The reported determination of Union law minister Dr. Veerappa Moily to clean up the augean stables of the country’s justice system — characterised by the world’s largest judicial backlog of 30 million cases pending in the nation’s moribund, crumbling courts of law, and the over 2.43 lakh citizens crowded into filthy, inadequate prisons countrywide awaiting trial — is overdue and welcome. According to media reports, the minister is determined to quickly construct 5,000 courtrooms, staff them with an equivalent number of judges and run three shifts in the subordinate courts to reduce the pendency of cases to one year, against 12-15 years currently.
Whether this statement of intent will be translated into actual action remains to be seen. Yet it is an important first step towards sweeping reforms required in the country’s archaic legal system which is exacting a heavy toll in terms of sheer human misery, and costing the economy heavily because of unenforceablity of contracts.
Yet if there is apprehension within the collective mind of the informed public about whether the minister’s reformist zeal will translate into action, it is stirred by the awareness that substantial monetary investment will be required to augment and repair the judicial infrastructure. Therefore there is every likelihood that the cash-strapped Union and state governments which are running massive budgetary deficits won’t give this subject the priority it deserves. The reality that a sound, functional justice delivery system cannot be built on small change needs to be squarely confronted. For example, in Britain the price paid by government to maintain that country’s excellent judicial system is equivalent to 4 percent of GDP (cf. India’s 0.43 percent). And whereas the US and Britain have 107 and 55 judges per million population respectively, India has a mere 10.5. Moreover shamefully, stringent court fees are payable by litigants filing civil suits in this country, in effect a tax for justice delivery. Also despite widespread poverty and indigence, the Indian legal system makes hardly any provision for legal aid, particularly in civil litigation cases. Little wonder that courts of law, which ideally should be respected institutions delivering speedy and affordable justice, are abhorred and feared, and increasingly being sidelined by extra-judicial forums of vigilante justice.
However it is pertinent to bear in mind that important as is the role of government in implementing judicial reforms, the primary onus is on the bench and bar — judges and lawyers — to clean up and streamline the justice delivery system so that it is respected rather than feared, by the citizenry. The higher judiciary which has recently been rocked by charges of corruption, needs to proactively improve the system of selecting, vetting and appointing judges, and practitioners at the bar (lawyers) who have consistently opposed and/or ignored procedural reforms — written arguments, limited adjournments, fewer appeals, double shifts etc — need to transform into a pressure group for judicial reform. Unfortunately the legal profession — bench and bar — seems blissfully unaware that it is inexorably sliding into a morass. Dr. Moily’s reformist zeal presents it with another opportunity to infuse pith and substance into a long-delayed and much needed initiative.
Clearing the decks for foreign universities
Reports emanating from Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi, that a liberal new Foreign Educators Providers Bill has been drafted and is being circulated within the country’s top academics for comment, offers renewed hope that quality higher education will become accessible to India’s much-neglected youth in the near future. This legitimate expectation is being fuelled by statements made by Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal to the effect that approved foreign universities establishing campuses in India will be subject to rules and regulations applicable to deemed and private universities, which currently enjoy considerable autonomy from the plethora of government bureaucrats and regulatory organisations such as the University Grants Commission and All India Council for Technical Education.
Quite obviously, the more respectable foreign universities — which even if they are not-for-profit institutions tend to be financially autonomous and self-sustaining — cannot be expected to construct and establish capital-intensive, high quality campuses and risk their carefully nurtured brand images if they are subject to the gamut of irrational laws and regulations relating to admission of students of various categorisations (merit, non-merit, management and reserved), in over 300 Central and state government-sponsored universities and estimated 10,000 undergraduate colleges across the country. The overwhelming majority of them charge (government stipulated) tuition fees which are a fraction of the actual cost of education and are obliged to reserve almost half their capacity for students of scheduled castes, tribes, and OBCs (other backward castes/classes). Moreover their syllabuses have to be approved by UGC and/or AICTE.
Unsurprisingly, this regime of controls and regulation has made all but the most desperate foreign universities and higher education providers, wary of making large scale investment in bricks-and-mortar campuses in India. By announcing his intent to equate top-ranked foreign universities in India with the country’s 125 private and/or deemed universities which enjoy considerable freedom in matters relating to admission, fees and are not obliged to reserve quotas for minorities, Kapil Sibal has addressed their worst fears and smoothed the path for them to establish sophisticated bricks-and-mortar campuses on a par with their parent institutions abroad.
Certainly, rapid multiplication of quality universities and colleges is urgently required. Despite contemporary India boasting 525 million citizens below age 25, only 11 percent or 10 million of the country’s youth in the age group 18-24, are enrolled in higher education. Quite clearly this small number accessing higher education is insufficient to meet the requirements of one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Therefore the move to clear the decks for the entry of foreign universities offering high quality tertiary education, is as overdue as it is welcome. The challenge before the minister is to confront the volley of objections from Left intellectuals and vested interests which will inevitably follow.