Be the change you want to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi.
The Indian Judicial System, over the years, has been facing criticism about being out-dated. But criticising from the outside helps no one and changes nothing. To bring changes one must present solutions and be a part of the system. So when Radhika Arora graduated from one of the top law schools of Mumbai SVKM’s Pravin Gandhi College of Law and started her practice, she knew she needs to act. She entered litigation with a very different perspective of changing the slow and crawling litigations by adopting alternative dispute resolution techniques mainly mediation. And thus began her and her private firm’s journey of bringing justice to those who seek.
Distinct Areas of Practice
Radhika Arora’s Legal practice is based in Mumbai and Thane and her Firm specializes in criminal law matters like Co-operative housing society matters, Property matters, Family matters, Will/probate/Succession, Intellectual Property rights, Cybercrime amongst several others. The services range from the filing of a Complaint/ Petition/ Suit to conducting the entire trial and finally arguing the matters with tact and expertise of years consolidated into the fine art of Advocacy to meet timely orders and decrees for the clients. The firm has cases across India.
Radhika completed her BLS, LLB and holds diplomas in Cyber Laws and Intellectual Property Laws. She is a certified mediator and has certifications in NRI Marriage Laws, Property laws amongst others. Her long experience in a wide range of criminal and civil matters has helped her in developing skillful evidence, explaining in Court every aspect of evidence and tactfully conducting cross-examinations of the witnesses.
Law and Order in the Present
Radhika Arora has observed during her long practice that many times cases are either not properly presented or fought in a court of law due to several reasons ranging from insufficient time to lack of proper and adequate professional resources. This often may prove very dearer in criminal cases where criminal liability is involved. The applications, appeals, petitions, submissions, arguments, evidence and cross-examinations are sometimes prepared and conducted hurriedly risking the quality of the entire case thereof. All this leads to a shortage of qualitative arguments in courts due to work pressure. The difficulties are also being experienced in finding and submitting important and relevant judicial rulings or citations due to lack of resources. On a lot of other occasions, the Written Statements by the accused are not rebutted properly leaving an open-ended argument allowing the case to take a U-turn at a later stage of the litigation. As such, the need of the hour is to streamline the processes and pitch-in efforts at all levels.
Digitizing the Process
The judicial system has caught up with digitization. An android application called ‘e-Courts’ is already available for cases across the country and are timely updated. It has reduced a lot of human efforts. Radhika adds, “Updates like judges being absent on a certain date can further save a lot of time, energy and resources for advocates and litigants. Filing of plants and other documents online can make a lot of important legal documents vulnerable and therefore it cannot be risked in current scenario with cybersecurity is not at its best, nonetheless, in the High Court the digitalization is seen the most.”
Serving a Purpose
The biggest social responsibility, as per the firm, on the shoulder of Practitioner of Law, is to make sure that they think of Litigants by putting themselves in their shoes. Secondly, they should try to help judiciary by sharing its load and not adding to its burden of unnecessary cases wherever it can be avoided. Radhika is a part of mediator’s team at a Weekly Free-of-cost mediation forum initiated by Mira-Bhayander police. She also conducts training programs for police officers for interpersonal skills, cybercrimes and ways of collecting evidence in cybercrime cases for police officers. She further intends to continue the same. She also visits law schools as a Guest Lecturer.
For a Better System
Radhika’s advice to the new litigating lawyers is “Do not jump into getting higher profits right from the start, Advocacy is indeed a lucrative profession but it also deals with people’s lives and their assets. You must know all the pros and cons of filing a case for your client much before you even start drafting the Plaint.”
As for her firm’s future perspectives, the idea is to establish offices at different locations across the Globe. Also, to help the judiciary by bringing down the number of cases filed every year and reducing the number of outstanding pending cases across the country. It will also bring them great pleasure to be a part of any of the developmental cells of the Government for smooth and better functioning of litigation.
