29 Nov

Issue of Pending Cases

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Contents

• Key reasons for backlog of cases in Judiciary
• Steps taken to deal with pendency of cases
• Impact of Pending cases

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• ­ Why in news?
  • Cases pending in courts cross 5 crore mark: Government in Rajya Sabha (July 2023)
  • Situation of Pending Cases on 23rd Aug 2023
    • NJDG Data for district and taluka courts

• • • NJDG data for High Courts

• • • More 70,000 cases are pending in Supreme Court of India.

Quotes

“Justice delayed is justice denied”: William E. Gladstone

Key reasons for backlog of cases in Judiciary:

• The increasing number of pending cases is a complex problem. It has multiple facets associated with it. Some of the key reasons can be the following:

1. Low strength of judges

• • In 1987, the Law Commission recommended 50 judges per million of population. But, currently, India has just 21 judges per million of its population.

2. Vacant positions

• • Around 25% of the total posts in lower judiciary is vacant.

3. Supreme Court in its March 2017 guidelines had complained of many inefficient/deadwood judges in lower judiciary.

4. Judges involved in non-judicial work.

5. Complicated legal system -> Unnecessary litigations and counter-litigations; Lawyers keep finding the loopholes in the system to delay/prevent conviction.

6. Liberal adjournment of cases (March 2017, SC guidelines)

7. Increasing awareness of rights by citizens

• • With increasing awareness and literacy.

8. Inadequate data on pending cases and “lack of scientific maintenance” of data makes it difficult to analyze problems and propose sustainable solution for the judiciary : Report

9. Large number of cases by government

• • Government is the biggest litigant in the court i.e., the court spends the highest amount of time in government cases

10. Understaffed Police

• • Lack of manpower in police force not only affects investigation, but also leads to
    prosecution delays. This is one of the key factors crippling our justice system

Steps taken to deal with pendency of cases

i. Guidelines by Supreme Court in March 2017

Supreme Court issued a slew of guidelines for High Courts cracks down on judicial delays.
It included monitoring of lower courts, timely disposal of very old cases, quick disposal
of bail cases, ending frequent adjournment, dealing with dead woods in judiciary etc.

ii. Lok Adalats have been functioning since 1980s and have played an important role in reducing the burden of courts.

iii. Fast Track Courts

iv. Establishment of National Judicial Data grid (NJDG) (since Sep 2015)

• NJDG gives consolidated figure of pending cases in district judiciary across the country. It provides national, state and court wise info.

v. Establishment of separate commercial courts

• This was recommended by law commission to ensure specialization adjudication and reduced burden on lower judiciary. Separate Commercial Courts were established through the Commercial Courts (Amendment) Act, 2018.

vi. Simplification of laws: For e.g., indirect tax reforms (GST) Reform and Labour Code reforms are expected bring clarity and reduce litigations and counter litigations.

vii. Increased use of technology to fast track and streamline things – ECourts Projects

Impact of pending cases

i. Delay in Justice delivery

• There are cases in Indian judiciary which are pending for more than 20 years.

ii. Poor Quality of Justice

• High court judges often have 30-40 cases every day. Expecting the judge to completely analyze the matter in hand in the best possible way would be chimerical.

iii. Large percentage of under trials among prison inmates

• According to NCRB around 70% of inmates in Indian jails are undertrials.

iv. Social Problems:

• Decreasing respect for law and criminal justice system in society
• For justice, people prefer other mechanisms and role of local ‘Bahubalis’ increase.
• The rich, the powerful and the wrongdoers have a field day by getting their cases
  expedited or delayed as they wish.

v. Economic Loss: Hampers Ease of Doing Business in the country.

• In Word Bank’s Ease of Doing business ranking, India performs badly on the enforcement of contract parameter because of judicial delays in India.

vi. Political Problems:

• Increased criminalization of politics -> Poor quality of laws and governance

 Way Forward

i. Efficient implementation of March 2017 Supreme Court guidelines

ii. Increasing the strength of judges

• Fill all the vacancies as soon as possible.
  • Streamline the judges-appointment process.
    • Finding ways to deal with executive-judiciary tussle.
• ESI 2018-19’s analysis shows that a case clearance rate of 100% could be achieved with the addition of merely 2,279 judges in the lower court and 93 judges in High courts even without efficiency gains. This is already within sanctioned strength and only needs filling vacancies.
• Prepare a 10-year plan to increase the strength of judges five-fold.
• Raise the number of private law colleges and changing their curriculum to groom judges rather than only lawyers.
• High court and SC should use the provisions for ad hoc judges or retired judges to deal with the temporary shortcoming in the strength.

iii. Attracting more talent to Judiciary

• Increased salaries and well defined growth progression.
• An All India Judicial Service can also play a crucial role in attracting talent in lower judiciary which would benefit the whole judicial system in long run.

iv. Keeping courts open 365 days a year

• Can’t be done right now due to severe shortage of judges. This should be our long term
  goal.
  • We can also have special night shift magistrates who can handle emergency cases and not have people waiting till the court open.

v. Modernization of courts and Scientific Court Management.

• Our courts should be fully digitized. All the procedures should be streamlined, right from a person filing a case, updating it and the final verdict.
• The e-committee of the Supreme Court which has been in existence since 2005 have made three outstanding recommendations which are still not being followed:
  • Computer algorithm should decide on case listing, case allocation and adjournments with only a 5% override given to judges.
  • The courts should focus on e-filing: The committee made detailed SOPs on how petitions and affidavits can be filed and payment of fees can be done electronically.
  • Focus on virtual hearing of cases: All the courts in the country must switch to hybrid virtual mode immediately and start disposing of cases.

vi. Deal with stalling tactics of lawyers

• Supreme court should create a committee who can deal with stalling techniques of lawyers such as absence, missing dates, medical emergencies, adjournments etc.

vii. Overhauling the archaic laws

• There are some laws and provisions in IPC which we don’t need altogether. Law Commission should be asked to identify those laws and we should remove/replace it from our legal provisions.

viii. Non acceptance of frivolous cases

• There should be guidelines issued by Supreme Court of India to all judges on no accepting
  flippant/frivolous cases.
• Government as biggest litigant also needs to reconsider the number of cases it files. For e.g., in case of Tax cases, the success rate is only 29%.

ix. Create separate court for traffic violations and other fines.

• These constitute around 1/3rd workload of lower judiciary.
• These cases don’t need judicial mind and the judges should not be involved in these efforts

x. Strengthening the investigative mechanism

• To improve investigation system, the police reform needs to be properly implemented.
• The police system needs to be provided more resources – financial and human both for its effective functioning.

xi. Free Judges of Administrative Work

• Create a specialized service called the Indian Courts and Tribunal Service ((ICTS) that focuses on administrative aspects of the legal system.

­ Conclusion

Thus, the problem of pending cases is a complex multi-faceted problem and will require a multi-faceted solution. Here all the three wings – Executive – Legislature and Judiciary will need to work
together and move towards a situation where Justice is available in timely manner.

Example Questions

• Justice delayed is Justice denied. Discuss the key causes and consequences of large number of pending cases in Indian Judiciary [15 marks, 250 words]
• “Increasing the strength and filling vacancies in Judiciary alone can’t solve the problem of pending cases. It’s a multifaceted problem and would require multifaceted solution” Elaborate [15 marks, 250 words]