The court emphasizes the importance of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to reduce the burden on the courts and expedite the disposal of cases.

1. Rule.

2. These writ petitions have been filed seeking to challenge amendments made to the Code of Civil Procedure by the Amendment Act 46 of 1999 and Amendment Act 22 of 2002.

3. Writ Petition (C) No. 496 of 2002 was filed by the Salem Advocate Bar Association and after notice was issued the petitioner sought leave of this Court to withdraw the Writ Petition. By order dated 16th September, 2002, the prayer to withdraw the Writ Petition was declined, as the petition had been filed in public interest. At the request of the Court, Shri. C.S. Vaidyanathan, senior advocate assisted by Shri. K.V. Vishwanathan, advocate agreed to assist the Court as amicus curiae and they have rendered assistance to the Court for dealing with the case. The Court records its appreciation for the assistance given.

4. In the petitions, the amendments which were sought to be made by the aforesaid, amendments Acts, have been challenged, but we do not find that the said provisions are in any way ultra vires the Constitution. Neither Mr. Vaidyanathan nor any other learned counsel made any submissions to the effect that any of the amendments made were without legislative competence or violative of any of the provisions of the Constitution. We have also gone through the provisions by which amendments have been made and do not find any constitutional infirmity in the same.

5. Mr. Vaidyanathan, however, drew our attention to some of the amendments which have been made with a view to show that there may be some practical difficulties in implementing the same. He also contended that some clarifications may be necessary. We shall deal with the said provisions presently.

6. Amendment has been made to S.27 dealing with summons to the defendant which, after the amendment, reads as follows:

"Summons to defendants - Where a suit has been duly instituted, summons may be issued to the defendant to appear and answer the claim and may be served in the manner prescribed on such day not beyond thirty days from the date of the institution of the suit."

7. It was submitted by Mr. Vaidyanathan that the words "on such day not beyond thirty days from the date of the institution of the suit" seem to indicate that the summons must be served within thirty days of the date of the institution of the suit. In our opinion, the said provisions read as a whole will not be susceptible to that meaning. The words added by amendment, it appears, fix outer time frame, by providing that steps must be taken within thirty days from the date of the institution of the suit, to issue summons. In other words, if the suit is instituted, for example, on 1st January, 2002, then the correct addresses of the defendants and the process fee must be filed in the court within thirty days so that summons be issued by the court not beyond thirty days from the date of the institution of the suit. The object is to avoid long delay in issue of summons for want of steps by the plaintiff. It is quite evident that if all that is required to be done by a party, has been performed within the period of thirty days, then no fault can be attributed to the party. If for any reason, the court is not in a position or is unable to or does not issue summons within thirty days, there will be, in our opinion, compliance with the provisions of S.27 once within thirty days of the issue of the summons the party concerned has taken steps to file the process fee along with completing the other formalities which are required to enable the court to issue the

summons.

8. Our attention was then drawn to a new S.89 which has been introduced in the Code of Civil Procedure. This provides for settlement of disputes, etc., and reads as under :

"89. Settlement of disputes outside the court. - (1) where it appears to the court that there exist elements which may be acceptable to the parties, the court shall formulate the terms of settlement and give them to the parties for their observations and after receiving the observations of the part