BENGALURU: Pendency of cases before courts shows that something is wrong with the way the Indian judiciary functions, former Chief Justice of India MN Venkatachalaiah said on Friday. At an event to release the India Justice Report 2019, Venkatachalaiah said, “A proper system needs to be put in place to address the issue. Procedures and practices need to be changed. Many cases can be avoided before they appear before the court through careful scrutiny, as such cases does not even have proper defense.
The India Justice Report, an initiative of Tata Trusts, assesses the police, prisons, legal aid and the judiciary in 18 large and mid-sized states to rank them on their delivery of justice. The data for Karnataka shows the state ranks 6th overall, but has room for improvement on individual parameters.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice R V Raveendran touched on gender inclusiveness in Karnataka’s courts. “To become a judge of the High Court, one has to be experienced. As there are good number of women judges in the subordinate courts, they will become judges of the Karnataka High Court in the coming years,” he said. Karnataka ranks 16th among the states studied in the report.
Former DG & IGP Ajai Kumar Singh said the internal work culture of the police department needs change. “It has to be aligned with public service delivery and only then the public can see the change. As far as women staff is concerned, the strength has to be improved in a gradual and time bound manner. Women police should be merged in the overall functioning of the police and they should not be restricted to desk work,” Singh said. Former head of the state prisons department S T Ramesh spoke of the need for a human-centric approach in treatment of prisoners.