The Weekly Ahead

The adversarial mode of India's civil litigation has to give way to a 'mandatory alternate dispute resolution system'

Public attention to the judicial system mostly focuses on the high courts and Supreme Court, whereas the public's overwhelming interaction is with subordinate courts in the states. The report of the first national judicial pay commission just submitted (its recommendations enjoy the same legal standing as the central pay commission's), is thus a pioneer. It seeks to standardise a bewildering array of pay scales, designations and hierarchies covering people who do the same work in different states. It aims to rationalise the pay and perks of subordinate judges with those of high court judge