 When I invite the special guest of honor of this session, the public policy advocate, international corporate and commissioner's lawyer, and vice president of Saqla and the special TV host guest anchor at Sunset TV. It is indeed our honor and privilege to welcome the special guest of honor, advocate Hemanth Bhattraji. But before I invite advocate Hemanth Bhattraji to address the gathering, I would like to request my technical team to please delay a small film made on life and work of advocate Hemanth Bhattraji. Advocate Hemanth Bhattra is a globally recognized lawyer with almost 30 years of experience in the areas of constitutional, civil, criminal, corporate, commercial and transactional laws, as well as laws dealing with the white-collared and economic offenses. His experience ranges from policy formulation, legislation and regulations drafting to preparing global reports on diverse subjects complemented by hands-on legal advisory and law practices in these areas at transnational level and domestically in India. He is qualified with professional degrees as well as official certificate courses. He has achieved a first-class score through his academic career. He has obtained distinctions in diverse subjects. He is an elected lifetime member of the General Assembly of the Union of International Association, a research institute and documentation center based in Brussels. He was appointed chairperson of IICLAM International Infrastructure and Construction Law Arbitration Moot. It was founded by National University of Singapore, Singapore International Arbitration Center and National Law University, Delhi. He was appointed to the leadership committee of ICAAP by the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. We warmly welcome Advocate Hemanth Bhattra. Indeed, so it is our honor and privilege to have you here today. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Honorable Justice Deepak Mishra, former Chief Justice of India and other justices on the panel. Dr. Lalit Basin, one of our senior leaders at the bar, notable dignitaries, Professor Karad, Rahul Karad, distinguished guests, teaching staff, students, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me immense pleasure being part of this inaugural session of the first International Symposium on Law and Peace, organized by the MIT World Peace Institutions University. I've been asked to address the gathering on the topic regarding reforms required in the judiciary and the time slot allocated to me is about 15 minutes. So I'll get straight to the topic as time is short and brief. If I was to say this from the perspective of a lawyer because lawyers love their voices, but here there are defined timelines, so I'll respect that. Let us first discuss broadly as to why are reforms required at all in the society. Let me begin by quoting William O. Douglas, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 20th century. He said that the search for static security in the law and elsewhere is misguided. The fact is security can only be achieved through constant change. Adapting old ideas that have outlived their usefulness to the current facts. What are the current facts if one was to talk about the Indian judiciary? Well, there are about 73,000 cases pending before the Supreme Court and about 44 million cases, that is 4.4 crore cases pending in all the courts put together in India. And quoting from an online source, in 2018, Neethi Ayog had brought out a strategy paper where it was concluded that at the then prevailing rate of disposal of cases in our courts, it would take more than 324 years to clear the backlog. 324 years to clear the backlog. And the pendency at that time was 29 million cases and today it is almost the double. Now cases that had been in the courts for more than 30 years numbered more than 65,000 to be precise 65,695 in December 2018. By January 2021, which is this year, it had risen more than 60% to 1 lakh plus cases pending for more than 30 years. Now what do these facts and statistics demonstrate? Well, it demonstrates that something is seriously wrong somewhere. And we must acknowledge it with all honesty, candidness and magnanimity. We won't become small by any means by this sincere confession. Now before suggesting the kinds of reforms required in the Indian judiciary, let me first compliment the Indian judiciary with all genuineness. And Justice Deepak Mishra has been one of the best example, I would say, in our justice dispensation. Our system of governance is based on the separation of powers with a concept of checks and balances. Legislature makes laws and public policies whereas the executive enforces it and both these organs have enormous powers and wide domain of public dealings and administration. These powers and mandates make them vulnerable and susceptible to excesses or if I may say unrestrained exercise of authority, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Judiciary in India has played a significant role since India's independence as a custodian of the constitution of India and the rule of law. They have constantly checked the other organs of the governance and I'm sure Justice Deepak Mishra will touch upon that because when he was heading the Supreme Court we have had some landmark judgments in that regard. The judiciary has overwhelmingly prevented excesses and breaches of the fundamental rights, human rights and laws. Now having said that somewhere I feel that judiciary could not, I would not say did not could not reform itself as much as was the need of the time and society. The judiciary obviously cannot survive in vacuum it must change and recast itself so as to meet the changing norms and values of the society. Lack of reforms stifle growth because separation of powers in India is not a model of watertight chambers. Lack of reforms in one organ of governance causes collateral damage and dampens overall development of a nation. Let me now quickly touch upon the kinds of reforms which can be rapidly introduced in the judicial dispensation. This is my thought process. I am not a very active litigation lawyer but from a public policy perspective. First and foremost the reform which has been effectively suggested and mooted even by the current Chief Justice of India Honorable Chief Justice Ramanna is about mediation that the reform is about introducing an effective system of alternative dispute resolution. I am not talking about arbitration nor was he to my understanding. I am talking about conciliatory mediation. Before filing any dispute or case in a court of law or tribunal one must mandatory make a professional and legitimate an authentic endeavor to resolve the conflict or dispute amicably by mediation. In many developed countries of the world which I have even recorded in one of my books in many developed countries of the world including Australia the lawyer who files the case must also sign a declaration with the case as a prerequisite that he or she has made all possible efforts to resolve and settle the dispute before filing the case and the lawyer can be reprimanded by the court reprimanded by the court if the declaration is found to be false or