Doing some plain-speaking at the golden jubilee function of the Supreme Court here, Vajpayee said "there is an all pervasive perception that the law has become a shield of the unscrupulous".

"The exasperating and increasing delays of the judicial system justly invite derision and contempt", he said while reminding the judiciary that over two crore cases were pending in the subordinate courts of the country of which 36 lakh alone were in the high courts.

Vajpayee said, "I will be remiss in my duty, as a people's representative, if I did not express today people's deep dissatisfaction over the pace of dispensation of justice in our country."

Chief Justice A S Anand had in turn squarelyblamed the Centre and the state governments for not filling the vacancy of judges in various courts resulting in huge backlog of cases and delay in dispensation of justice.Asserting that his government was committed to implementing far-reaching judicial and administrative reforms, the Prime Minister announced that a national judicial commission will be set up "soon" to recommend judicial appointments in superior courts and draw up a code of ethics for the judiciary.

Pointing to the Government failure for delay in large number of cases, Vajpayee said there was an urgent need to curb strong appetite of our departments and the lawyers representing them for casual litigation and for wasting goverment money.''

``They (officials) routinely file cases or defend cases they know are indefensible and do so only because they do not want to take responsibility. They would rather shift the decision-making on the courts,'' the Prime Minister said and added that the bureaucracy needs to understand that governance is theresponsbility of the government.

Praising the Apex Court, Vajpayee said the Supreme Court of India is one of the two most important institutions envisaged in the Constitution. It has withstood, substantially if not largely or fully, the test of the past half century. ``The performance of the highest institution of the judiciary has been creditable'' he said.