The art of seeking time – Adjournments tongue in cheek

Unprepared lawyers invent stories to obtain adjournments. An ‘art’ every litigator fresh off law schools is made to learn. Several courts, fora, tribunals are non-functional due to a lack of infrastructure. Case in point is a District Consumer Forum in Delhi that has not been functioning on account of a caved roof..Now, we have Minister Moily talking big about a Litigation Policy for the Government, a National Arrear Grid to monitor pending cases and a Vision Statement to guide all this. The question is, will it work? Kushal Bhimjiani takes closer look..People might think that creating “accidents” and inventing relatives only to kill them was just one of the things students learnt in law schools during “Code of Civil Procedure” classes. Now, adjournments have become more sophisticated matters and just like the image of Dharavi next to Mumbai International Airport, our judiciary represents two images of India..On one hand is the lawyer who was granted an adjournment in the Delhi High Court on the pretext of a lost cell phone and required an urgent FIR, and on the other hand is the case of the fallen roof of the New Delhi District Consumer Forum on KG Road Barracks, where cases have been postponed for upto 3 months because of pending repairs. Rohan Thawani, a lawyer in the Delhi High Court, commented on the extreme inconvenience it caused, specifically given the fact that consumer cases are supposed to be disposed speedily. He also added, “Though this might be just one instance, it is a telling fact which points to the general condition of all the lower courts which have no facilities and lack maintenance.” It appears that the court presided by President K K Chopra, has been out of action since the last one month when the roof caved in because of heavy rains..A lawyer who prefers anonymity, also pointedly referred to the practice of judges adjourning court after 12:30 pm in the Delhi High Court for personal reasons. For Arjun Harkauli, one of the funniest instances of adjournment was at Teez Hazari, Delhi where a lawyer claimed that his file was mistakenly taken away by his clerk and therefore he couldn’t argue. An adjournment for 2 months was given in that instance. “On a more serious note, while adjournments like these might happen only once in a while, the general practice especially in Tribunals like the Debt Recovery Tribunal or the Consumer Forum, is only increasing the case load for the judiciary and financial burden on litigants. The biggest problem is that of presiding officers being absent in newly created tribunals for upto a year,” he said..While addressing a conference at the National Judicial Academy, Dr. Mohan Gopal, former Vice Chancellors of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, relied upon Singapore as a model of case management, where the pendency in the 1990’s was as high as India (in proportion to its population), which was dramatically reduced with a carrot and stick approach for the judiciary in disposing cases speedily..The ministry and the judiciary are on a war-footing to deal with the slow justice delivery system. The Ministry is proposing to tackle the backlog through the aggressive use of information technology (IT) and have budgeted an expenditure of Rs. 890 crores ($191 million) for capacity building and connecting all the courts using information and communication technology solutions. They have set out a ‘Vision Statement’, proposed a Litigation Policy and a National Arrear Grid. Each, to bring down the average pendency of a case from the existing 15 years to 3 years..However, while most of these suggestions are still only on paper, experts are positive that they will work. IT will surely help in improving case management, especially in trial courts and will perhaps herald a more efficacious system. While ‘Litigation Policy’, ‘National Arrear Grid’, ‘Vision Statement’ etc. sound hunky dory alright, whether it will remedy the indiscipline that has beset the system can only be seen when they are implemented..It is pertinent to note that while statistics of High Courts have marginally improved in the area of case backlog, this is partially attributable to a transfer of these cases to specialized tribunals. The ultimate result is not one of decrease in pendency rates, but only a transfer from one forum to the other. And as long as adjournments keep being granted on frivolous grounds, or because of lack of presiding officers in tribunals and forums, any hope of decreasing the time and effort of litigation in India will be remain a pipe dream..While on one hand we talk big about bringing down the pendency of a case, we will continue to see lawyers who use lost cell phones and dead relatives to shield unpreparedness, and judges who are not interested enough to hear and dispose a case. Of greater concern is the fact that there are several courts, tribunals, commissions, forums etc., inoperable due to a lack of basic infrastructure. It is not surprising that a loose translation of a Kannada proverb, “In litigation, the victorious one is as good as the one who has lost and the one who has lost is as good as dead,” sounds very true..Kushal Bhimjiani is a final year student in the National Law School of India University, Bangalore