Reducing pendency need of the hour: CJI-designate Gavai

Source: Times of India

Reducing pendency at every level of the three-tier justice delivery system through a long-term strategy is the need of the hour said the CJI-Designate Gavai before taking charge. To read more please go to the following link:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/will-always-strive-for-social-political-justice-cji-designate-gavai/articleshow/121147251.cms

‘No speedy trial, no justice’: SC warns against eroding system’s credibility

Source: Hindustan Times

Prolonged pretrial incarceration due to delays in trials not only violates an accused person’s fundamental rights but also erodes public trust in the judicial system, the Supreme Court emphasized, urging courts across the country to ensure that the process of justice is not derailed by procedural inefficiencies. To read more please go to the following link:

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/no-speedy-trial-no-justice-sc-warns-against-eroding-system-s-credibility/ar-AA1zfbkO?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=f5994339dc364ab7bbd20b604b35a9c2&ei=71

Over half-a-billion cases await justice in Indian courts: MC Analysis

 Source: Money Control

Nearly 160 million cases have been added since 2011, and 81 million were added only in the last five years. While Supreme Court’s track record in clearing cases pending for over a decade did not change between 2019 and 2024, that for the high courts and lower judiciary only worsened. To read more please go to the following link:

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/over-half-a-billion-cases-await-justice-in-indian-courts-mc-analysis-12812316.html

"Purpose Of Lok Adalat Is To Take Justice To Homes Of People": CJI Chandrachud

 Source: BW Legal World

The Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud said that the purpose of Lok Adalat has been to take justice to the homes of people and to ensure that the Supreme Court not only handles big cases but focuses on 'Nyay Sabke Dwar'. To read more please go to the following link:

https://bwlegalworld.com/article/purpose-of-lok-adalat-is-to-take-justice-to-homes-of-people-cji-chandrachud-528342

People get fed up with court proceedings, process becomes punishment: CJI

 Source: Indian Express

CJI Chandrachud said that “This Lok Adalat was just a reminder that though we are at the apex of the Indian judicial system, we are, in that sense, so closely and deeply associated with the lives of our citizens,” regarding the week long Lok Adalat conducted at the SC. To read more please go to the following link:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/people-fed-up-court-proceedings-process-punishment-cji-9493237/

Why is the number of pending cases rising in Indian courts?

 Source: Business Standard

Why is the number of pending cases rising in Indian courts? As Supreme Court case backlog jumps 35 per cent in five years, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal cited lack of infrastructure and coordination as key reasons for the mounting delays. To read more please go to the following link:

https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/why-is-the-number-of-pending-cases-rising-in-indian-courts-details-here-124072900363_1.html

Justice delayed is justice denied

Source: Hindustan Times dated 13.11.2019

Harish Narasappa (Lawyer and Partner at law firm Samvad Partners and Co-founder of DAKSH, a civil society organisation that was involved in the making of the IJR 2019)

Reformation Efficient management of judicial time, scientific listing of cases based on the stage they are at and appointment of full-time judicial administration cadre to provide support to the judiciary can reduce the number of pending cases

Justice is one of civilisation’s foundational goals. It is therefore imperative for the judiciary to perform its duty properly for any society to continue its pursuit of peace, harmony and progress. Unfortunately, the Indian judiciary, despite its many successes, suffers from severe structural problems that prevent it from functioning properly. The judiciary’s travails, specifically those relating to delays and backlog are well documented and don’t need repetition. However, it is only in the last few years that these structural problems have been better understood empirically thanks to the availability of better data.

It is now possible to assess, in a fairly detailed manner, the judiciary on parameters such as budgets, human resources, workload, diversity, infrastructure, and trends over the years. We can also accurately diagnose the pendency and backlog problem not only at district and taluka level but also at court complex levels.

We know, for example, that while pendency is a nationwide problem, it varies vastly from state to state, with the average pendency being anywhere in the range of two years to nine years in the district judiciary, as the India Justice Report 2019 reveals. We need to work on the problems that lead to delay on a daily basis, by increasing certainty of outcome in each hearing and avoiding burdening a judge in a manner that encourages adjournments. On an average, a district judge has about 50-60 cases listed before him each day. It is impossible to meaningfully hear such a high number of matters, and therefore at least 40 of these cases will be adjourned by the judge without any significant movement. This happens every day in each court across the country throughout the year. Naturally, there will be delay and backlogs at the end of the year. It is these daily problems that magnify over time and transform into structural problems crippling the functioning of the institution.

