M J Antony: Falling short on numbers

OUT OF COURT

Figures released by the Supreme Court show that the judiciary is short of staff and funds.

It is not very often that the judiciary parts with information about its performance. It is known to function in a world of its own, hardly allowing a peek into its decision-making process either in the judicial or in the administrative field. Information about vacancies and arrears of cases are routed to the ministries and a trickle of it comes through the question hour in Parliament. Therefore, the new trend in the Supreme Court of making public these vital statistics through occasional bulletins is path-breaking and should be followed by the high courts as well.

Since an ordinary citizen comes into contact with the judiciary at the subordinate level, the data regarding district courts and those below would be revealing. The total number of cases, criminal and civil, pending at the subordinate level was a whopping 2.53 crore till September last year. Out of them, 1.81 crore were criminal cases and 72.5 lakh were civil cases. State-wise, Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of cases pending with 46.7 lakh cases, civil and criminal. It was followed by Maharashtra with 41.6 lakh, Gujarat with 33 lakh, Bihar with 12.8 lakh, Rajasthan and Karnataka with 10 lakh each and Andhra Pradesh and Kerala with just over 9 lakh.

Moving on to the high courts, the total for all of them is 36.2 lakh, both civil and criminal. The Allahabad high court again leads with 8.03 lakh pending cases. The Bombay high court is the next in line with 3.59 lakh cases, followed by the Calcutta high court with 2.65 lakh, the Punjab and Haryana high court with 2.41 lakh, and Orissa and Rajasthan having just over 2 lakh pending cases. The Supreme Court has about 40,000 cases to be disposed of.

Here are some indicators of the causes for such huge arrears almost all over the country. The sanctioned strength of district and subordinate judiciary in the country is 14,641 but the actual working strength is 11,840. That means there are 2,801 vacancies at the grassroots level. Bihar leads in the number of vacancies with 519 followed by Uttar Pradesh with 467. Maharashtra has 274 vacancies, followed by Uttaranchal with 170, Karnataka with 162, Madhya Pradesh at 157, West Bengal at 140, and Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan with over hundred vacancies each.

A curious aspect of the data is that Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunchal Pradesh do not have any vacancies at all. This is not a gratifying fact as one would tend to feel, because in those states there is no separation between the executive and the judiciary. This is a fatal constitutional flaw. The solemn principle of separation of the judiciary and the executive has not been implemented even after decades of the working of the Constitution.

The situation in the high courts is slightly better. The sanctioned strength of the 21 high courts is 726 and the working strength is 611, leaving 115 vacancies. The maximum vacancies, 15, are in the Punjab and Haryana high court followed by the Patna high court with 13, and the Allahabad and Gujarat high courts having nine vacancies each. Only the Uttaranchal high court is functioning with its full strength of nine judges. The Supreme Court has only two vacancies, though three judges are scheduled to retire shortly.

Some of the positive steps taken during the past few months are the setting up of 30 "evening courts" in Gujarat. They disposed of more than 16,000 cases between November and December last year. In Madhya Pradesh, retired judicial officers have been recalled and asked to dispose of petty offences and complaints of dishonoured cheques. A national plan for mediation has been prepared for institutionalising mediation as a method of resolving disputes. The plan includes training of mediators, preparation of training material, organising programmes and setting up mediation centres. A judicial infrastructure plan has been prepared to update the building, equipment, software and knowledge sources.

The registrars general of the high courts met recently to discuss the problems of administration. One recurring theme in their resolutions was the lack of adequate funds. The state governments are miserly when they deal with courts and this has left many posts vacant and the buildings and infrastructure shamefully short of the requirements. One of the resolutions is characteristic: "Recommendations made in 1999 are reiterated that there should at least be limited financial autonomy for high courts and qualified professionals be involved in the financial management of the high courts and the district courts." Some resolutions plead with the law secretaries in the states to impress upon the governments the need to loosen the purse in this respect. The coming budgets will show how far the governments will heed this appeal.