(source-andhrajyothi)

(source-saakshi)

Alternative Dispute Resolution, preferred mode of settlement- Dr. Veerappa Moily, India will be the most preferred destination for Alternative Dispute Resolution

Law and Justice Minister, Dr. Veerappa Moily has said that Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR, will be the preferred mode of settlement of disputes in the future. India is spearheading the ADR movement and has caught up the attention of Courts in the country. He said, India is in the process of amending the Act of 1966 and a very comprehensive consultations have taken place at different parts of the country involving all the stakeholders. The endeavour is to make India the most preferred destination for ADR.

Inaugurating the International Conference on Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR – Conciliation and Mediation organised by International Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution in New Delhi, he said there are 52592 cases pending in the Supreme Court, 3955224 cases in High Courts and 26752193 cases in subordinate courts. To reduce pendency of cases in courts ADR would work as a key tool. He said, towards this endeavour, the legal services authorities’ act 1987 has been amended from time to time to facilitate use of ADR methods. Amendent to Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure in 2002 is to introduce conciliation, mediation and pre-trial settlement methodologies for effective resolution of dispute. The Minister said, ADR centres are already functioning at Delhi, Madras, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana High Courts.

The ICADR has been trying to spread awareness regarding settlement of disputes, commercial or otherwise, through Arbitration, Conciliation and Mediation outside the Courts. It has from time to time organized several Seminars, Conferences, Workshops, Training programmes and Educational Prgrammes to popularize and propagate ADR all over India. The conference was attended by H.E.
Dr. H.R. Bhardwaj, Governor of Karnataka and Chairman, ICADR, T.K. Viswanathan, Secretary General, Lok Sabha and member, Governing Council, ICADR. Supreme Court judges Hon’ble Mr. Justice Cyriac Joseph, Mr. Justice Deepak Verma, Mr. Justice Dalveer Bhadari, Mr. Justice Swatanter Kumar also attended the conference. The U.S. was represented by Mr. Richard W. Naimark, Senior Vice President , American Arbitration Association.
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(source-lawyer club of india)

SC TO LAWYERS Dont drag cases, look for mediation

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked advocates to follow Mahatma Gandhi and persuade their clients not to go in for litigation and instead resolve the disputes through arbitration & mediation. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra said court cases drag on for years ruining both parties.Lawyers should advise their clients to try for mediation for resolving disputes,especially where family and business relationships are involved, it said.The Bench asked two brothers, BSKrishna Murthy and B S Nagaraj, who had appealed in the highest court,to appear before Bangalore Mediation Centre for a fresh shot at settlement.A few passages of Mahatma Gandhis book My Experiments With Truth on the futility of litigation impressed the Bench.It quoted Gandhi The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases.I lost nothing thereby not even money,certainly not my soul. The Bench pointed out that this was also the purpose of Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The provision in the code says: Where it appears to the court that there exist elements of a settlement which may be acceptable to the parties,the court shall formulate the terms of settlement and give them to the parties for their observations and after receiving the observation of the parties,the court may reformulate the terms of a possible settlement and refer the same for arbitration,judicial settlement including settlement through Lok Adalat.
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(source-TOI)

Law Ministry's draft proposal for right to justice ready to be sent to cabinet

Amidst its keenness to tackle the menace of corruption in an expeditious manner, the Law Ministry has sought opinion of various ministries on the proposed Lokpal Bill. "There is absolute clarity. (There is) no confusion," Law Minister M Veerappa Moily told reporters in New Delhi when asked about the fate of the Lokpal Bill. He said the draft legislation has been circulated to various ministries to elicit their opinion. However, he did not speak further on the issue saying it was now under the consideration of the Group of Ministers recently set up to consider various administrative and legislative measures to deal with corruption in high places.
While underlining the government's keenness to tackle the problem of corruption, Moily said Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia has recently written to the Chief Justices of all the High Courts to fast-track such cases. The government recently demonstrated its seriousness to take steps against corruption when it formed the GoM. The terms of reference include relinquishing of discretionary powers enjoyed by the union ministers, State funding of elections, ensuring full transparency in public procurement and contracts and enunciation of a new public procurement policy and introduction of open and competitive system of exploiting natural resources.

