{"id":1791,"date":"2019-08-24T12:22:48","date_gmt":"2019-08-24T06:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2019-08-24T12:23:22","modified_gmt":"2019-08-24T06:53:22","slug":"new-india-vision-voice-of-professionals-suggestions-for-speedy-disposal-of-matters-and-effective-administration-of-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/new-india-vision-voice-of-professionals-suggestions-for-speedy-disposal-of-matters-and-effective-administration-of-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"New India Vision &#8211; Voice Of Professionals &#8211; Suggestions For Speedy Disposal Of Matters And Effective Administration Of Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Prime-Minister-Narendra-Modi-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Prime-Minister-Narendra-Modi\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1792\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr. K. Shivaram, Sr. Advocate, has lauded Shri Narendra Modi, the Hon&#8217;ble Prime Minister, for unveiling the &#8216;New India Vision &#038; Road Map&#8217; for the Country. He has pointed out that in the &#8216;New India Vision&#8217;, the role of the judiciary cannot be left behind. The author has accordingly identified the issues in the judicial system which are stumbling blocks to progress and offered valuable suggestions on how to achieve speedy disposal of  matters and administer justice to citizens in a more efficient manner<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On the occasion of 72nd Independence day celebrations,  Honourable Prime Minster of India Shri Narendra Modi addressed the occasion by  putting forward a new India  vision and road map to the Nation. It is the duty and obligation of the every  citizen to support the vision of the Honourable Prime Minster.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RDmvBYQBxa0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> As tax  consultants and tax payers of our country, we desire that in the new India  Vision, the role of the judiciary cannot be left behind. We therefore make an  appeal to the Honourable Prime Minster of India to consider the suggestion of  the Tax Bar. As per a paper report there will be an annual conference of the  Chief Justices and Chief Minsters at Delhi  on 1st September, 2019 where  the Honourable Prime Minster of India and the Honourable Chief justice of India  will be sharing their vision for the future of the judiciary. We are making an  appeal to consider the following issues to aid in the speedy disposal of  matters before various judicial and quasi-judicial forums and the better  administration of justice.<\/p>\n<h2>1. Linking of  Supreme Court with all High Courts and hearing of Special Leave Petitions via  E-Benches of the Apex Court<\/h2>\n<p>The All India Federation of Tax Practitioners have made  various representations from time to time suggesting that the Honourable  Supreme Court may constitute e-benches in the premises of various High Courts.  The hearing of Special leave Petitions before the Apex    Court can be done by linking the High courts with  the Supreme Court thereby affording the litigants the facility for arguing  matters before the Supreme Court from the respective High Courts. The E-bench  of the Supreme Court may take up the matters on a High Court-wise basis, e.g.  one day could be for matters of the Bombay High Court, another day from the  Madras High Court and so on, in rotation for each High Court on a regular  basis. Initially, an option may be given to the parties to hear the matters  through an e-Bench or a regular Bench and upon the success of the pilot  project, the said system can be adopted with suitable changes after consulting  with all the stake holders.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Dq72jmE4y9M\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has started an e-Court  at Mumbai through which the matters of Nagpur  are heard by members sitting in Mumbai at the premises of the Mumbai Bench. The  experience has been very satisfactory as per both, the tax payers as well as  the Department. The e-Bench of Supreme Court could initially be started for the  hearing of Special Leave Petitions (SLP) relating to direct and indirect tax  matters. As per the concept, the litigants will be given an option to <strong>&lsquo;opt  in&rsquo;<\/strong> or <strong>&lsquo;opt out&rsquo;<\/strong>. If in case the litigants desire not to be heard by  the e-Bench, they may take the option to opt out. The E-courts may be set up in  the premises of all the High Courts around the Country. This will save precious  time and reduce cost of litigation. In the era of digitalisation, if this  suggestion is implemented, tax payers will get access to justice without the  strenuous effort of travelling to Delhi.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Increase in the  age limit of retirement for Judges of the High Court from 62 to 65 years<\/h2>\n<p>The Parliament has constituted a committee headed by Smt.  Jayanti Natarajan as Chairperson for considering the increase in age limit of  Judges of High Courts from 62 to 65. The Committee observed as under:-<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>&ldquo;Taking into account the justifications given by the  secretary, Department of Justice, and the statement of objects and reasons  appended to the bill, the committee supports the proposal for increase in the  retirement age of judges of the High Courts from sixty two years to sixty five  years and to be at par with the retirement age of the judges of the Supreme  Court. The Committee also acknowledges that the Bill has been brought forth in  pursuance of the recommendation made by the Committee in its earlier reports&rdquo;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though the committee has made the above recommendation on 7th December 2010, no steps have been  taken for the implementation of the same till date. It is desirable that an  appropriate decision may be taken at the earliest upon this issue. We are of  the considered opinion that an increase in age limit will help in the increase  of disposal of cases due to the greater availability of senior Judges due to  which there could be a substantial reduction in pendency of cases.