Introduction:
Ease of justice is equally important as ease of living – an assertion made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the first All India District Legal Services Authorities Meet on Saturday. Addressing the event, which was also attended by Chief Justice NV Ramana and Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, the Prime Minister said people of the country have immense faith in the judiciary, and that access to the judicial system is equally important as the delivery of justice for any society. Reiterating that this is the time of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Kaal’, the Prime Minister said it is a period of duty and that we have to work on the areas that have remained neglected so far. He raised the issue of sensitivity towards undertrial prisoners, who as per the last Prison Statistics comprise about 76% of the total prison inmates in the country.
Status of pendency in Indian Judiciary:
- As per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG, 93 crore cases are pending in the subordinate courts, 49 lakhs in High Courts and 57,987 cases in Supreme Court.
- In the Supreme Court, more than 30% of pending cases are more than five years old while in the Allahabad High Court, 15% of the appeals have been pending since 1980s.
- A Law Commission report in 2009 had quoted that it would require 464 years to clear the arrears with the present strength of judges
- Most cases in India, because of delays at both the police and judiciary level take far longer.
- In the High Courts, the pendency is even higher: half of all the 8 million cases in the High Courts have been pending for more than three years.
- Shortage of judges: around 35% of posts are lying empty in the subordinate courts. It leads to poor Judges to Population Ratio, as India has only 17 judges per million population. Earlier, Law Commission had recommended 50 judges per million.
- Frequent adjournments: The laid down procedure of allowing a maximum of three adjournments per case is not followed in over 50 per cent of the matters being heard by courts, leading to rising pendency of cases.
- Low budgetary allocation leading to poor infrastructure
- Burden of government cases: Statistics provided by LIMBS shows that the Centre and the States were responsible for over 46% of the pending cases in Indian courts.
- Judges Vacation: Supreme Court’s works on average for 188 days a year, while apex court rules specify minimum of 225 days of work.
- Inefficient investigation: Police are quite often handicapped in undertaking effective investigation for want of modern and scientific tools to collect evidences.
- Increasing Literacy: With people becoming more aware of their rights and the obligations of the State towards them, they approach the courts more frequently in case of any violation
Impacts of Judicial Pendency
- Denial of ‘timely justice’ amounts to denial of ‘justice’ itself: Timely disposal of cases is essential to maintain rule of law and provide access to justice. Speedy trial is a part of right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
- Erodes social infrastructure: a weak judiciary has a negative effect on social development
- Affects human rights: Overcrowding of the prisons, already infrastructure deficient, in some cases beyond 150% of the capacity, results in “violation of human rights”.
- Affects the economy of the country as it was estimated that judicial delays cost India around 1.5% of its Gross Domestic Product annually.
Measures needed:
- Improving infrastructure for quality justice: The Parliamentary Standing Committee which presented its report on Infrastructure Development and Strengthening of Subordinate Courts, suggested:
- States should provide suitable land for construction of court buildings etc. It should undertake vertical construction in light of shortage of land.
- Timeline set out for computerisation of all the courts, as a necessary step towards setting up of e- courts.
- Addressing the Issue of Vacancies
- Supreme Court and High Courts should appoint efficient and experienced judges as Ad-hoc judges in accordance with the Constitution.
- All India Judicial Service, which would benefit the subordinate judiciary by increasing quality of judges and help reduce the pendency.
- Having a definite time frame to dispose the cases by setting annual targets and action plans for the subordinate judiciary and the High Courts.
- Strict regulation of adjournments and imposition of exemplary costs for seeking it on flimsy grounds especially at the trial stage and not permitting dilution of time frames specified in Civil Procedure Code.
- The use of technology for tracking and monitoring cases and in providing relevant information to make justice litigant friendly. A greater impetus should be given to
- Alternate dispute resolution (ADR): As stated in the Conference on National Initiative to Reduce Pendency and Delay in Judicial System
Conclusion:
- The fundamental requirement of a good judicial administration is accessibility, affordability and speedy justice, which will not be realized until and unless the justice delivery system is made within the reach of the individual in a time bound manner and within a reasonable cost.
- Therefore, continuous formative assessment is the key to strengthen and reinforce the justice delivery system in India.