Moily said the government is working to enact a law to make right to justice a fundamental right for Indian citizens. "We (the law ministry) are already working on a system to make right to justice a fundamental right. We need to have efficient legal system in the country to achieve inclusive growth. I will try to work on the system where we could have an efficient band of lawyers to provide aid especially to the weaker section of the society," he said adding that bill was being readied by his ministry.

Referring to the National Litigation Policy, he said states have been asked to frame their own litigation measures on the lines of the national policy."The new policy is expected to reduce average pendency time of cases from 15 years to 3 years," he said, adding that it focuses on core issues like managing and conducting litigation in a cohesive manner. The policy also ensures that "bad cases" are not needlessly pursued while "good cases" are won. Several thousands of cases are pending in courts where government employees, both serving and retired, have challenged decisions of their departments with regard to promotions and benefits.
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(Source-DD News)

Pendency of cases will be curtailed from 15 to 3 years says Dr. Veerappa Moily. Under E-Courts projects timeline has been drawn for computerisation of courts - Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 will be amended to make India an international hub

The Ministry of of Law and Justice embarked on a Mission Mode Programme for Delivery of Justice and Legal Reforms. Addressing a Press conference here today Minister of Law and Justice, Dr. M. Veerappa Moily said, under this umbrella, various plans to curtail the pendency in the Courts from the present 15 years to 3 years have been drawn and are at various stage of implementation. One of the programmes which has been successfully implemented in this direction is the consideration of the cases of the under trials who were not only languishing in the jail without their cases being taken up but were also straining the capacity of the jails. He said, with a Mission Mode Programme which started on 26th January to 31st July last year, cases of over 2.5 lakh under trials, out of an estimated 3 lakh under trails were decided. Sh. Moily said, the programme has not ended on 31st July but is continuing. On this occasion a booklet containing the innovations that have been brought in during the past one and half years and vision ahead was also released. The Minister stated under E-Courts project, computerisation of courts has been approved. Timeline has been revised to March 2012 for computerizing 12000 courts and March 2014 for the remaining 2249 courts.

Sh. Moily further stated that his Ministry wants to bring comprehensive amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1966 in order to make arbitration more popular make India as a hub of inter-national arbitration and overcome problems due to certain judgements of Supreme Court and High Courts. In addition, the Ministry has convened national consultations at various places wherein all the stakeholders like Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, legal experts, advocates and representatives of the arbitration institutions.
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(source-PIB)

Netas defraud India thanks to spineless babus - Civil Services Survey Shows How,For Officers,It Pays To Be Corrupt

A recent survey commissioned by Centre confirmed what has been suspected for long. The admission, by civil servants themselves, is that political corruption happens only because some bureaucrats collaborate with the political leaders. Corrupt officers get the most soughtafter postings and also get away without being punished,admitted the babus. Also highlighting that honesty does not pay,the first ever Civil Services Survey-2010 revealed that clean officers get harassed through baseless complaints and investigations.The survey was conducted by the Centre for Good Governance,Hyderabad, in collaboration with AC Nielsen ORG-MARG at the behest of the Union ministry of personnel.It was conducted between August 2009 and April 2010.

That bureaucrats play a key role in political corruption and it pays to be corrupt was endorsed by 80%  of the babus who were surveyed.In all,of the total 18,432 officers belonging to 10 select services such as IAS,IPS,IA&AS,IRS,IFS,IFoS,IPoS,IRPS,IRTS and IRS (TT),4,808 officers responded to the survey. The questionnaire given to them elicited the insiders perception on 11 areas such as job satisfaction, work environment,work-life balance,integrity,and discrimination etc.Perhaps trying to score a point over their cadre rivals,93.1 per cent of the IPS officers claimed that political corruption happens because there are always willing civil servants to collaborate.In the IAS,87.5 per cent agreed with this view while 80 per cent of IFS officers felt so.In the revenue service,74 per cent of the officers concurred with this view.
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YES MINISTER

