A former Indian Supreme Court president said he would not go to the country’s highest court with his complaints because he would have to wait indefinitely for a verdict, a comment that reveals the country’s clogged legal system.
“You want a savings of $ 5 trillion, but you have a ruined judiciary,” said Ranjan Gogoi, who retired as the country’s chief justice in November 2019 and is now a member of the upper house of parliament. Gogoi was speaking at a event organized by India Today Group, a news network.
Gogoi’s comments calling for a review of the judiciary’s capacity and effectiveness highlight India’s problems with delayed verdicts and contract enforcement. Judicial systems in Asia’s third largest economy are congested with more than 43 million cases and the lack of judges means that some cases can take years, even decades, to find a solution. Companies that invest in India face difficulties when they get involved in a legal dispute.
Photographer: Anupam Nath / AP Photo
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Only companies, willing to risk their millions of rupees, go to the Federal Supreme Court, he said. “If you were to go to court, you would just be doing your laundry in court. You will not get a verdict. I don’t hesitate to say it, ”said Gogoi.
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Gogoi made the comments in response to a question about whether he plans to sue a politician who alleged that he presided over a matter he heard accusations of. sexual harassment against him during his term as president of the court. The member also claimed that Gogoi became a parliamentarian after his retirement, after ruled in favor of Hindus who seek a religiously disputed centuries-old place and rejected an investigation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on corruption charges involving the purchase of fighter planes.