Supreme Court constitutes two committees to tackle arrears; Bats for concise judgments, time limit for Seniors’ arguments

The Supreme Court has constituted two committees to suggest measures to tackle the problem of mounting arrears in the Supreme Court and High Courts, reports Times of India..According to the report, the Committee to deal with the problem of arrears in the Supreme Court is comprised of Justice TS Thakur and Justice Rohinton Nariman. The problem of arrears in High Courts would be dealt with by a three member committee comprising three future Chief Justices – Justice JS Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Ranjan Gogoi..The report also states that Chief Justice HL Dattu has already written to the Chief Justices of all High Courts seeking their views on tackling the problem of mounting arrears in their courts and has received responses from them..The Committees which have been constituted will now formulate measures to address the problem..Further, the Supreme Court judges have also “informally come together to accept” another problem – protracted, verbose judgments and the problems caused to litigants by the same..According to sources in the Supreme Court,.“The judges are serious about rendering speedy justice to litigants. In most cases, the law has already been succinctly laid down and does not require further arguments to delay a verdict. Those cases need to be decided fast with crisp judgments focusing only on facts in the backdrop of the already laid down law.”.The report also states that the Court is considering another issue, albeit cautiously – to curtail the time taken by senior lawyers for arguments. The approach of judges towards this problem is to fix a time limit for arguing a matter. However, it would be interesting to see whether any written rule in that regard would be enforced or not.