The survey was conducted by the Centre for Good Governance,Hyderabad,in collaboration with AC Nielsen ORG-MARG at the behest of the Union ministry of personnel  Of the 18,432 officers belonging to 10 services such as IAS,IPS,IA&AS,IRS,IFS,IFoS,IPoS,IRPS,IRTS and IRS (TT),4,808 officers responded to the survey.The questionnaire given to them elicited an insiders perception on 11 areas such as job satisfaction,integrity,harassment
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Corrupt officials get plum posts


On the perception that corrupt officers manage plum postings,84.4 per cent of IPS men agreed with it while it was 75 pc among IAS officers.With regard to corrupt officers getting away unpunished,79 pc IPS officers agreed while 60 pc IAS officers seconded it. Political interference has been widely cited as a major reason for the poor performance of the services.Though the survey did not cover this issue explicitly,influence of political considerations in various aspects of administration was brought out through the comments offered by a number of civil servants.Lure of post-retirement assignments is a major reason for spinelessness of senior civil servants, says the report.

Officers remarked that discrimination is rampant based on caste,religion,region and service.Some women officers stated that there definitely is a glass ceiling and that female officers are denied good service postings.The survey shows that women officers are posted in development sector and not given postings in departments that deal with infrastructure,power etc. Regarding the disparity between officers belonging to the IAS and other services,most non-IAS respondents considered it unfair to perpetuate the entry-level advantage of IAS officers for the entire duration of their service spanning two to three decades, the report added.Many non-IAS respondents resented the IAS hegemony in all senior positions in government,which gave them the authority to undertake cadre management and planning of all services.While each service has its own perception about corruption,the views expressed by the members of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) are a bit interesting.Among the services dealing with revenue collection,to derail an honest assessing officer by making anonymous complaint against him is reportedly a common practice.
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(source-toi)

Why prior nod must for probe against top babus: SC To Decide On Single Directive Which Says CBI Must Get Prior Nod To Probe Against Officers Of Jt Secretary & Above

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to go ahead and test the constitutional validity of the controversial seven-year-old single directive provision that prevents CBI from probing corruption charges against officers of joint secretary rank and above without the Centres prior consent. This clarification came from a five-judge constitution Bench,which practically brushed aside the Centres assertion that it was in the process of reviewing the single directive provision in the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act. Right at the beginning of the hearing,additional solicitor-general Vivek Tankha informed the Bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices M K Sharma,K S Radhakrishnan,Swatanter Kumar and A R Dave that the government had referred Section 6A of DSPE Act to an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) for a comprehensive review.

When did you refer it to the EGoM was the prompt question from the Bench.Tankha said that it was done three days back.The Bench said: So,the matter was referred when the petition was listed for hearing before the Supreme Court. Without wasting time on the timing of the governments decision to review the single directive,the Bench asked amicus curiae senior advocates Anil Divan and A K Panda to proceed with the arguments on the petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy challenging the validity of Section 6A. It resulted in digging of a lot of dirt relating to the Rs 1,418-crore loan scam involving Indian Bank,its chairman and managing director and the latters alleged proximity to Tamil Maanila Congress leaders to stick on to the post despite opposition from then finance minister Manmohan Singh.

Not interested in going into past and political link-ups,the Bench again came up with a clarification, We will decide only the validity of section 6A of DSPE Act and rest of the related matters mentioned in the petition,if necessary for further adjudication,will go before a regular Bench. Interestingly, Divan narrated how the apex court in the Vineet Narain judgment,on December 18,1997,had struck down an administrative avataar of the single directive.He said the government in 1998 came up with a modified version saying that officers of joint secretary rank and above could not be investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act without prior permission of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). But,this was again shot down by then Attorney General when the SC questioned the motive behind it.Finally,it was the NDA government which brought it in through an amendment to the DSPE Act.
Further,the amicus curiae said that the defence of the government then was that if the judges of the higher judiciary enjoyed a similar protection,as enumerated in the Veeraswamy judgment,why deprive the higher bureaucracy of protection from harassment.
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SC rings in paradigm shift in telecom arena


