IMPORTANT POINT
It is unfortunate that the poor parents and other family members of the deceased, caught in the web of litigation, had to wait for two decades for getting compensation for the death of their only bread winner in a road accident.

Judgment :

Leave granted.

Indiais acclaimed for achieving a flourishing constitutional order, an inventive and activist judiciary, aided by a proficient bar and supported by the State. However, the Courts and Tribunals, which the citizens are expected to approach for redressal of their grievance and protection of their fundamental, constitutional and legal rights, are beset with the problems of delays and costs. In a country where 36 per cent of the population live below the poverty line, these deficiencies in the justice delivery system prevent a large segment of the population from availing legal remedies. The disadvantaged and poor are deprived of access to justice because of the costs of litigation, both in terms of actual expenses and lost opportunities, and the laudable goal of securing justice social, economic and political enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of India remains an illusion for them. The infrastructure of Courts and the processes which govern them are simply inaccessible to the poor. The State, which has been mandated by Article 39A of the Constitution to ensure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice by providing free legal aid and that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities, has not been able to create an effective mechanism for making justice accessible to the poor, downtrodden and disadvantaged. In last two and a half decades the institution of the legal services authorities has rendered yeoman's service in the field of providing legal aid to the poor but a lot is required to be done for ensuring justice to economically deprived section of the society and those who suffer from other disabilities like illiteracy and ignorance.

We have prefaced the disposal of this petition, filed against order dated 22.3.2007 passed by the Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court whereby the special appeal filed by the appellant against the judgment of the learned Single Judge was dismissed as not maintainable, by making the aforementioned observations because in last almost 20 years the claimants - the aged parents, wife and five children of Nanag Ram, who became a victim of road accident in 1992, must have exhausted all their resources in prosecuting and contesting the litigation till the stage of High Court and they must not have been left with money sufficient for engaging an advocate in this Court and also because in last almost five years, during which the special leave petition remained pending in this Court, they must have lost all hopes to get justice. The learned Single Judge of the High Court had allowed the appeal filed by the dependants of Nanag Ram under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short, ‘the Act’) and enhanced the compensation awarded by Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Jaipur (for short, ‘the Tribunal’) by an amount of Rs.4,85,000/- and directed the appellant to pay the enhanced compensation with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum from the date of filing the claim petition till 31.12.2000 and at the rate of 9 per cent from 1.1.2001 till the payment thereof, but on account of ex-parte interim order passed by this Court on 23.7.2007, the claimants could get a paltry sum of Rs. 2 lakhs and they perhaps thought that it will not be worthwhile to spend money for contesting the special leave petition filed by the appellant. This is perhaps the thinking of many thousands of poor litigants, who succeed in the Courts below and the High Courts but cannot afford the cost and expenses of contesting litigation in the highest Court of the country and suffer silently in the name of the Almighty God by treating it as their destiny. Nanag Ram died in a road accident which occurred on 9.3.1992 when his motorcycle was struck by a truck owned by respondent No.10- Ram Chandra Paliwal and driven by Raghu Nath, whose name was deleted from the array of parties vide order dated 2.4.2009. At the time of