Government Litigation: An Introduction
A literature review of current debates and policies to address the challenges arising from government litigation
Summary: The report provides a literature review of current debates and policies to address the challenges pertaining to government litigation and design targeted interventions to reduce the quantum of such litigation.
There is a wide consensus that India is in need of large-scale governance reform. In order to adequately address such a mammoth challenge, we need to delve deeper into factors that contribute to the inefficiency of public institutions. One such constituent is the high volume of government litigation. While it is well known that litigation clogs bureaucratic machinery, hardly any attempts have been made to understand the issue. In an effort to address this gap, Vidhi has taken an initiative to publish a series of reports on government litigation in India.
The following report sets the context for the series by introducing government litigation as a challenge. It provides a literature review of current debates and policies to address the challenges, following which it highlights the scope of the series and its intended objectives.
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About the Authors
Sumathi Chandrashekaran was a lawyer working in the field of public policy. She previously worked at Vidhi as a Senior Research Fellow and led work under Judicial Reforms. Sumathi has completed her LLB from Delhi University, and a post-graduate course in public policy from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
Deepika Kinhal is a Senior Resident Fellow and team lead for the JALDI (Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India) initiative at Vidhi which focuses on judicial reforms. She has authored several data-driven research reports seeking to understand systemic issues that plague India’s justice delivery systems. She is now working towards translating the research findings into tangible solutions through interdisciplinary collaborations. Under the aegis of JALDI Innovation Lab, she is leading her team on projects at the intersection of law and other disciplines such as technology, management and design. Deepika has been a part of expert committees constituted by the eCommittee of the Supreme Court of India and NITI Aayog to design a roadmap to improve justice delivery through technology. She has also lead engagements with multiple High Courts aimed at improving their case and court management systems, and has appeared before Parliamentary Standing Committees on Mediation Bill and Judicial Impact Assessment. Deepika graduated from NLSIU, Bengaluru in 2012. Before joining Vidhi, she practiced as a civil-commercial lawyer in Karnataka with Dua Associates, and as a real-estate and capital markets lawyer at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Deepika is trained in Carnatic classical music and has performed for All India Radio and a Kannada movie