Today, it can take nearly 20 years if a case goes all the way from the subordinate court to the high court and then the Supreme Court. Twenty years means multiple generations of litigants, enormous cost and frustration — a case taking this long to be resolved is symptomatic of an inefficient and ineffective judicial system; any ‘justice’ delivered after a span of 20 years would be bereft of its true meaning. There are many problems that this process creates. First, judges, particularly those in the superior courts are dealing with cases from the previous decade and not today’s pressing issues. Second, the judiciary and the legal system at large, is inherently favouring the illegal actions of one party at the cost of violating the rights of the other. Further, a prolonged legal battle will have the effect of encouraging such illegal actions not only by the parties involved but across society, which in the long term lead to an erosion in the faith of people to get timely justice.

From a larger perspective, judicial delays also lead to uncertainty regarding laws and their application — the ongoing case in the Supreme Court regarding the application of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act, 2013 and the determination of compensation thereunder has practically halted land acquisition litigation in the country. Cases related to land acquisition in the subordinate courts remain pending for six years on average and are a category of cases that take the most time to be resolved in court.

How then must the judiciary proceed to ameliorate the effects of delay? Foremost would be to efficiently manage judicial time. Listing an optimal number of cases to be heard on a daily basis is vital to ensuring that judicial time is not spent on unnecessary adjournments and that lawyers are prepared for their cases knowing that they will be heard with certainty. Courts must work towards better case management frameworks to ensure that cases are scientifically listed taking into consideration the stage of the cases and the amount of time they would require to be heard. The Delhi high court recently took the lead on this through a pilot project in the district judiciary; the results of the project show that it is possible to decide cases in a short time frame with better case and judicial time management.

A critical reform required is the need to appoint a full-time judicial administration cadre. Internationally, judicial administration is seen as being ancillary to the work of judges and is carried out by dedicated and specialised personnel to help judges efficiently perform their judicial duties. The establishment of a dedicated and trained cadre to provide support to the judiciary through case management, assistance with budgeting, handling administrative tasks, and ensuring maintenance of court infrastructure will go a long way in enabling the judiciary to focus on the administration of justice. Currently, judicial administration is essentially managed by judges themselves. This is not only unsustainable, but also unfair to judges whose primary skill and responsibility is to decide cases.

The most critical mantra is to embrace technology with vigour. Many of our court rules and processes were conceived of in the 19th century and need a thorough overhaul as they have become a hindrance to the delivery of justice. We should change these processes to meet today’s societal realities, particularly to harness technology in the better delivery of justice.

To implement these reforms requires dedicated and full-time leadership both at the Supreme Court and at each of the high courts.

Performance of state’s justice system not just determined by its resources

Source: Hindustan Times dated 09.11.2019

-- Roshan Kishore
A budget crunch isn’t the only impediment to justice delivery. One must look at other social and historical inequities that persist and address them simultaneously

That various pillars of the criminal justice system — police, courts and prisons— do not live up to what is expected of them is well known. There are many anecdotal accounts of how the system is neither fair nor efficient most of the time. This holds true especially for the underprivileged.

Myriad statistics, such as on vacant posts and judicial pendency too, point towards this. But this is of little help in giving us a holistic assessment of how the justice system works across its various pillars in different parts of the country.

The India Justice Report 2019 (henceforth to be referred to as the report), which was released on November 7, has taken us a step closer to answering this question.

The report gives state-wise rankings on various performance indicators of the four pillars: police, prisons, judiciary and legal aid.

Detailed data on human and infrastructural resources per unit population, actual versus sanctioned strengths, diversity of staff in these departments and budgetary allocations, among others, are some of the indicators taken into account to prepare this report.

It also admits to its limitations, and why these rankings should not be taken as the final word on the subject. Is it possible to draw a big picture from the information given in the report?

Based on the statistical information, one could argue that a resource crunch is an important impediment to the delivery of justice in India. But it’s not the only one.

The headline rankings prove this point. Haryana, Gujarat and Uttarakhand were the top three states with the highest per capita Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) among the 18 large states for which rankings have been given.

The figures of GSDP,which measures in monetary terms, the volume of all goods and services produced within a state during a given time period, are from 2017-18, which are the latest available for all states included in the rankings.

Interestingly, none of the three feature in the top three of the report’s overall rankings.

