States to make policy for reducing pending cases: Moily

CHENNAI - Union Minister of Law and Justice M. Veerappa Moily said Sunday that state governments have been told to formulate a litigation policy to reduce pendency of court cases.

“All states shall formulate a litigation policy by 2011 on the lines of the National Litigation Policy (NLP),” Moily told reporters.

The minister is here to attend the regional meeting of union minister of law and justice with chief justices, state law ministers and law secretaries.

Setting up of holiday courts to expeditiously dispose off family cases, training legal experts on cyber law and use of regional languages in high courts were some of the other issues discussed at the meeting here Sunday.

The central government unveiled the NLP last month to make the government a responsible litigant. The NLP is one of the measures under the National Legal Mission to reduce the pendency time for disposing a case from the current 15 years to three years.

Moily said the meeting also discussed setting up of holiday courts to dispose the family disputes fast, filling up of court vacancies and quick disposal of cases.

He said the meeting also discussed the issue of providing training to legal experts on cyber laws and information technology (IT).

To a query on the use of regional languages in the high court, he said: “The issue was also discussed at the meeting.”

Referring to the Rs.5,000 crore allocated by the 13th Finance Commission for upgrading the judicial infrastructure, he said Rs.932 crore has been allocated to the southern states and of this, Rs.93 crore has been disbursed.

He said if the existing judicial vacancies are filled, 30 percent of the pending cases will be disposed of quickly.

He said the pending cases in subordinate courts are around 270 million, in high courts four million and in the Supreme Court 50,000.