New Delhi, Observing that “infrastructure is inherently exposed to the unexpected”, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday called for a fundamental shift from retrospective justice to preventive justice in infrastructure development, saying the rule of law is not just about correcting the wrong but also about creating conditions where things go right.
Addressing the FIDIC Global Infrastructure Conference here, the CJI also said that the real measure of success is not simply how quickly disputes are resolved, but how well the projects are designed so that fewer disputes arise in the first place.
“Rule of law is not only about correcting what has gone wrong; it is also about creating the conditions for things to go right,” he said. “After all, the finest compliment to a dispute resolution mechanism is not that it has resolved many disputes, but that the project it served had so little need to use it,” the CJI said. Observing that as the chief justice, he has “profound faith in the courts”, Justice Kant, however, said, “But I have no hesitation in saying that a legal system should not measure its success only by how effectively it resolves disputes after they have arisen; it should also ask how effectively the institutions around a project prevent those disputes from arising in the first place. The CJI said infrastructure development directly affects the lives of millions, with roads, bridges, water systems and other public assets shaping the everyday experiences of citizens. The CJI said the allocation of risk is among the most important factors determining whether an infrastructure project has become a landmark or a liability. He said standardisation could provide a common contractual vocabulary for dealing with issues such as payments, variations, extensions of time, unforeseen conditions and dispute resolution.
He urged the stakeholders from the government, industry and the legal profession to focus on five priorities: “clarity of obligations, balanced allocation of risk, sensible standardisation, early dispute avoidance, and swift and independent resolution of disputes”.