Instead, it is the western and southern states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which are ranked in the top three in the report, even though their per capita GSDP was ranked 4th, 6th and 8th among these 18 states. The top three states by per capita GSDP were ranked 5th, 8th and 15th in the justice rankings. (See chart)

This shows that better incomes, which would translate into better resources for a state, are not enough on their own to ensure a well-functioning justice system.

The mismatch between per capita incomes and justice rankings isn’t the only intriguing statistic in the report.

Other performance indicators

Most states fail to utilise even existing resources to augment their justice system. Only one state out of 22 states and union territories (UT) for which data is available fully utilised its police modernisation funds.

Only 15 out of 35 states and UTs used at least 90% of their budget earmarked for prisons. No state or UT out of 36 for which data is available used up its entire National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) funds. Legal aid is an important mechanism to provide affordable justice to the poor.

It is not just a lack of financial resources which prevents the justice system from functioning effectively. The report highlights that even with similar resource endowments, states perform very differently on key indicators such as clearing court cases.

In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, for instance, judges at subordinate court levels had 750 and 824 cases pending per judge, respectively, the lowest case load among the 18 big states. Yet they took about six years on average to settle a case.

Their Uttarakhand and Punjab counterparts solved an average case in four years despite having 867 and 958 pending cases per judge. As the report shows, there are other indicators that decide performance: filling up vacancies in prisons and District Legal Services Authorities, courts and police, including in reserved seats that would ensure diversity, is as crucial to the functioning of the justice system as utilisation of funds.

On the important indicator of diversity within the ranks of the criminal justice system — a big determinant of the sensitivity and fairness of the system — there are similar mismatches.

For example, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, considered to the epicentre of Mandal politics in the country, the ratio of actual to reserved strength of police officers from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was just 52% and 33%, respectively.

Similarly, the share of women high court judges drops drastically compared to their share in subordinate courts.

One cannot undermine the importance of the resource crunch facing India’s criminal justice system, which the report correctly highlights.

What these figures suggest perhaps is that the quest for improving the delivery of justice in India cannot ignore other social and historical realities which vary vastly in different parts of the country.

Justice delayed: vacancies, adjournments, vacations are bogies

Article in the Indian Express dated August 21, 2019 regarding Delayed Justice by Madan B. Lokur (Retired Judge, Supreme Court of India). Link to this article:

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/42691193

Death Penalty and Clemency

To read Upendra Baxi's views on Clemency and Death Penalty in the Indian Express dated 30.1.2014, click on the following link:

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/2298409

Delay in disposing of mercy plea affects right to life: SC

Source: The Times of India dated 22.1.2014

SC gives life to 15 after Prez okayed death

Says Delay And Mental Illness Valid Grounds

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN 

New Delhi: In an unprecedented judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday freed 15 condemned prisoners, each awarded the death sentence for brutal multiple murders, from the fear of the hangman’s noose by commuting their punishment to life term on the grounds that the President had taken an inordinately long time to reject their mercy petitions. 
    The court came to the rescue of the 15, some of whom had been served with execution warrants, on two grounds—“inordinate, undue and unexplained” delay in disposal of their mercy pleas and 
“non-consideration of their mental illness”. 
    The court also fixed a mandatory 14-day gap between the mercy petition being rejected and the convict being hanged to allow the prisoner to prepare for death and meet his family for the last time. 
    A bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh said, “Keeping a convict in suspense while consideration of his mercy petition by the President for many years is certainly an agony for him/her. It creates adverse physical conditions and psychological stresses on the convict under sentence of death.” 
    Justice Sathasivam authored the 157-page judgment for the bench. 

SPARED NOOSE 

• Suresh (60) and Ramji (45): Wiped out family of Suresh’s brother. In jail for 17 yrs. Delay in deciding on mercy plea | 12 years 
• Bilavendran (55), Simon (50), Gnanprakasam (60), Madiah (64) | Veerappan aides. Jail | 20 yrs Plea delay | 9 yrs 
• Praveen Kumar (55): Murdered 4 of a family. Jail | 15 yrs 9 mths Plea delay | 9.5 years 
• Gurmeet Singh (56): Murdered 13 of a family. Jail | 26 years Plea delay | 7 years 8 months 
• Sonia (30), Sanjeev Kumar (38) Killed 6 of family. Jail | 12 yrs Plea delay | 6 years
• Jafar Ali (48): Killed wife and 5 daughters Jail | 11 years 5 mths Plea delay | 9 years 
• Shivu (31) & Jadeswamy (25): Rape-cum-murder of minor. Jail | 12 years Plea delay | 6.5 years 

