OREANDA-NEWS. April 06, 2015. The Chief Justice of India Justice H.L.Dattu said efforts are on to see that no court case would be pending for more than five years. He was briefing media persons along with the Union Minister for Law and Justice Shri Sadananda Gowda after the Joint Conference of Chief Ministers of States and Chief Justices of High Courts today and the earlier two day working sessions in New Delhi this evening. He said efforts are also on to see that the maximum life of a case is not beyond two (2) years. Justice H.L. Dattu said the idea of Morning as well as evening courts, uniform policy for the selection of Judges across the country and provision of uniform retirement benefits for the retired judges of High courts were all discussed. In addition the speedy judicial process cases relating to women harrasment, juveniles, disabled persons and senior citizens also came up for discussion. He called for increase in number of judges to tackle the problem of pendency.

Shri Sadananda Gowda said a continuous dialogue should prevail between the high courts and the concerned states for sorting out problems relating to Judicial administration. The minister referred to Prime Ministers speech delivered earlier in the morning wherein, he said the Judiciary should be both "Sashakt" and "Samarth" – empowered and capable – to play its "divine role" of ensuring the rule of law and delivering justice to the common man.

Union Minister of Law and Justice Shri D.V. Sadananda Gowda earlier reiterated the commitment of the government to improve the ease of doing business. He said that the judiciary had risen up to the occasion by commencing the establishment of commercial courts at High Court as well as district-court levels. He informed that significant investment has been made by the Central Government in the justice sector. The country today has more court halls then the total functioning courts. Almost 96% of the district and subordinate courts have been computerised and are providing case information to litigants and lawyers online through the district court websites. With the increased devolution of funds to the States by the 14th Finance Commission, to the tune of of Rs.9749 crore States should improve the justice delivery system. He also offered to make himself available for discussions with the Chief Ministers as well as the Chief Justices of High Courts to carry forward the efforts to provide litigant friendly environment in courts and to eliminate the long-pending arrears of cases in courts.

Today’s Deliberations were inaugurated by the Prime Minister and were chaired by the Chief Justice of India Shri H.L.Dattu wherein 21 Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of all the 24 High Courts contributed their ideas and suggestions. 18 agenda items were the basis of discussions in the working session including infrastructure and manpower for courts, judicial reforms, ICT enablement of courts, reduction of arrears and expeditious case disposal, role of the justice system in the ease of doing business, implementation of recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission for the justice sector, drawing up a National Vision and Mission Plan for 2015-2020 and strengthening of legal aid services, judicial academies, juvenile justice system and alternate dispute resolution mechanism. Service conditions of sitting and retired Chief Justices were also discussed. Some Chief Ministers requested that Hindi and other regional languages should be allowed to be used in proceedings in High Courts.