effective only if backed by a robust justice delivery system steered by conventional courts.
Civil courts should be able to hear and decide challenges to arbitration awards in a time-bound manner, Chief Justice Thakur said.
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But in India, an average 18,000 judges deal with 50 million cases annually, of which 20 million cases are disposed of. “The avalanche of cases constantly puts the judiciary under great stress. Courts from the apex court to the Munsiff are overburdened. Judges are over-worked,” he said.
Just a few months ago in April, the same venue had seen Chief Justice Thakur break down several times in front of Prime Minister Modi as he squarely blamed the Centre for stalling appointment of judges to the High Courts. He had accused the Centre of doing nothing to increase the number of courts and judges in the country, thus denying the poor man and under trial prisoners justice.
Mr. Modi, who spoke after the Chief Justice, said the government was deeply engaged in clearing the roadblocks towards a smooth justice delivery mechanism.
Indicating that the rush of litigation to the courts reflected the immense public faith in the judiciary, the Prime Minister said it was time for initiatives like arbitration to be aggressively pushed to match the changing scenario in business and investments.
“Law must be stable but should not be still,” the Prime Minister said, invoking American legal scholar Roscoe Pound.