Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Setting up of a ‘National Court of Appeal’ is not a bad idea' that was published in Newsband

Setting up of a ‘National Court of Appeal’ is not a bad idea

The setting up of a ‘National Court of Appeal’ to hear routine appeals in civil and criminal matters from the High Courts by the Supreme Court is not a bad idea. Also, in recent times the Supreme Court has been conscious of its role as the interpreter of the Constitution, and holds a sitting of a Constitution Bench virtually every day. This is a good thing that is happening.

Decentralising the power and making more courts take up the cases will certainly pace up the completion of the all long pending cases. It will also free up the Supreme Court on the burden of all the pending cases which can be solved by the lower courts. And the apex court can deal the case assigned to it with scrutiny so that meaningful judgements are made. One issue that needs to be taken care of is that what type of cases should go till SC and what type of cases should go to HC. If there will be any clear demarcation on this barrier, then this can be worked well and role of SC can be much more dignified and restricted mostly to constitutional issues.

Setting of National court of appeal and other courts at regional basis will decrease the burden of Apex court and lead to impartiality and transparency in passing verdicts.

Ideally Supreme Court should not get involved in individual cases. But some HCs have given diametrically opposite verdicts in couple of months even when Trial Court spent years to come up with a good verdict. If HCs can pull up their socks, change will be good for everybody where there is only one appeal. This needs mathematical and qualitative analysis of cases to re-engineer judicial processes.

It’s a welcome move and everybody is looking with hope. It is not only the problem of arrears but the expenses incurred also in the monopolistic attitude of lawyers who charge astronomical amount from litigants. In fact the present system has emerged as anti-poor. Moreover it will help justice dispensation in regional languages which is once again the crying need of the hour. Right now Constitution permits English as the language of higher judiciary. With suitable amendment in the Constitution, justice dispensation in one's own language can be facilitated.

There is a need to maintain the equilibrium between the executive, legislature and the judiciary itself. The judiciary, executive and the legislature are the creations of We the people of India and not vice versa. Judiciary should work in the larger interest of justice - social, economic and political. No one except the people of India are supreme and sovereign.

The last point is that the Indian Supreme Court hears very many more cases than its US counterpart. India, as a nation, should accommodate proven systems from USA. The legacy of British royalty based authority structures have been reformed there, but we are continuing to hang on to them here in a lavish style forgetting that service to people is the primary objective.