Course Description

The Indian courts have long grappled with delay. This impediment affects vindication and  enforcement of rights. While most law courses dedicate themselves to studying a branch of  law, this course will provide an opportunity for students to step back and critically assess the civil justice system as a whole. The goal of this course is to think beyond the embedded  narratives about civil justice reforms, while remaining truthful to the fundamental values of  the system, such as open justice, rule of law, and due process.

This course will be a research elective and students will submit a research paper (3000-5000  words) after the completion of the course. This course is a standalone course that will allow  students to think holistically about the civil justice system. While this is a standalone course,  it will complement the existing courses in the curriculum, including courses on civil procedure,  ADR, and access to justice. Students will learn to analyse and expand upon the principles they  have already grasped, as part of their courses on civil procedure and ADR. Undergraduate law  students (three year course or five year course) as well as post graduate law students are  eligible for this course.

This course will follow a discussion model. Each session will cover themes related to civil  justice reforms and pose questions about the same. The first few sessions of the course provide  an overview of civil justice and the reform efforts over the decades, in a bid to understand  India’s civil justice system beyond what meets the eye. Once the context for the course is set,  the rest of the sessions will allow students to examine civil justice reforms from various  viewpoints. The discussions in class will afford equal opportunity to consider challenges  pertaining to reforms and solutions to tackle the same. Important issues and questions will be  raised for consideration during the discussions in class. These questions will be explored by  the students when they write their research paper.

The course material predominantly consists of Indian and international reform reports,  research papers on civil justice, Indian case laws, and eCommittee documents. This will allow  students to think about how to identify issues that derail the working of the civil justice system.

While it is easy to pinpoint the flaws of any system, this course will allow for thinking about  solutioning in a pragmatic way. The journal articles and the book excerpts will help in thinking  about building solutions. The work on reforms in the international context is particularly useful  to weigh the pros and cons of reform methodologies that have been implemented.

Students will analyse the discourse around the civil justice system, trying to cull out the  narratives that have emerged. Reform efforts have been underway for over a hundred years,  even before India’s independence. This course will cover the gamut of issues pertaining to civil justice reform methodologies.