In May 2008, he became Chief Justice of Patna High Court.
He noticed that more than 33000 Bail Applications were pending in High Court and Lakhs of such bail applications were pending in lower courts.
The agony of people languishing in jail troubled him.
If these people deserved bail, bail should be granted to them. If they do not deserve bail, then their applications needed to be rejected.
His Suggestion To Bar Associations To work half hour more daily to help court in reducing pendency of cases.
He first persuaded his brother judges and inquired if they were willing to work for half an hour more daily to hear these cases.
They agreed.
Next task was to persuade Bar Associations to cooperate with Judges in hearing of these cases by working half an hour more daily in court.
The Lawyers too agreed.
Then official act followed. In a meeting of all judges of High Court, a resolution was passed. Timing of High Court were increased by 30 Mins, timing of lower court increased by 45 mins.
Imagine the increase in disposal of cases.
Two Years Later.
Justice Lodha elevated as Judge of Supreme Court and he came to Delhi.
In Patna, the lawyers and judges reversed the resolution to work for half an hour extra. And they restored earlier old timings.
The reform did not last for long.
Present Scenario
Justice Lodha is now Chief Justice of India. He recalled this experience while acknowledging contribution of Justice C.K.Prasad who retired today.
Reasons and Analysis to understand why this experiment did not work.
The following are my views:-
1) If something is there since many many years, assume that there must be some sound reasons behind it.
Many people in past may have tried to change this situation.
They must have failed. Therefore there must be some reasons behind existence of present system. One need to reach to these reasons.
2) A lawyer is not a single unit. When a lawyer works for half an hour more, his clerk, his driver, his typist, his steno, his junior, all will have to work half an hour more, without any overtime being paid. They will reject this extra hour. They will not cooperate with lawyer. And the change will fail.
3) If a lawyer is paid per hour, he can work for 30 hours per day instead of 24 hours ! He can work 210 hours per week! The Lawyers are genius. They have infinite capacity work!
That is why in advanced country lawyers are paid for per hour they work.
Every district judge is given power to decide hourly rate in his court. For eminent lawyers, he can fix special rates.
If a lawyer charges more than prescribed rate, or if the hours shown in his bills are false, a complaint lies to Judge.
In India, a lawyer does not have monetary motivation to work more. He is paid fixed (Or less than fixed) sum by his client.
He may work only half an hour or he may put 50 hours on a case. He gets same fee.
These are some of the problems. One individual cannot reform system. You, the people of India, also need to support and ask for reforms!
Haresh Raichura
13/07/2014
These are some of the problems. One individual cannot reform system. You, the people of India, also need to support and ask for reforms!
Haresh Raichura
13/07/2014
