ACCESS TO JUSTICE : THE INSIGHTS OF DIFFICULTIES

Shashank Shekhar1

Justice is the foundation and the object of any civilized society.2

INTRODUCTION
In the fast growing social sphere of the country, the most necessary requirement for the
development of the people is the existence of justice. Justice in a sense may be in form of the
presence and implementation of the remedy to every person who has been a victim or were
subjected to something which is wrongful in the eyes of the law. The preamble of the Indian
Constitution,1950 has defined and declared a common goal for its citizens to secure to all
the citizens of India Justice social, economic and political. Every citizens is entitled of
equal rights but practically not everyone enjoys the rights equally. The expression Access to
Justice has two very vital needs of the legal system

System to be equally accessible to the every people.

An outcome that are individually and socially just3

But in the pathway of making justice accessible to every person of the nation; there exist
some hindrances which have arisen due to delay in courts; lack of knowledge of the rights;
illiteracy; geographical isolation; language as barrier; cost of litigation; unequal availability
of resources and several other known or unknown factors. The people of some socially,
economically and sometimes politically segregated section of people are the prey of the
injustice who were naturally or lawfully entitled to justice.
THE OBSTACLES

1 National University Of Study And Research In Law, Ranchi ; Sems III; NUSRL/RNC/2014/409
2 Justice S B SINHA, Judicial Reform in Justice Delivery System, (2004) 4 SCC (Jour) 35
3 Law commission of India, 2009; 222nd report

The major difficulties which happen to be in the pathway of the accessing justice is enlisted
and discussed.
DELAY IN DELIVERING JUSTICE
The notion of getting a remedy not within a reasonable time period kills the purpose of
securing justice to those who are looking forward to it. This brings about an adverse effect
with itself that is the common people lose the confidence in the definition of justice. In India
the non existence of the infrastructure for the purpose of resolving disputes is the major
reason for delay. There is numerous cases of both civil and criminal nature that are being
queued before the courts whose capacity is comparatively lesser. The total number of cases
pending before the Supreme Court of India as on March 1st, 2015 was 613004. The extended
time gap would make the justice less effective as there are chances that the key ingredients
(such as evidences) may fade away or there may be compromise with the documents. The
very famous phrase Justice Denied is Justice Delayed5 stands good for all the people who
are prey of some unjust act.
Other important reasons for the accumulation of the cases before the High Courts as pointed
out by the Arrears Committee are
accumulation of first appeal
inadequacy of the staffs to the High Courts
lack punctuality among the judges
granting unnecessary adjournments
delay in supply of certified copy of judgements and orders.
LACK OF AWARENESS ABOUT PROCEDURES
In the case of Sukhdas v. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh6 the judges were of the
opinion that the people in rural areas are illiterate and are not aware of the rights conferred
upon them by the law, even the literate people do not know what are their rights and
entitlements under the law and absence of this legal awareness among the people are reasons
why people suffer of this land. The people arent able to help themselves by not utilising the
benefits that is available to each and every citizen of the nation. For instance, Article 39A of
the Indian constitution provides for the equal justice and free legal aid. The case of New
4 www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pendingstat.htm
5 By William E Gladstone;British Prime Minster of Britain & noted politician in the 19 th century.
6 1986 SCR (1) 590

India Assurance Co. Ltd v. Gopali & Ors7 and Manoharan v. Sivarajan8; discusses about
the free legal aid to the poor, disadvantaged, downtrodden, disabled and economically weak
people. But the citizens both illiterate and literate arent aware of the same.
EQUAL FOOTING OF ALL THE PARTIES
The government has ensured that the availability of the lawyers for all the people but have
failed to ensure that standard of the lawyer that may be required to counter the very skilful
lawyers who happen to demolish their counterparts very easily. Furthermore the legal need of
the vary from people to people, it is quite possible that the lawyer which has been assigned to
him may not comply to the legal need. So there comes the role of money by providing an
unwanted extra edge to the people who posses it as he/she can avail very high skilled lawyer
which is comparatively more than the legal need of that person. The US case of Judson
Griffin & James Crenshaw v. State of Illinois9, the Supreme Court was of the opinion that
There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends upon the wealth he
posses.

ABUSE OF JUDICIAL PROCESS

Judicial process may be defined as everything done by the judges in the process of delivery of
Justice.10 There are instances where the judges observe that if there is a continuation of the
proceedings would be against the lines of justice or would be an abuse of the judicial process.
In the case of State of Karnataka v. L Muniswamy 11, the Supreme Court established that the
proceedings can be quashed if judges comes to the conclusion that allowing proceeding
would not meet the ends of justice due to abuse of court process. But the people dont comply
themselves with the guidelines established by the Supreme court.

7 AIR 2012 SC 3381

8 (2014) 4 SCC 163
9 351 U.S 12 1956
10 www.legalservicesindia.com/article/judicial-process-in-india-464-1.html
11 AIR (1977) SC 1489

 COST OF GETTING JUSTICE

The judicial process involves payment of court fees, lawyers for the purpose of legal
representation, obtaining certified copies of documents, transportation cost to the courts
which are lawful but apart from these costs there exists additional prohibitive cost that
includes payment to the policemen in form of bribes for obtaining document, copies of
deposition and beneficiaries in favour of the prison staff for favours. This demotivates
economically weaker section of the people from gaining justice as they barely have an access
to the livelihood. The Law Commission of India12 also concurs with fact that judicial
process involves high cost. The cost of arbitration in which the retired judges act as the
arbitrator, Supreme court was of the view point that cost of arbitration is high and parties fell
aggrieved by the cost13.
STRICT AND LENGTHY PROCEDURAL PROCESS
There are several cases in India which happen to continue for over about more than ten to
fifteen years but because of simple reason of complicated rules according which the Indian
Judiciary work. The judicial process involved in both civil and criminal cases are
comprehensively extensive and time consuming. The ongoing research project by the
Ministry of Law, Government of India and Judicial Academy, Jharkhand in all district of the
state of Jharkhand, the reasons of delay in the steps involved in the criminal cases 14 is very
much evident that the changes are required in the existing rules.
CONCLUSION
The presence of justice may have significantly increased or may be in the midst of some
positives but when it comes to actual life scenario, Justice would be true in its sense when
there wouldnt be any aggrieved citizens whos there to condemn the judicial system for any
bottlenecks.

12 222nd Report, Law Commission, April 2009.

13 Union of India v. M/S Singh Syndicate, 2009 (4) SCALE 491
14 Jajharkhand.in/updts/pdf/19_05_15_noti_rsch.pdf