The Supreme Courts issue of notices to 11 telcos,DoT (department of telecom) and telecom regulator Trai on Monday is expected to have major ramifications on the telecom landscape.The SC notice is in response to a fresh PIL filed by Prashant Bhushan,seeking recovery of lost revenue and cancellation of licences in addition to his earlier petition seeking supervision of the CBI probe of the 2G scam. In normal circumstances,the DoT,which had issued show cause notices to erring companies,would have received replies from them,which were either allegedly ineligible for 2G licences or those that failed to meet their rollout obligations or both.These replies would then have been evaluated by DoT,which would then reach its own conclusions on whether these were correct or not, a DoT official told TOI.

This is a bilateral process where DoT uses its discretionary powers under licence conditions to judge every reply without any involvement of a third party. However,after the SC notices,all the show cause notices and the replies filed by the companies will become a matter of open discussion and evaluation by the SC. This outcome suits the petitioners perfectly since they do not trust the DoT to make final decisions on the matter behind closed doors.DoT has already been accused of collusion with private operators by the CAG in section 4.6.3 of its report as well as criminal conspiracy in the CBI FIR.

So,what would have been a closed exchange between DoT and private operators,is now in front of the Supreme Court,with the DoT fending for itself,telcos having to explain why they should not be acted against and Trai having to prove why the licences deserve to be cancelled. With this,the prospect of penalties and cancellations has become far stronger than if the normal process of DoT evaluating such replies had been followed.The court will also see at least 14 lawyers fighting it out for various clients all in bid to defend their actions or lack of. Additionally,the DoT will now be busy defending its failure to adhere to its statutory obligation to issue these show cause notices in time,which it was duty-bound to do without prompting by the Trai.

The telcos will also have to face the bench and explain why their licences should not be cancelled,rather than have DoT decide the merits of their reply.Moreover,Trai will have no option but to defend its letter of November 15,2010 recommending cancellation of licences,which now pitches the regulator against private telcos in the open court.
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Rape charges against impotent BSP MLA found true

Lucknow: The BSP MLA from Naraini in Banda,Purshottum Naresh Dwivedi,who had claimed impotence on account of diabetes has been found guilty of raping a minor girl.The CB-CID team,which investigated the allegations against the MLA,has found all the charges against him to be prima facie true. According to sources,the charges levelled by the victim before the probe panel include gang rape,torture,illegal confinement,arrest on false charges of burglary and subsequent recovery of stolen goods which were planted on her. Senior officials sent the report back with instructions to add details about the role of local cops,jail officials and doctors,who allegedly connived with the MLA,in order to provide a clear picture of the sequence of events.
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(source-toi)

Kerala Bar demands inquiry against ex-CJI

Thiruvananthapuram: Adding to the woes of NHRC chairman K G Balakrishnan,the Bar Council of Kerala on Sunday adopted a resolution demanding comprehensive probe into the charges against the ex-Chief Justice of India. A general body meeting of the BCK held in Kochi unanimously resolved to appeal to the President of India to order a comprehensive inquiry into the allegations which have risen against K G Balakrishnan and other family members, council chairman advocate Jayarajan K said.

The inquiry, he said, should cover all aspects as would be necessary to restore the faith of the people in the judiciary,he said. Why we took it seriously is because the Chief Justice of India is the highest judicial officer in the country. It is not a simple matter that fingers have been pointed at a person who once decorated the high office.As a statutory body,we felt it was our duty to call upon those responsible to do the needful and cleanse the legal system, Jayarajan said.

