Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Shashank Shekhar1
INTRODUCTION
In the fast growing social sphere of the country, the most necessary requirement for the
development of the people is the existence of justice. Justice in a sense may be in form of the
presence and implementation of the remedy to every person who has been a victim or were
subjected to something which is wrongful in the eyes of the law. The preamble of the Indian
Constitution,1950 has defined and declared a common goal for its citizens to secure to all
the citizens of India Justice social, economic and political. Every citizens is entitled of
equal rights but practically not everyone enjoys the rights equally. The expression Access to
Justice has two very vital needs of the legal system
But in the pathway of making justice accessible to every person of the nation; there exist
some hindrances which have arisen due to delay in courts; lack of knowledge of the rights;
illiteracy; geographical isolation; language as barrier; cost of litigation; unequal availability
of resources and several other known or unknown factors. The people of some socially,
economically and sometimes politically segregated section of people are the prey of the
injustice who were naturally or lawfully entitled to justice.
THE OBSTACLES
1 National University Of Study And Research In Law, Ranchi ; Sems III; NUSRL/RNC/2014/409
2 Justice S B SINHA, Judicial Reform in Justice Delivery System, (2004) 4 SCC (Jour) 35
3 Law commission of India, 2009; 222nd report
The major difficulties which happen to be in the pathway of the accessing justice is enlisted
and discussed.
DELAY IN DELIVERING JUSTICE
The notion of getting a remedy not within a reasonable time period kills the purpose of
securing justice to those who are looking forward to it. This brings about an adverse effect
with itself that is the common people lose the confidence in the definition of justice. In India
the non existence of the infrastructure for the purpose of resolving disputes is the major
reason for delay. There is numerous cases of both civil and criminal nature that are being
queued before the courts whose capacity is comparatively lesser. The total number of cases
pending before the Supreme Court of India as on March 1st, 2015 was 613004. The extended
time gap would make the justice less effective as there are chances that the key ingredients
(such as evidences) may fade away or there may be compromise with the documents. The
very famous phrase Justice Denied is Justice Delayed5 stands good for all the people who
are prey of some unjust act.
Other important reasons for the accumulation of the cases before the High Courts as pointed
out by the Arrears Committee are
accumulation of first appeal
inadequacy of the staffs to the High Courts
lack punctuality among the judges
granting unnecessary adjournments
delay in supply of certified copy of judgements and orders.
LACK OF AWARENESS ABOUT PROCEDURES
In the case of Sukhdas v. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh6 the judges were of the
opinion that the people in rural areas are illiterate and are not aware of the rights conferred
upon them by the law, even the literate people do not know what are their rights and
entitlements under the law and absence of this legal awareness among the people are reasons
why people suffer of this land. The people arent able to help themselves by not utilising the
benefits that is available to each and every citizen of the nation. For instance, Article 39A of
the Indian constitution provides for the equal justice and free legal aid. The case of New
4 www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pendingstat.htm
5 By William E Gladstone;British Prime Minster of Britain & noted politician in the 19 th century.
6 1986 SCR (1) 590
India Assurance Co. Ltd v. Gopali & Ors7 and Manoharan v. Sivarajan8; discusses about
the free legal aid to the poor, disadvantaged, downtrodden, disabled and economically weak
people. But the citizens both illiterate and literate arent aware of the same.
EQUAL FOOTING OF ALL THE PARTIES
The government has ensured that the availability of the lawyers for all the people but have
failed to ensure that standard of the lawyer that may be required to counter the very skilful
lawyers who happen to demolish their counterparts very easily. Furthermore the legal need of
the vary from people to people, it is quite possible that the lawyer which has been assigned to
him may not comply to the legal need. So there comes the role of money by providing an
unwanted extra edge to the people who posses it as he/she can avail very high skilled lawyer
which is comparatively more than the legal need of that person. The US case of Judson
Griffin & James Crenshaw v. State of Illinois9, the Supreme Court was of the opinion that
There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends upon the wealth he
posses.