Report No. 114
1.3. Fourteenth Report of the Law Commission.-
The Fourteenth Report exhaustively dealt with the question of reform of judicial administration. It took notice of the fact that 'the post-independence period witnessed a powerful demand for a complete reorientation of the legal and judicial systems of the country.1 The response to this powerful demand was the setting-up of the First Law Commission in 1955. By a resolution which specifically refers to the functions of the Law Commission amongst others to devise ways and means to realise that justice is simple speedy, cheap, effective and substantial.2 The judicial system introduced by the empire builders is unsuited to the Indian conditions and is something alien transplanted on the Indian soil.3
In order to answer this query, an attempt was made to find out whether there is any indigenous justice delivery system. In the Fourteenth Report of the Law Commission after observing that 'in suggesting ways and means for the improvement of our present system of judicial administration, it does not preclude us from considering radical and revolutionary measures which may make it more suitable to our needs' expressed its opinion 'that the way to reform does not lie in the abandonment of the present system and in replacing it by another.
The true remedy lies in removing the defects that exist in the present system and making it subserve in a greater degree our requirements for the present and the future.'4 Accordingly, the criticism that the justice delivery system then in vogue (1955-58) was not in accord with the genius of the country, was rejected as being without any substance. Having thus reached an affirmative conclusion that the system requires to be remedied, but not replaced even in parts, though calling for revolutionary measures to make it more suitable to the needs of the time, the Commission recommended certain changes.
1. LCI Fourteenth Report, Vol. I, Ch. 2, para. 12.
2. Lok Sabha Debates: Vol. III, Part II, (1954), columns 1860, 1861.
3. LCI Seventy-seventh Report, para. 3.1.
4. LCI Fourteenth Report, Chapter 4, para. 20.
