We need to be all very concerned of the fact that in a small State like Goa there is a very huge pendency of cases in various Courts across the State including the High Court.
A mountain of cases are dragging and remain pending which includes a very huge pendency for over a decade and the pile up even involves cases pertaining to Senior Citizens, for many of whom Justice eludes and evades in their life span. This utter sorry state of affairs is untenable as justice delayed is justice denied.
After coming to power in March 2012 the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar amongst a bundle of other assurances had vowed that it would be the endeveaour of his government to bring down to half the number of pending Court litigations involving the government. But nothing whatsoever was done in that direction. It should also be the sincere intent of the government to bring down the escalating government expenditure on litigations on account of government decisions being taken without proper application of mind.
Every government move should be legally sound and strictly within the framework of law. But less said the better, with the despicable caliber of some of our law makers on whose account our Goa is further sinking by the day.
Rajendra Menon, the retiring Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court has said that until and unless we are able to deliver timely justice to the citizens, the faith in the system may erode and if such a thing happens, it would be a disaster for the democratic system of this country, while expressing concern over the huge dependency of cases and long delays in their disposal.
In a tiny state like Goa, this unacceptable backlog of cases is a clear failure of both the legislature and the judiciary. Both have a duty and owe a responsibility towards the citizens and are bound by the mandate of the Constitution to dispense justice to the last man in the queue in a timely and honest way.
