The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India Justice M N Venkatachaliah said on Saturday that the combined effect of new and emerging technologies will compel all political, social, economic, administrative systems including the medical sciences to adopt and change. The judicial system will equally be transformed. In the transformed situation ‘Mediation’ will find the pride of place as a human tool to allay injustice and promote harmony, he said.
In his inaugural address at the Legal Leadership Challenge organized by the India Legal group in Bangalore, the former CJI quoted Professor Frank Sander’s to say that dispute resolution mechanism should take advantage of a variety of different processes which would singly or in combination provide cent percent more effective conflict resolution.
In this context he referred to the humungous task of administering justice in a country like India. “There are 34 million cases in the 22600 courts in India. Ten percent of that, about 3.4 million are High Courts and about 60,000 in the Supreme Court. Those in authority must shed the traditional illusion of omniscience and seek help from system’s experts. So far, solutions have become banal by reason of stereotyped speculation,” he said.
He argued that Arbitration and Mediation must become the new ‘Mantra’ for judicial salvation. Lawyers must become private-sector judges before the case escalates to the public-sector courts. There is an eminent panel of great legal merits discussing these problems: We will all benefit from listening to them at this conclave. I am honored to be invited to inaugurate this Conclave which I do with pleasure. I am grateful to Rajshri Rai of the APN for her gracious courtesy, he said in his conclusion.
—India Legal Bureau
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