Delay in disposing of mercy plea affects right to life: SC 

New Delhi: Commuting the death sentence of 15 convicts, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sathasivam said gravity and heinousness of crime committed by the condemned prisoners could not wipe out the ill-effects of undue and unexplained delay in disposal of their mercy petition which affected their right to life.     “Indisputably, this court, while considering the rejection of the clemency petitions by the President, cannot excuse the agonizing delay caused to the convict only on the basis of gravity of the crime,” he said. 
    While 13 were spared the noose for delay in disposal of mercy petitions that ranged between six-and-ahalf years to 12 years, two others were saved from the gallows as the court found that they suffered from mental illness. 
    “The direction of United Nations International Conventions, to which India is a party, clearly shows that insanity/mental illness/schizophrenia is a crucial supervening circumstance, which should be considered by this court in deciding whether in the facts and circumstances of the case of death sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment. To put it clear, insanity is a relevant supervening factor for consideration by this court,” it said. 
    The beneficiary of this judgment could be Devenderpal Singh Bhullar, who was handed down death penalty for his role in the bomb attack on then Youth Congress president M S Bitta in 1993 in which nine policemen were killed and 25 people were injured, including Bitta. Bhullar had pleaded for commutation of the death sentence on the grounds that he had undergone imprisonment for 20 years which was akin to a life term and that he had lost mental equilibrium in the despairing 11-year wait. 
    On April 12 last year, the apex court had rejected his plea for commutation of death sentence on the grounds of delay in disposal of his mercy plea by the President saying those convicted for acts of terrorism could not be given benefit of commutation on grounds of inordinate delay. 
    The bench headed by Justice Sathasivam said the ruling was against the logic of several previous judgments and hence could not hold its ground. “We are of the view that unexplained delay is one of the grounds for commutation of sentence of death into life imprisonment and the said supervening circumstance is applicable to all types of cases, including the offences under Tada,” it said. 
    This judgment could also be of vital importance to the Rajiv assassination case condemned prisoners – Santhan, Perarivalan and Murugan – who have moved court citing delay in disposal of their mercy pleas and the apex court two years ago had stayed their execution. 
    It also said a minimum 14-day gap should be there between intimation of rejection of mercy petition to the condemned prisoner and the date of execution. This time period would allow “the prisoner to prepare himself mentally for execution, to make his peace with god, prepare his will and settle other earthly affairs and have a last and final meeting with his family members and friends,” it said.

After mercy plea is rejected, give 14 days to condemned: SC

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN 

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed all prison authorities to give a gap of 14 days between intimation of rejection of mercy petition to the condemned prisoner and his actual execution to allow him to prepare mentally to make peace with God, prepare his will and meet family and friends one last time. 
    It also was critical of the practice in certain jails to put a person in solitary confinement immediately after the trial court awarded death penalty after conviction and said a condemned prisoner could be put alone in a single cell only in the last 14 days of his life and not before that. 
    A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam found that some prison manuals did not provide for any minimum period between the President’s decision to reject a mercy petition being communicated to the condemned prisoner and his family members and the actual date of his execution. “Some prison manuals have a minimum period of one day while others have 14 days,” it said. 
    It said there was a need to provide a minimum gap of 14 days between receipt of communication of rejection of mercy petition and scheduled execution as it would allow the condemned prisoner: 

• to prepare himself mentally for execution, to make peace with god, prepare his will and settle other earthly affairs 
• to have a last and final meeting with his family members who might have to travel long distance, and 
• to allow him to seek judicial redress of grievances against rejection of mercy petition. 
   
The CJI-headed bench was peeved that the apex court’s direction for prison reforms, given in Sunil Batra case more than 35 years ago, were yet to be implemented. 
    The bench said, “This court in Sunil Batra case had held that solitary confinement or single cell confinement prior to rejection of the mercy petition by the President is unconstitutional. Almost all the prison manuals of the states provide necessary rules governing the confinement of death convicts. These rules should not be interpreted to run counter to the above ruling and violate Article 21.” 
    The court also found that condemned prisoners could seldom afford legal assistance and their grievances almost never reached the judiciary for redress. 
    “Since this court has held that Article 21 (right to life) rights inhere in a convict till his last breath, even after rejection of the mercy petition by the President, the convict can approach a writ court (high court or the Supreme Court) for commutation of the death sentence on the ground of supervening events, if available, and challenge the rejection of mercy petition and legal aid should be provided at all stages,” the bench said. 
    “Accordingly, superintendents of jails are directed to intimate the rejection of mercy petitions to the nearest Legal Aid Centre apart from informing the convicts,” it said.

