Report on judicial reforms next month

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice (Rajya Sabha) will submit its interim report on judicial reforms next month.

Disclosing this here on Saturday, E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, chairman of the standing committee, said the proposed reforms included judicial accountability and introduction of judicial impact statement among others.

Judicial accountability envisages judges and courts to make annual statements on the number of cases disposed and the time taken for delivering each judgement.

The judicial impact statement is an exercise of anticipating the new cases arising out of the existing or the new legislations made by the Parliament and the state legislatures.

"We are considering a proposal according to which the departments concerned will bear the financial burden arising out of any court cases," he said.

Among other important proposals, the standing committee has also favoured bringing back the pre-1993 system in the appointment of judges where all the three wings "� judiciary, legislature and executive "� will participate in the selection process of judges, Natchiappan told the media.

He said the committee was insisting that all the public sector undertakings set up citizen charters for the speedy redressal of any grievances to the satisfaction of both the parties.