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Almost everyone agrees that India’s political system is in desperate need of overhauling. To handle this massive task, we must dive deep into the reasons for the inefficiency of public institutions. Litigation is one such reason, and government litigation constitutes nearly half of all litigation in the Indian judiciary. It is commonly acknowledged that litigation may impede bureaucratic systems, but hardly any attempts have been made to resolve the issue.
This article provides context for the program by introducing the idea of the National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010, as a possible obstacle. The study evaluates the literature on the current debates and strategies to cope with the difficulties.
National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010
National Litigation Policy (NLP) was created in 2010 to assist the government in becoming a responsible and efficient litigator and defending people’s fundamental rights.
In its 126th report, based on the Government and Public Sector Undertaking Litigation Policy and Strategies, the Law Commission of India initially highlighted the need for a mechanism to resolve litigants in government-related issues to reduce the judicial load.
This recommendation was approved by the Ministry of Law and Justice in 2009, creating the first stage of a National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010 for a reasonable method of resolving government disputes and guaranteeing responsible litigation on behalf of the central and state governments.
The amendments in 2015 addressed the flaws in the National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010. Various states have their own government litigation policy.
In 2017 the government introduced the “Action Plan to Reduce Government Litigation”. Although whether this Action Plan is achieving its aim is unclear.
Why Did NLP 2010 Fail?
To understand why did NLP 2010 fail, let’s look at the following factors:
Legal proceedings involve a large amount of money, which grows with the length of time. For government-related litigation, the expenses are funded by the public funds (taxpayer’s money). In the end, prolonged government litigation amounts to the waste of taxpayers’ funds.
A high volume of government litigation burdens the courts in India with an unnecessary workload hindering the efficiency of the courts and slowing the process of delivering justice to all citizens of the country.
When different agencies of government file lawsuits against each other, the efficiency of these departments suffers. Departments have to halt the discussion on the development of different policies that will ultimately impact the country’s people.
If the country’s government is always involved in legal feuds, then the fundamentals of a welfare state are challenged, thereby obstructing the work of a democratic country.
The Need for a Comprehensive National Litigation Policy
Government litigation constitutes nearly half of all litigation in the Indian judiciary. Based on the information gathered in 2016, the number of government litigation cases pending in the supreme court was around 60,750. High courts were weighed down with approximately 40 lakh cases of government litigations. The number of cases pending in district and subordinate courts was 2.74 million.
The Railway Department has 66,685 cases, of which 10,464 are pending for over 10 years. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has the lowest number of cases.
Way Forward
As we’ve noted in the past, the proclamation of the National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010 failed due to a lack of implementation along with other reasons. The necessity for the country to adopt a robust policy is essential. The following changes in the National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010 might help :
The National Litigation Policy should address the three stages of a dispute: pre-litigation, litigation, and post-litigation. It will help government agencies resolve issues more methodically. When this occurs, the case backlog will be substantially less.
The National Litigation Policy should reduce government-related litigation and offer a logical way to handle government concerns and legal disputes.
The National Litigation Policy should support the design and implementation of Alternative Disagreement Resolution by the government, reducing the inclination of the federal government to utilise the courts in every dispute.
Conclusion
The government must actively work towards reducing the workload of the courts. The government needs to ensure that the judicial system functions efficiently so that justice can be served to the country’s citizens. Government litigation constitutes nearly half of all litigation in the Indian judiciary, which might interfere with the work of the courts. Creating dispute resolution facilitated through speed court mechanisms like tribunals might help in reducing the number of active cases. Implementation of the National Litigation Policy (NLP), 2010, as soon as possible will assist the executive and the judiciary in working smoothly.