<\/p>\n<h2>3. Availing  services of retired judges on a tenure basis of five years:<\/h2>\n<p>Article 224A of the Constitution of India enables the  appointment of retired judges at sittings of High Courts as ad-hoc judges. As  the pendency in the various high Courts is increasing, the services of ad-hoc  judges may be availed for effective disposal of cases and efficient  dispensation of justice. This step shall help in reducing the pendency of  matters before various High Courts by increasing the bench strength.<\/p>\n<h2>4. Institutionalised  process of elevation of Judicial Members of the ITAT to be appointed as Judges  of High Court<\/h2>\n<p>Till now, very few Members of the ITAT as well as other  Tribunals have been elevated to the High Courts. This process of selection  should be institutionalised which will help in bringing transparency. It is  also desired that all the High Courts have a permanent tax bench where a  Judicial Member of impeccable integrity could be elevated from the ITAT.  Members of the ITAT, due to their specialised knowledge and experience in &lsquo;tax&rsquo;  and &lsquo;business accounts&rsquo;, would be able to understand and decide the issues  efficaciously. This may also act as an attraction for many young and bright  lawyers to join the Tribunals as Members.<\/p>\n<h2>5. Special  allocation of Funds in the Budget of every year should be made for the  functioning of the Courts just as allocations are made for the defence of our  Country<\/h2>\n<p>The Judiciary is one of the pillar of the democracy. There  must be a separate allocation of funds for the judiciary in each budget. The  procedure for disbursement of funds to the judiciary must be simplified. It is  worth considering that Finance Ministry may make it a point to meet the concerned  Officials of the judiciary and hold discussions about the funds required for  modernisation and allocate the required funds to the Judiciary from time to  time.<\/p>\n<p>As per the newspaper report  dated 3-8-2019 (Times of India, Saturday), it has been highlighted that more  than half of the District Courts in the Country do not have functional  washrooms and other amenities. In Mumbai, there is only one special court  designated to deal with prosecution matters of Direct taxes as well as other  economic offenses. There are more than 10,000 cases pending to be heard. There  are matters pending for framing charges since more than 15 years. Unless some  remedial measures are taken, entire system may collapse. The need of the hour  is to have proper infrastructure for the Judiciary. This is possible only when  proper allocation of funds for the judiciary is done.<\/p>\n<h2>6. Responsive  system to be established in respective Ministries to discuss and take action on  suggestions made by the Apex Court, High Courts and other Judicial authorities.<\/h2>\n<p>It has been observed that  various High Courts make have several recommendations to the Government of  India to look into certain matters and take appropriate measures. However,  there is no mechanism to find out whether the issue is brought to the notice of  Ministry concerned and what follow up action has been taken. It is therefore,  advisable to put up such suggestions on the website of the High Courts or of  the concerned Ministry where the progress on each direction can be tracked,  scrutinised and appropriate action can be taken. This will bring transparency  in the functioning of the Ministry and will also bring accountability.<\/p>\n<h2>7. Authority under  Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 and The Prevention of  Money Laundering Act, 2002<\/h2>\n<p>The Adjudicating Authorities  under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, and under The  Prevention of Money laundering Act are currently situated at Delhi.  Due to this reason, litigants have to travel to Delhi  for adjudication of their matters, be it for a mere adjournment or for a  complete hearing. This causes great hardship to the litigants apart from the  already existing implications under the Acts sought to be disputed by them.<\/p>\n<p>At present there is no  Adjudicating Authority at Mumbai or in any other part of the country. It is  desired that the Adjudicating Authority may be set up in across the country to  provide effective redressal dispute resolution mechanism for litigants that are  located away from the Capital Cities. Till the time such zones are established,  the Adjudicating Authority may be allowed to have camps in different places and  may be allowed to have touring benches where the number of appeals are  substantial in number. This will help the litigants in saving precious time and  cost of litigation will come down. It would further help the litigants to get  speedy justice.<\/p>\n<p>We hope  Government will consider these proposals that shall, in our opinion, greatly  streamline the disposal of cases. We are sure that the implementation of these  suggestions shall go a long way in providing effective and efficacious remedy  to the litigants across the country. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\"><strong>Dr. K Shivaram<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Chairman<\/em>, Editorial Board, AIFTP <\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Reproduced with permision from the AIFTP Journal, August 2019<\/u><\/strong> :   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. K. Shivaram, Sr. Advocate, has lauded Shri Narendra Modi, the Hon&#8217;ble Prime Minister, for unveiling the &#8216;New India Vision &#038; Road Map&#8217; for the Country. He has pointed out that in the &#8216;New India Vision&#8217;, the role of the judiciary cannot be left behind. The author has accordingly identified the issues in the judicial system which are stumbling blocks to progress and offered valuable suggestions on how to achieve speedy disposal of  matters and administer justice to citizens in a more efficient manner<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/new-india-vision-voice-of-professionals-suggestions-for-speedy-disposal-of-matters-and-effective-administration-of-justice\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","category-legislation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1796,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}