Mukul Rohatgi took charge as the Attorney General of India today
The backlog of nearly two crore cases in India's courts can be cleared to an extent by curtailing the total number of court holidays, believes Mukul Rohatgi, who took charge as the Attorney General of India today.
Other steps suggested by Mr Rohatgi, to reduce the pendency of cases, include weeding out old laws and reducing procedures.
Recently, Chief Justice of India RM Lodha had mooted a proposal to the chief justices of all high courts about courts functioning 365 days of the year, but bar associations and the Bar Council of India had opposed it
But the new Attorney General pointed out, "Working for 365 days won't solve the problem of pendency", adding, "There should be a multi-pronged attack to reduce the pendency of cases and there should not be petty appeals. Over the decades, bureaucrats didn't take a view about larger issues and left it to the courts to decide about them; this attitude has to change."
Mr Rohatgi also said the process of appointment of judges should be transparent.
He said, "Whatever norms applies to the Executive on transparency should apply to the Judiciary also".
Mr Rohatgi, who has represented a number of accused in the 2G scam, said that he will recuse himself from the ongoing cases of the telecom spectrum scam in the Supreme Court because of the conflict of interest.