SC commutes death sentence of 15 convicts

"SC spares 15 waiting on death row due to delay" - to read this article from the Indian Express dated 22.1.2014, click on the following links: (Also includes "Guidelines for Death Row")

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/2257607
http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/2257616
http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/2257637

Misuse of Anti-Rape laws

To read an article on Misuse of Anti-Rape laws in the country appearing in DNA newspaper dated 16.1.2014, click on the following link:

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=58349&boxid=32162&ed_date=2014-01-16&ed_code=820009&ed_page=1

City's longest pending case

1969 suit is city’s longest-pending case

Endless wait | The case pertains to properties in SoBo and suburbs, with estimated current value worth over Rs1,000cr

Mustafa Plumber @plumbermushi

A case pertaining to a property dispute, originally filed in 1969, is the longest-pending case in the Bombay High Court. While the case papers pertaining to it seem to have been lost, the Central Bureau of Investigation is currently probing into the reconstruction of the documents. The suit pertains to properties in south Mumbai and suburbs, estimated to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore at current market rates. They were owned by textile baron Mathuradas Gokuldas in the 1920s. The properties were mortgaged to the Gwalior Darbar in 1924 for a loan. Post independence, the properties were vested with the Indian government and the Provident Investment Company of the state of Madhya Pradesh. While the disputed properties are located at Chowpatty, Mazgaon, Parel Tank Road, Walkeshwar and Thane, most of them have been sold off by the company. Prothonotary and senior master D V Sawant said, “This is the longest pending case, but there is a dispute due to records missing from the registry and a CBI inquiry is going on. There are also other suits pending since 1980. The reasons for their pendency are different.” In 1969, Hemlata Vijaysingh Ved’s (legal heir of the Gokuldas family) had filed a suit, seeking redemption of the mortgaged properties. However, no steps were taken by either of the parties. In 2008, Ved moved the HC again, seeking to trace the documents pertaining to her case. When the case papers could not be located, acting on Ved’s plea, the prothonotory and senior master of the court in January 2009 ordered the registry to reconstruct the records. Provident Investment Company, which is in possession of the properties, then moved a plea before a division bench, challenging the order to reconstruct the suit. During pendency of the appeal, attorney general Goolam Vahanvati, representing the central government, a defendant in the suit, had sought a CBI inquiry. Ved’s counsel, Iqbal Chagla had opposed the plea for CBI probe contending it was nothing but another attempt to stall trial of the suit. However, in January 2012, a division bench of justices DY Chandrachud and A Sayyed ordered a CBI inquiry.  The bench observed, “The inquiry (high court had earlier ordered a departmental inquiry) has now prima facie established that the records were destroyed in order to obliterate the proceedings of the suit.”

Appointing more judges won’t improve justice delivery: CJI

Source: Times of India dated 8th April 2013

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said the“horrific tragedy of grapevine Delhi” compelled an urgent introspection about laws and the justice delivery system,law minister Ashwani Kumar said the incident made people question the “credibility of our criminal justice system”.
    Both the PM and the law minister referred to the over three crore pending cases and said increasing the number of courts and judges could help increase people’s access to justice and reduce delays and arrears in the justice delivery system.
    They were speaking at a conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts which was being held after a gap of four years. The last such conference, described by thePM andChief Justice Altamas  Kabir as an ideal forum to discuss improvements in justice delivery system mechanisms, was held in 2009 and it was discontinued during the tenure of S H Kapadia as CJI. Justice Kabir said the dialogue process between the executive and the judiciary, which was disrupted, needed to be re-established as the three organs of governance had a duty under the Constitution to provide justice to people.
    But he appeared to remind the PM and the law minister that improving the justice delivery system was not all about establishing morecourts and appointing more judges. “The sanctioned strength of the Allahabad high court is 160 judges but it is functioning with 87 judges.The reason for non-appointment of more judges to the HC was lackof supportinfrastructure,” hesaid.
    “So we need to set up support infrastructure. It does not mean building only. Support infrastructure means support staff. When a court is set up, apart from the presiding officer, there is a need for appointing several other officers. These are things which most people in the executive have no idea about,” Justice Kabir said.
    The PM termed the current ratio of 15.5 judges per million population as “grossly inadequate” and said the states must take initiative to appoint more judges. “On behalf of the central government, I would like to assure this august gathering that we will increase appropriately the quantum of funding for the scheme under which we provide support to the state governments for the creation of infrastructure for subordinate judiciary,” Singh said. He stressed the importance of gram nyayalayas, alternativedispute redressal mechanisms and legal aid services in speeding the justice delivery mechanism.But law minister presented a grim picture of the functioning of rural courts.