The move comes close on the heels of similar resolutions passed by the bar associations of Kozhikode,Thrissur and Chavakkad.While lawyers in Kozhikode have demanded a judicial inquiry,the Thrissur Bar called for an independent inquiry to unravel the allegations against KGB,whose sons-in-law P V Sreenijan and M J Benny have been accused of amassing wealth.
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(source-toi)

HOODA GOVT HOUNDS WHISTLE-BLOWER OFFICER

Twelve transfers in five years, an illegal suspension order, a fabricated charge sheet, denial of promotion and a spoiled ACR. This is what Sanjiv Chaturvedi,a young forest service officer,was awarded by the Haryana government.His crime He unearthed a multi-crore scam involving senior officials, implemented Supreme Courts orders preventing a wildlife sanctuary from being destroyed  and stopped government money from being spent on private land of politically influential people.For three years, the PMO, state information commission,environment ministry,Central Administrative Tribunal and the cabinet secretariat tried to stop the relentless harassment of the young officer,but the Haryana chief minister B S Hoodas office paid no heed.Ministers,officials in the CMs office and senior bureaucrats continued to hound Chaturvedi at every possible chance.

Now a report prepared by two Central government officials A K Srivastava,inspector general of forests,and Shally Ranjan,assistant inspector general of forests,at the instance of the cabinet secretary has uncovered the tale of how the Haryana government hounded this whistleblower. Recommending that the Centre revoke the chargesheet against the official and provide him immediate relief,the inquiry panel has noted that the persecution was overseen by the then forest minister Kiran Chaudhary,two OSDs in Haryana CMs office,and senior state government officials. TOI first reported on his case three years ago when his victimisation and fight with corruption in the state had just begun.

The two-member committee has noted in the report that,It is a classic case of the state government itself breaching the law,protecting the violators and punishing the officer who tried to uphold the rule of law. The committee has recommended action against the then forest minister Choudhary;the then principal chief conservator of forests of Haryana J K Rawat;finance commissioner and principal secretary Keshani Anand Arora;another finance commissioner and principal secretary (Forests) H C Disodia,and the then conservator forests M M Joshi. The committee has also recommended a CBI enquiry into the roles of politicians like Chaudhary and their appointees,like the two OSDs in CM Hoodas office B R Beri and R D Sheokand.

The committee members have concluded that Chaturvedi tried to prevent destruction of the Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary by politically influential people.The committee underlines the lengths to which the Haryana authorities went to harass the IFS official.All the powers available with the vested interests in the state government,including suspension,issuing charge-sheet & keeping it pending for more than three years, frequent transfers, slapping false cases,etc. were applied on the officer. The environment ministry is now expected to take action on the report.
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(SOURCE-TOI)

NEW GUIDELINES SOON - Adoptions to get tougher

New Delhi: Hoping to tighten adoption norms in the country including verifying the source of each child placed for adoption the Central Adoption Resource Authority has proposed stringent monitoring of international and domestic adoptions.These guidelines aim to streamline the adoption process,facilitate speedy adoption of children and ensure that the source of each child is verified prior to placement for adoption. Long plagued by problems like illegal,irregular and premature adoptions,the government is making fresh attempts to bring in a comprehensive system.Amongst the immediate initiatives is establishment of a centralised dossier system for all children placed for adoption along with their details.The website Carings is expected to be launched in mid-January and can be accessed by prospective parents and authorised officials.

Women and child development minister Krishna Tirath says: The proposed guidelines are under the ministrys consideration.We are working on making the process of adoption transparent and cut down on the waiting period for parents. Other proposed guidelines include discontinuing international adoptions to countries that are not signatories to the Hague convention on child protection with the exception of Indian nationals living in non-Hague ratified countries.The government is also looking at cutting down the number of children placed for international adoptions from 50% to 20% of the total number of children.At present,agencies can place equal number of children for domestic and international adoptions.

The guidelines also propose norms for children with special needs to ensure more efficient placements and will make it mandatory that orphan,abandoned and surrendered children be allowed to be adopted internationally under the Juvenile Justice Act. Sources said, a majority of children are adopted under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) and Guardianship and Wards Act (GAWA).
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CARA mulls post-adoption monitoring

This means that an adopted child is only a ward and does not have legal rights until specifically granted these by the guardian or adopted parent.To bridge this lacunae,postadoption monitoring is may be strengthened with follow-up in domestic adoptions for 2 years,and for international adoptions till such time as the child is given legal rights.Other measures are setting up a fixed deposit of $5,000 for a repatriated child in case the adoption is disrupted.

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(source-toi)

(source-saakshi