Law Minister Veerappa Moily has recently released the National Litigation Policy of India (NLPI). It has many good legal and judicial reforms ideas. From avoiding unnecessary litigation by governmental departments to use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism, the NLPI is full of great ideas.However, the NLPI is also deficient when it comes to use of information and communication technology (ICT) for legal and judicial purposes. The NLPI lacks ICT impetus as it failed to address the issues like e-courts and online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism as means of speedy and effective dispute resolutions.
Further, in the absence of political will, India also cannot be a global arbitration hub. The absence of political will would also jeopardise the NLPI and the same may remains as mere words.
Moily is working really hard in the direction of legal and judicial reforms and all he need is accomplishment of the tasks assigned in NLPI. Further, he must also have a pro active approach towards use of ICT for legal and judicial purposes.
Moily must insist upon time bound achievements regarding crucial projects like e-courts and ODR. There is also an emergent need of techno legal trainings of police officers, lawyers, judges, court staffs, etc.
Let us hope that Moily would pay attention to all these crucial aspects so that legal and judicial reforms can be a reality in India.