Judiciary - Executive interaction must for speedy justice: CJI

To read an article about the CJI's speech at the SC Bar Association function,go to the following link:
http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/953960

Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of HCs this weekend

To read an article about the various legal issues to be discussed in the conference of CMs and CJs of HCs this weekend, go to the following link:
http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/950167

Time bound Justice for Citizens

Source: Hindustan Times dated 18.3.2013
 
Sitting on a litigation time bomb

The day the Justice JS Verma Committee submitted its report to the government, recommending several amendments to the criminal law to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for those accused of committing sexual crimes, a gang rape victim tried to commit suicide in a Gujarat court because her case, which has been going on since 2007, was adjourned again on that day.

“I am tired of [court] dates. I don’t want to live anymore,” the 30-year-old said after consuming poison. Like hers, there are over three crore cases pending in the country’s various courts.

At the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Bar Council of India (BCI) on February 16, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged the legal fraternity to find ways and means to tackle this problem.

But what the PM did not say is this: India is facing a litigation explosion and things could go out of control if time-bound measures are not taken now.

In fact, judicial delay is pushing people to try out other routes like vigilante justice. At the end of 2012, there were 59,816 cases pending in the Supreme Court, while the number of cases awaiting adjudication in the country’s 21 high courts and about 17,000 subordinate courts are 43.27 lakh and 2.69 crore respectively (December 2011). These figures do not include lakhs of cases pending in consumer courts and tribunals.

India has one of the world’s largest judicial systems and it has expanded in the last three decades.
According to the National Court Management System Policy (NCMSP) and Action Plan released in 2012, the number of judges rose six-fold while the number of cases increased 12-fold in the last 30 years.
As India’s literacy rate and per capita income rise, the NCMSP estimates, in the next three decades, the number of new cases filed per thousand population will increase from the current rate of about 15 (up from roughly around three cases per thousand cases three decades ago) to about 75 cases. By that time, India’s population would touch 150 crore. This means that by then about 15 crore cases would be filed each year.

The US, Canada and Britain have 107, 75 and 50 judges per 10 lakh population respectively.

It has been over 25 years since the Law Commission recommended that the judge-population ratio in India must be increased from 10.5 to 50 judges per 10 lakh population.

In March 2002, the SC ordered that the judge strength should be increased to 50 judges per 10 lakh people in a phased manner by 2007. But the situation has remained unchanged. To raise the present ratio to 50 judges per 10 lakh population for 150 crore population, India will need 75,000 judges.

Forget about increasing the number of judges, even the existing vacancies have not been filled.
Almost 30% of the 895 sanctioned posts of high court judges are vacant while over 20% of the total sanctioned posts of subordinate court judges await appointments.

The worst situation is in the Allahabad high court where (as on March 31, 2012), 85 of the 160 judges’ posts were vacant.There are four vacancies in the SC. Don’t blame the government for these vacancies; the SC collegium system is not functioning properly and the high courts are not doing enough to fill the vacancies in subordinate courts.

The NCMSP has also proposed a National Framework of Court Excellence (NFCE) that will set measurable performance standards for courts, addressing issues of quality, responsiveness and timeliness.
All these reforms need funds but we spend very little on the judicial system. In 2013-14, the ministry of law and justice received Rs. 1,815 crore out of the total budget outlay of Rs. 16,65,297 crore — that is Rs. 1 in every Rs.1,000 the Centre will spend over the next year.

To clear the backlog, the government and the judiciary have taken some steps like releasing undertrials languishing in jails on petty charges and using alternative disputes resolution mechanisms like mediation, conciliation and arbitration.

But this is only a part of the solution, not the long-term solution. The issue of judicial reforms may not be very attractive for political parties since it does not fetch votes.

But they must build a political consensus to ensure quick and affordable justice to citizens, particularly the poor. Otherwise, justice delayed will be seen as justice denied.