The Gram Nyayalayas Bill, 2007, which was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on May 15 this year, proposes to set up formal courts in rural areas. The Bill will empower state governments, in consultation with the high courts, to establish one or more gram nyayalayas (GN) under a nyayadhikari for a group of Panchayats or every Panchayat at the intermediate level. The GN is meant to act as the lowest court of subordinate judiciary in the state. Some of the other features of the Bill include an emphasis on conciliation and settlement of disputes, quick disposal of cases (90 days) and provision for mobile courts to reach out to far-flung areas.

Some of the civil cases that the GNs will look into are property disputes, claims to agricultural land, the right to draw water from a well or a tube well, claims under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and money suits. On the criminal side, the GN will look into cases that are punishable with imprisonment for less than a year.

One snag: the Bill has kicked up a to-do. While supporters of the Bill say that it’s time rural folk got justice at their doorstep, those opposing the Bill emphasise that an informal participatory judicial system which can be woven into the current Panchayati Raj system is the need of the hour.

Professor Chandrashekaran Pillai, director, Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, which offers LLM and PhD courses in law, is among those who favour the Bill. “I think it is better to embrace evil at the outset rather than file a case in a district court and then fight it. I am also a little sceptical about the success of participatory justice courts as Panchayats have become highly politicised,” he says.

Yet the Bill has encountered strong opposition from some Panchayati Raj experts. “GNs are an extension of the formal court system down to the tehsil-block level. The infirmities of the existing formal system will also be replicated in rural areas. They will be costly, inaccessible, dilatory with all the mystique of the formal courts,” says D. Bandyopadhyay, executive chairperson, Council for Social Development and former head of the Panchayati Raj task force at New Delhi’s Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

At present, a parliamentary committee that is examining the Bill is busy soliciting opinion from various experts and stakeholders on the efficacy of the proposed measures. And going by the responses of the Panchayati Raj experts and groups, striking a middle path may not be that easy a task. “The committee will give its opinion only after considering all opinions,” says E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, member of Parliament and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on law and justice.

The Bill’s opponents also argue that besides the “intimidatory” nature of the formal court system, the local language, traditions and customs with which lawyers and judges may not be well versed could prove detrimental to the success of GNs.

There are other infrastructural problems too. According to an estimate by the Dehra Dun-based Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), some 7,000 new courts will have to be set up and 7,000 fresh judges recruited. The Union government, however, has stated that it will bear 50 per cent of the cost of setting up these courts but it is still doubtful as to how many states will be ready to foot the rest of the cost. Uttarakhand, for one, has already expressed its reservations.

But those supportive of the Bill in its current form offer counter-arguments. “The judiciary is independent and the people of India have accepted it. People who have a romanticised notion of the grassroot level participatory judicial system are mistaken,” says Jayaprakash Narayan of the Hyderabad-based Loksatta Party, formerly a civil society initiative in the field of governance reforms. He contends that leaving the dispensation of justice to the elected and to nominated judges in rural areas won’t serve the purpose.

Yet even though the law ministry claims that the idea of setting up GNs is based on the recommendations of the 114th Report of the Law Commission of India (1986), the view of the commission seems different from what the Bill proposes to do. “The professionalised model of justicing cannot be extended to Bharat, not merely because India has only over 2.5 lakh lawyers but also because a majority of them are located in urban areas. Given the voluntary nature of the profession, at this stage it is not possible through the law to plan their dispersal in a manner which would adequately and equitably serve the needs of the Indian masses” it says.

Professor Upendra Baxi who heads the committee drafting the Nyaya Panchayat Bill for the Panchayati Raj ministry also points out, “The Bill in its current form removes the idea of popular participation at the village judicial level as suggested by the Law Commission.” Baxi’s committee calls for nyaya panchayats (NP) which would act as dispute resolution forums. But if the Gram Nyalayayas Bill is introduced, it would perhaps gain an edge over the Nyaya Panchayat Bill.

According to the draft being prepared by Baxi’s committee, NP forums would comprise elected and nominated persons. “There are risks as with any other system, but there is enormous empowerment owing to Panchayati Raj and this is the time to tap its innovative potential. For this to happen there has to be an alternative imagination,” says Baxi. In most of his writings on the Panchayati Raj system, Baxi calls for a participatory justice system at the grassroot level.

In fact, after the 73rd Constitutional Amendment came into force in 1993, states like Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal provided for NPs in their new laws or in their amendments to old laws. Informal courts with local participation sprung up under different names such as gram katchahry in Bihar, gram panchayat in Himachal Pradesh, gram nyayalaya in Chattisgarh and nyaya panchayat in Uttar Pradesh. However, only a few are functioning. But critics point out these could be improved upon and other states encouraged to adopt them.

“The experiment has been successful in states like Himachal Pradesh and Bihar,” says RLEK chairperson, Avdesh Kaushal. “The institution of NPs is indispensable as it ensures participatory and people-oriented justice and fulfils the mandate of providing access to all as mentioned in Article 39A of our Constitution,” he stresses.

But in some states like Madhya Pradesh, the participatory justice system has failed. But supporters of the Nyaya Panchayat Bill are hopeful that a robust system can be worked out. In a recent presentation before the parliamentary committee, RLEK called for bringing in “the best of the two systems, NP and GN, in order to make it effective and acceptable by the rural populace”.

So the question, as Baxi underlines is, “Can we begin to tell a different story?” Our lawmakers will have to provide an answer.