The steady surge of litigation before the courts in Goa has raised critical questions about the state's legal culture and the practical efficiency of its judicial machinery. According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), a mounting backlog of civil and criminal cases plagues both district courts and the High Court of Bombay at Goa (NJDG, 2025).
This phenomenon aligns with a concern long cautioned by American jurist Roscoe Pound: that law, when overwhelmed by adversarial proceedings, ceases to serve its fundamental purpose as a means of social engineering and instead devolves into a ritual of procedural attrition (Pound, 1906/2002).
The Roscoe Pound thesis on litigation culture
Roscoe Pound, who served as Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936, advanced the view that law must operate not merely as a system of rules but as an instrument for balancing competing social interests to maintain order and justice (Pound, 1910).
His 1906 speech, The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, identified excessive formalism and adversarial litigation as impediments to justice delivery. Pound warned that when litigation becomes the default response to social tension, the judicial process transforms into a forum of antagonism rather than reconciliation.
In the context of Goa, Pound’s critique resonates with urgency. The ritualistic filing of suits without genuine pre-litigation engagement reveals a shift in the legal culture: courts are no longer the forum of last resort but rather the first recourse.
Snapshot of litigation in Goa - A quantitative analysis
As per the NJDG (2025):
● Over 47,000 cases are pending before the District Judiciary in Goa.
● More than 7,500 civil suits pertain to property disputes, frequently linked to unclear ownership titles and overlapping cadastral survey records.
● The High Court of Bombay at Goa has witnessed a steady increase in the filing of Writ Petitions and Public Interest Litigations (PILs), with close to 1,200 new PILs filed since 2020 (NJDG, 2025).
● The average disposal time for civil suits in district courts exceeds 6 years, with land partition disputes taking even longer under the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceedings Act, 2012 (Law Commission of Goa, 2022).
● Disputes involving Communidades contribute significantly to this backlog, often due to procedural ambiguity in the Code of Comunidade (Fernandes, 2020).
These figures indicate not only judicial delay but a deeper issue: an entrenched preference for litigation as the primary mode of conflict resolution.
Litigation as a social practice in Goa
The Goan legal landscape is shaped by a dual legacy of Portuguese civil law and Indian common law. This dualism leads to procedural uncertainties, especially in succession and property cases. Roscoe Pound warned that societies overwhelmed by technical legalism often witness the misuse of litigation for procedural advantage rather than substantive justice (Pound, 1910).
In Goa, this manifests in the misuse of temporary injunctions, successive appeals of interlocutory orders, and forum shopping. The strategic deployment of such procedural tools indicates a culture where litigation is weaponised for delay or dominance. Moreover, many cases are filed by parties lacking standing, intended only to stall or exhaust the other side, a tactic that Pound would classify as “perversion of legal forms” (Pound, 1930).
The price of judicial overload
An overstretched judiciary jeopardises public trust. The High Court of Bombay at Goa has, in multiple cases, criticised state authorities for procedural lapses, including non-filing of affidavits, defective pleadings, and non-compliance with statutory timelines. In Goa Foundation v. State of Goa (2023), the Court noted that procedural inefficiency by government departments contributes significantly to docket congestion (AIR 2023 Bom 2216).
Such “state-centric” litigation, where government agencies are often respondents in land acquisition, employment, or environmental disputes, consumes a disproportionate share of judicial time. According to Pound (1910), this trend skews the justice system toward bureaucracy rather than balance and often leads to an erosion of individual rights.
The advocate’s dilemma - accountability in the face of delay
For advocates, the mounting judicial pendency in Goa poses a dual burden. Not only must they navigate a labyrinthine procedural environment, but they must also remain answerable to clients who demand timely justice.
In many cases, this erodes the advocate-client relationship, even when the delay is entirely court-induced. Moreover, the ethical responsibility under Rule 11, Chapter II, Part VI of the Bar Council of India Rules, which mandates that an advocate shall not cause delay in the conduct of a case entrusted to them becomes practically difficult to discharge when institutional delays are endemic (Bar Council of India, 1975).
Roscoe Pound, in his jurisprudential criticism, had forewarned that when legal institutions fail to function predictably, lawyers are transformed from facilitators of justice into mediators of public frustration (Pound, 1930).
Restoring balance - non-adversarial alternatives
To decongest courts, institutional emphasis must shift toward mediation, arbitration, and pre-litigation conciliation. Goa’s Legal Services Authority has made progress in organising Lok Adalats, but their success remains limited in high-stakes civil disputes involving title, succession, or partition (Goa State Legal Services Authority, 2024).
Roscoe Pound advocated the strengthening of conciliation and social settlements as foundational to a just legal order (Pound, 1930). Goa’s legal community judges, advocates, and lawmakers must internalise this ethos and institutionalise non-adversarial processes. Pre-litigation mediation ought to be mandatory in all civil matters below a monetary threshold, and incentives for early settlement should be offered to both parties.
Conclusion
The litigation statistics of Goa point not just to backlog but to cultural drift. Roscoe Pound’s teachings reveal that unless law remains a responsive, humane mechanism of social engineering, it risks becoming a self-defeating ritual. The Goan judiciary must reaffirm its role as a reconciliatory forum, not merely a procedural battleground. Reform, both in attitude and institution, is not merely advisable, it is necessary.
