The Hindu : National : `Judiciary vital for national development'

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Wednesday, Apr 21, 2004

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National

`Judiciary vital for national development'

By Our Special Correspondent

The Chief Justice of Madras High Court, Justice B. Subhashan Reddy, (centre)looks on while the former Chief Justice of India, Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, greets S. Mahalingam, Managing Trustee of Palkhivala Foundation, at Madras University Centenary Hall in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: R. Ragu

CHENNAI, APRIL 20. The former Chief Justice of India, M.N. Venkatachaliah, today said the role of the judiciary was crucial to the social and economic development of the country. He was speaking, after inaugurating the Palkhivala Centre for Constitutional and Public Law at the Madras University Department of Legal Studies, on "Law and judicial system for the next society."

Mr. Venkatachaliah explained the need for reformation of the criminal justice system with an emphasis on case-flow management, expeditious resolution of commercial disputes, challenges of new biology which would raise frontier issues in law and morality, law and ethics and law and environment.

The criminal justice system was not only the backbone of law and order but had civilisational value and status, he said. It was crucial to the survival of all other economic and social institutions. "That area today is in a state of bad repair."

Referring to the increasing feeling that the creation of more courts was the solution to the problem of arrears in courts, he said many lawyers had argued that the strength of judges should be in proportion to the number of cases and not the population. They pointed out that what was lacking was a proper system of case-flow management and a total lack of appropriate auxiliary adjudicative systems and services.

With economic growth, the adequacy of the present systems to deal with arbitration, intellectual property disputes, patent actions and securitisation needed to be reassessed, he said.

He referred to the tremendous advances in medical science and technology and said the ultimate question was whether the judiciary was able to handle with efficiency the issues that characterise `the next society.'

The Chief Justice of Madras High Court, B. Subhashan Reddy, said he appreciated the amendments to the Constitution in the last 53 years because the changes were necessary. When circumstances change, public law had to change, he added.

The Madras University Vice-Chancellor, S.P. Thyagarajan, described the late Palkivala as a "doyen" and legal expert. The Palkhivala Foundation's Managing Trustee, S. Mahalingam, and Arvind Datar, Trustee, highlighted the activities of the Foundation.

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