misleading. Now second reform is about usage of technology and this reform has also been strongly propagated by another judge of the Supreme Court one of the senior most judges of the Supreme Court Dhananjay Chandra Chul he has been propagating about introducing technology in the dispensation of justice and definitely technology is a rapid reform as well because I feel there are many reforms one can talk about which I can think of myself but we have to discuss the ones which can be executed rapidly or swiftly I mean if I was to tell you that let us invest hugely in the judicial civil infrastructure like having more and more court rooms and buildings and chambers I feel that would in the Indian context take years and years together to have that kind of infrastructure in place and here I am reminded of a French poet and novelist Victor Hugo many of you would have read that very famous phrase of his which goes as nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come that holds very true in today's time for technology and not only technology I would say even artificial intelligence both of these aspects of technology they are unstoppable now and there is nothing wrong in it I feel artificial intelligence has been subject matter of discussion, debate, criticism as well but it is born out of natural intelligence artificial intelligence has not come out of the space that has been created by human intelligence so why can't petty disputes and issues like traffic violations cases of small consumer disputes conflicts or refunds from service providers can be settled by artificial intelligence why not I mean you put in the details in an automated form and matter gets instantly resolved if our income tax returns can get scrutinized by software and artificial intelligence which is financially sort of a complicated structure or phenomena then why not introduce some similar segments of judicial dispensation I am talking about smaller conflicts and disputes which are quite sort of run of the mill and easy to resolve I would not like to touch the debate about the faceless adjudication because that is something which will take a lot of time to discuss and can be kept for some other day I am not too much in favor of faceless adjudication of serious disputes globally talking about companies they have resorted to ODR online dispute resolution for instance eBay, PayPal and ICANN they are the front runners in online dispute resolutions eBay's ODR system is a high volume ODR process that addresses disputes from a system perspective angle eBay handles over 60 million disputes every year through their online dispute resolution system and predominantly disputes are like items have not been received or items have not been received as described or the items are unpaid and so on, these are regular disputes but solving 6 crore disputes every year now related to technology is the point and reform regarding online and virtual hearings and we have seen during COVID times virtual hearings, online hearings and most people have embraced it with open mind, it's a global phenomenon now and we all have come so close to one another through this medium of virtuality I am addressing an event in Pune while sitting in Delhi that is productivity and efficiency that's big convenience I would say and we need a big number of new judges to be appointed undoubtedly but why not engage judges on contractual terms why can't we have law professors senior lawyers and even former judges adjudicating matters for instance respected Justice Deepak Mishra is so active even today why can't he still continue to hold court and if not the physical virtual court, why can't he hold virtual court because it is not easy to find judges of his stature and with his caliber why are we wasting such judges and another reform which comes to my mind is about training of judges and training of judges by the academicians and by law teachers with regard to precy writing of the judgements today we find judgements which are thesis in itself you need 10 sets of lawyers to interpret that judgment you know we need to exercise compression in judgements you know judgment should be written like a gist why do judgements lay out such long chronology etc they can be made annexures the chronology or the written submissions why do we have to record all those in the judgment just put them as annexures and your verdict should be maybe 2-3 pages that's it and we should not need lawyers to explain these judgements to litigants you know litigants should be able to just go through the judgment and understand you know we don't need to use Shakespearean English in our judgment you know because we know a person who is sitting on the bench he has to be a learned brilliant analytical and a person of judicious mind so we all have to have faith in our judges when we will have faith trust and confidence in our judges even if they will give a 2 page or 3 page order we will respect that you know we will value that so that reform also will need to come not only vis-a-vis judiciary but also people who are using the judicial system they also need a lot of orientation you can't just go on criticising judgements sweepingly we all need to trust the judiciary now this I feel is an important reform so I will be by and large closing my address now there are several other reforms you know if you go through research papers you know people talk about decriminalisation of regulatory offences and more there are lot many reforms but I think time is short and perhaps we will keep other reforms for some other time as professor Karad said that why don't you people visit so maybe when we get an occasion to visit we can physically we can sort of you know we will have more time to interact with the students so I will close my address by quoting Lou Wallace a famous American lawyer a famous diplomat and politician you know he said to begin a reform to begin a reform go not go into the places of the great and rich don't go to the places of great and rich go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty go to the poor and humble they are the ones who need reforms thank you so much God bless all of you thank you justice Deepak Mishra it's great to see you indeed indeed so the pleasure was all ours thank you very much for taking time thank you advocate Bhatraj I think you really passionately shared your mind and this is what really when we were considering the conference the truly solution based approach how do we adopt while building up this institution the first is international symposium of peace and law so I'm very very thankful you give so many ideas I think we can pursue it together you are already at important position there and various international bodies and we at our center here at the educational group many such activities we are doing and our education system is always particularly private institutions they shy away the academy also carry little fear of you know our political system social system they generally never comment like the western world we all have to really learn that we we can really make a difference as a change makers thank you so much for all that wonderful input thank you