NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, OCT 10
Plans are afoot to provide lawyers and the legal community hands-on training through live demonstrations on e-filing of complaints, summons, and payments once the coronavirus-induced restrictions are lifted and courts resume normal functioning, a senior official said on Saturday.
The Department of Justice in the Union Law Ministry, in association with the e-committee of the Supreme Court, plans to start such live demonstrations.
While e-filing videos have been uploaded on YouTube and manuals are available for download, since everyone is not tech-savvy, live demonstrations will start soon in the corridors of courts, said Joint Secretary in the Department of Justice G R Raghavender.
He made these remarks at a webinar on enforcing contracts organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
Noting that India is planning to further improve and break into the top 50 in terms of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, he said enforcement of contracts is a key performance indicator.
India has moved from the rank 178 in 2016 to 163 in 2020.
“A lot has been done but the impact has not been felt,” he was quoted as saying by an ASSOCHAM statement.
The enforcing contract indicator is measured based on three important parameters – time estimate, cost estimate, and quality of judicial process index.
He explained that in India, for resolving a commercial dispute in a district commercial court it takes 1,445 days which is worse than the South Asian average of 1,101 days, in OECD high-income countries it is just 557 days, in Singapore and New Zealand it takes 164 days.
While in terms of cost estimates, in India 31 percent goes as the legal expenditure of the dispute, whereas in South Asia it is 29.6 percent, in OECD countries it is 21.5 percent, and in Iceland, it takes only nine percent, in Bhutan, it is 0-1 percent.
In terms of the quality of the judicial process index, it has an 18-point score.
“India’s score is 10.5, despite scoring above average we still have not fared better, while South Asian average is 7, OECD is 11 and in the top 20 countries it is 15.5 percent,” he said according to the statement.
Noting that case management needs to be improved to reduce the time taken and reduce pendency, he suggested that lawyers need to use court management tools available on the department’s website.
