Summary: New India @ 75 - Part 3

Ch 37. Legal, Judicial and Police Reforms | Reading Time - 4 mins

Welcome back to Part 3 of the Summary of New India @ 75. If you missed the previous parts related to balanced regional development and you can read them here:

1. Part 1 → Balanced Regional Development

2. Part 2 → The North-East Region

In today’s post, we will be covering chapter 37 of the report.

NITI Ayog Report: Ch 37. Legal, Judicial and Police Reforms → UPSC Syllabus: Ch 13: Law and Order Administration

Ch 37. Legal, Judicial and Police Reforms

Major constraints being faced:

1. Judiciary faces a capacity shortage resulting in a large number of pending cases. The below visual highlights the magnitude of the problem. While the 2018 report of NITI Ayog estimated the pending cases at 2.9 crores, the recent figures stand at 4.18 crores as per the National Judicial Data Grid.

   

   Source: statsofindia

2. On the legal front, the Ease of doing business has been severely constrained by our ability to enforce contracts. Although we have the Arbitration Law of 1996, which is in tune with global principles, it has not yielded desired results in terms of lessening the pressure on courts.

   • The World Bank “Doing Business Report” 2018 ranks India at 164 in ‘Enforcing Contracts (These reports have been discontinued from 2021)

3. Finally, on the Police reform front, the following have been the major issues:

   • Police is a state subject. Hence it is difficult to bring in uniformity of laws.

   • There are only 137 police personnel per 100,000 citizens (17.3 lakh in all). The UN recommends 222 police personnel per 100,000 citizens.

Way Forward

A. Legal Reforms

1. Repeal redundant laws and introduce a new initiative to remove restrictive clauses in existing laws. Eg: Data Protection Law

2. Reduce the criminalization of violations, and move towards compounding of minor offences:

   • Sixty-eight per cent of under-trials in jail are awaiting trial. [Victor Thomson - Bureaupathology]

   • Summary proceedings and plea bargaining should be reorganized and implemented so that criminal cases can be settled in a time-bound manner.

   • Reform forensics and ballistics testing by outsourcing to accredited laboratories. [NPM]

3. Introduce incentive and sanction-based models of motivation to ensure that citizens abide by the law. [Theory X/Y; Herzberg’s 2-factor theory].

4. An attitudinal reorientation among government officials through sensitization programmes. [ Personnel Management ]

B. Judicial Reforms

1. Inordinate Delays: On average property-related disputes take 20 years for resolution. At the current rate of disposal, it would take 324 years to clear the backlog of cases. (Study by Min. of Finance). To resolve this:

   • Shift certain sections of the workload out of the regular court system to commercial courts.

   • A new autonomous body, viz., the Arbitration Council of India, should be set up

   • Merge and rationalize tribunals to enhance efficiency.

2. An all-India judicial services examination on a ranking basis can be considered to maintain high standards in the judiciary.

3. Consider a performance index for judges and a separate state-wise index for ease of getting justice. [ Good governance - Transparency]

4. Prioritize the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), including electronic management of court schedules and migration of all courts to the unified national court application software [e-Governance]

C. Police reforms

1. The Model Police Act of 2015 can serve as the basis for legislative reform as it

   • Modernizes the mandate of the police,

   • Puts in place a governance mechanism that insulates the
     police from political interference and

   • Provides for the measurement and tracking of police
     performance.

2. Outsource the non-core functions of police to a separate task force under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)

3. Women recruits: MHA must introduce a policy to achieve a target share of 30 per cent of women among new recruits.

4. Promote continuous training: A concept of certification of security personnel with identified skill sets may be considered with linkage to promotion and deployment.

5. Cyber Crimes: A separate cadre for exclusively looking into cyber crimes, cyber threats and fraud need to be developed.

6. The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems project may be
   completed along with the launch of Phase 2 for linking crime, prosecution, court and prison databases.

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Are only points from this report sufficient?

While these points have been taken from the New India @ 75 reports, for certain topics quoting these should not be the first option. For example, whenever the topic of Police reforms arises, Prakash Singh's guidelines must be mentioned.

Similarly in the context of the Criminal Justice System - Police, courts and prisons, the Malimath Committee must be mentioned.

These reports are referenced by even the Supreme court while giving certain judgements and thus carry more weight.

We will cover some such important reports in future articles.

The factual and futuristic suggestions outlined in the NITI Ayog report can be used to differentiate your answer.

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Continue to Part - 4 …

Summary: New India @ 75 - Part 4