How Adjournments Adjourn Justice
The meaning of the word "adjourn" is to suspend till a later time. Indian law defines adjournment as a suspension of legal proceedings to another time or place. The unwanted ‘adjournment culture’ has never been new to the legal system in India. Cases pile up when they are adjourned for years and take years to be heard and finally settled.
Examples of Adjourned Cases
In July 2010, a matter came up before the Delhi High Court, and an adjournment was sought by a lawyer who cited vague reasons. However, it was observed that after two days the same advocate presented the same case, before another Bench. The court recommended the complainant to seek relief from the Bar Council of India, against the advocate for causing unnecessary delay.
In another case, the court imposed a fine of Rs. 5,000 on Lily Jassawalla who sought adjournment of her case on 20 occasions citing vague reasons. The court observed that such unnecessary delays have caused harassment to the complainant.
Safeguards From Adjournment of Cases
As per order XVII of the Code of Civil Procedure, a case can be adjourned for a maximum of three times on the request of a party, during the course of a lawsuit. It also stipulates that an adjournment will be approved only for valid reasons, which were beyond the control of a party. However, unnecessary delay of justice due to adjournment of cases continues to be practised in Indian Courts. The major cause of this issue is the general absence of proper enforcement of Indian laws. Moreover, insufficient awareness among public adds to the ineffectivesness of the system.
How Adjournment Can Be Made Justice-Friendly
The following initiatives will also help to deliver speedy justice:
- Judges should be more stringent while approving adjournments and also adhere to Indian laws on adjournment.
- Fixed time limits should be set for filing of documents. Advocates often take months to file their documents.
- Vacancies should be filled up, to overcome the shortage of judicial staff.
- The working hours of the courts should be increased.
- Court holidays should be reduced.
The High Courts and the Supreme Courts can make the system function better by ensuring that the cases are time bound. Special fast track courts with designated criminal jurisdiction should be established.
Well i concur to some extent to your point of view that adjournments hamper the deliverance of speedy justice. But some of the suggestions/initiatives forwarded by you are simply not right. For instance- "The working hours of the courts should be increased." - ell one must not forget that the judges are also human beings. A person who spends approx. 6 hrs. listening to cases (Raj. H.C. timings- 10:30am to 5pm), He must also be getting tired (sitting on the same chair for such long duration with one break of just 45mins); moreover he has to dictate judgments in his chambers, sign & read all the judgments dictated by him in the court. Read files of addmission matters of the next day. Increasing working hrs. of the court is not a solution, as the result may be(in my view it would definitely be) a total injustice/disaster; as the judges would not come prepared for the cases, they may be so tired hearing to diff. advocates, diff. cases that they will be least bothered as to what the case was or is and simply dictate judgments out of sheer boredom/displeasure.
Same ting goes for reducing court holidays - judges are not machines - as was once observed by R.V. Raveendram J., in a function in Indore law institute, in 2008.
No doubt your suggestion that judicial staff must be increased is applaudable, one of our retd. judges in the year 2007 or 08 whine being posted in one of the national commissions raised a similar demand from the govt. that instead of appointing more retd. judges in the said commission it should rather make more appointments of the working staff(I'm really sorry that the name of the retd. judge as well as the name of the commission slipped from my mind- but the same is based on an article published in the hindustan times- chandigarh)
6 hours are sufficient but Judges are doing only 3-4 hours..no one tracking their actual working hours..
It seems the Indian judicial system is really sluggish. God knows when people will realize the fallacies of the current system and the parliament will introduce more stringent laws.
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