NEW DELHI: A woman entrepreneur has written an open letter to the Chief Justice of India for bringing in judicial reforms, particularly in MSME sector by setting up a grievance redressal mechanism.
Urmila Bhargava, the only woman entrepreneur in the field of used oil Re-Refining since 1977, sought to bring in notice of the CJI "grave situation" in the sector.
"I am bringing to your kind notice a grave situation faced by MSME which has resulted in the ruin of many such Units in this Sector.
As you are aware there is no grievance redressal mechanism available to such Units who are regularly penalized, if unable to follow commercial practices prevalent in government departments like Excise, Sales Tax, Income Tax, Electricity etc.
When huge illegal penalties are imposed either the Unit is closed or if they decide to get relief through courts the cases are never heard for years," she said.
Her letter further said it is common knowledge that our judiciary is overburdened with pending cases and our jails our overcrowded with undertrial people and judicial reforms are overdue to tackle this critical situation.
"I am not connected to legal profession but by virtue of being associated with legal profession for 4 generation and having experienced hardships due to the legal system, I feel qualified for suggesting a few simple reforms in judicial system which can help lakhs of litigants," she said.
She gave two suggestions:
1. Presently every economically strong litigant after losing the case in lower Court can escape punishment by going in Appeal to the High Court and Supreme Court. If this process is reformed and a system is evolved where such superfluous appeals are not admitted and dismissed in the beginning only, thousands of people will be benefitted and large volume of such appeals pending in Higher Courts for years will decrease. The influential rich is confident that the appeal will not come for hearing for years and the economically weak defendant will never get justice.
2.Another judicial Reform needed is to have a grievance redressal system in place for MSME SECTOR where entrepreneurs can take their cases and get much needed relief
"These simple reforms can make a great difference in the lives of lakhs of litigants of the weaker section of society," her letter said.
Bhargava is the only woman entrepreneur in the field of used oil re-refining since 1977 and her company IFP Petro Products Pvt Ltd is actively working for circular economy of used oil in India.
She is the winner of 100 women achiever's award from Ministry for 'Industry, Commerce and Entrepreneurship' in 2015.
