Revision as of 10:10, 20 November 2016

Cost of litigation

From the archives of The Times of India 2007, 2009

Pay Rs 45L litigation cost, HC tells tenant

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Efforts of a tenant to hold on to his rented shop by resorting to unwanted litigation proved costly as the Delhi High Court on Thursday directed him to bear all expenses of his landlord in the legal battle by coughing up a whopping Rs 45 lakh.

A bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Mukta Gupta took exception to various ‘‘indirect and calculated methods’’ adopted by Sanjeev Kumar Jain to remain in possession of a leased property after losing his case before various judicial forums in the last eight years and directed him to bear the cost incurred by his landlord.

Jain had entered into a tenancy agreement with the Raghubir Saran Charitable Trust in 1986 but on account of some dispute, he had to vacate the premises following a court order in 2003.

‘‘This appeal was persisted with for no apparent good reason. We are left with the impression that the appellant has tried everything possible to somehow or the other hold on to the shop (tenanted property) despite his physical eviction there from,’’ the court said while dismissing the appeal.

The court also took into account the facts that Jain suppressed the material facts by not filing the site plan of the property and claiming himself to be tenant when he was already evicted following a court order.

‘‘All that we need say is that the appellant has little or no regard for the truth which, to say the least, is a little unfortunate,’’ the bench said while dismissing the appeal.

Causes

76% are property & family disputes

The Times of India, Apr 26 2016

Pradeep Thakur

Property & family disputes account for 76% of litigation  Property disputes and family conflicts clog our judicial system and in a majority of cases, police detain the accused unnecessarily. These are the findings of Daksh, an NGO which analyses the performance of the judiciary . Around 66% of all cases studied are property-related litigations, and 10%, the second largest chunk, are family matters.

The other issues leading to litigation were recovery of money (8%), and permanent injunction, whereby a court orders a person or entity to take certain action or refrain from certain activities (3.4%).

The survey , involving more than 9,000 civil and crimi nal matters over 300 subordinate courts across the country , boosts the government's call for a “no detention policy“ in the near future where arrest is an exception and not the rule if an accused is available for interrogation and has honoured court summons.

In 64% of the cases, the accused was found to have been granted bail within a month of their arrest, probably since the courts did not find enough merit in keeping them behind bars. Another 14% were granted bail between one and six months. The apex court had in the past, while supporting `bail is the rule and jail is exception' theory , observed that police should refrain from arresting an accused if he or she is ready to cooperate in investigation and there is no fear that the accused would run away from clutches of the law.

During the study , spread over three months, Daksh interviewed 9,329 litigants in both civil and criminal matters from 305 lower courts in 170 districts in 24 states. The wide range of data portrays the need to correct the entire justice delivery system corroded over a period of time, which at present seems to be favouring the rich and the influential. The survey by the Bengaluru NGO was released on Saturday in the capital in presence of Justice Madan B Lokur, senior Supreme Court judge overseeing the implementation of judicial reforms in the country .

The survey also substantiates what the National Law University (NLU) -which partnered Daksh in the current survey -had found in an independent study last year.The NLU's interviews with 373 death row convicts had found that 75% of those given death penalty belonged to economically weaker sections, backward classes and religious minorities.

Many of them were sentenced to death probably be cause they couldn't defend their case because of their failure to find a competent lawyer to contest their conviction.

The current Daksh study too, points to a similar picture: around 31% of those who couldn't avail of bail was due to their inability to furnish a bail bond. In 2.8% of cases, the accused couldn't find a guarantor who could stand as surety . Surprisingly , there is no rule that prohibits the courts from releasing an undertrial where it feels detention is avoidable. The amended Section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for release of undertrials under personal bond where he is not able to furnish the bond money or surety .