The author, who is usually very critical of the Government for its indifferent attitude to the Judiciary, is full of praise this time at the grant of Rs. 5,000 crores in the Budget for modernization of the justice delivery system. He urges that much more has to be done and makes the radical suggestion that visionaries like Sam Pitroda and Nandan Nilekani should be nominated to prepare a road map to reform the judicial process.

The Hon’ble Finance Minister pronounced: “The union Budget cannot be a mere statement of Government accounts, it has to reflect the Government’s vision and signal the policies in future”. In our editorial of AIFTP Journal for the month of March, 2008, we have made an appeal to Government to allocate a specific amount to modernisation of the institution of judiciary. We are pleased to state that in this year’s budget an amount of Rs. 5,000 crores have been provided as grants for the States to improve the justice delivery system, including strengthening of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

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