It has been the constant lament of chief justices that the Budget allocations for the judiciary are far from adequate. They have variously put it at 0.2 to 0.4 per cent of the Budget. Even the social sector, like health and education, which has been neglected for decades, gets more from the Budget. Defence gets around 10 per cent, though the country has not seen a war in nearly half a century. The railway has a separate Budget. But the judiciary has remained the Cinderella of Budget-makers all along, though several finance ministers came from the legal profession. When the backlog of cases was rising steeply over the years and has now crossed 31 million, there is no explanation for this egregious neglect of the third arm of the state.
The Union Budget for 2016-17 has followed the beaten path, providing Rs 5,100 crore for law and justice. It includes Rs 3,649 crore for election expenses and only Rs 56 crore for the development of judicial infrastructure. The total outlay has to take care of an array of expenditure related to the administration of courts and more than 40 tribunals, and the filling up of vacancies - currently, 23 per cent in the subordinate judiciary and 44 per cent at the high court level. Then, there are assorted institutions such as the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms, the National Judicial Academy and the National Legal Services Authority.
Some funds are generated by the courts themselves, like court fees, stamp duty, fines on the guilty and interest on deposits made in the courts. But these amounts join the government kitty and court registrars have to panhandle before bureaucrats to get them back. On the other hand, an internal court management study is reported to have found that 18 states spend less than one per cent on the judiciary.
The consequences are evident. The backlog is spiralling and there are only 17 judges per million, while in the US, the ratio is 151 judges per million. Chief Justice of India T S Thakur said recently that there were courts working out of old buildings with leaking roofs, providing no place for litigants or lawyers. There are courts without stenographers and the judges there write everything themselves in longhand. With such infrastructure, some analysts estimate it would take 466 years to clear the backlog. At the human level, it is common for "undertrials" to spend more time in the overcrowded jails than the ultimate term if they are found guilty at all.
The flow of funds to the judiciary is a fuzzy field and it comes piecemeal from different sources. There is no coordination between the Centre and the states. Allocations and expenditure are scattered under several heads. Therefore, the judiciary has to knock on the doors of the Finance Commission, the planning bodies and other institutions to meet its requirements. Those who hold the purse strings pass the buck to others.
The legislature makes laws, without providing for the expenses on adjudication. About 60 per cent of the laws are central and about the same percentage of cases are moved by the government and allied organisations. Still, the executive is tight-fisted when it comes to the judiciary.
When it is Budget time, there are sectoral lobbies working overtime to get their demands noticed. However, judges are aloof from society and it is not their style to canvass their case before politicians and bureaucrats. Last week, top judges of the country gathered at a Madhya Pradesh retreat to tamely hear lectures from authorities on how to tackle extremist violence. No one seemed to have raised the issue of budgeting. The legal profession does not take interest in this field, perhaps because the worse the mess the better it is for their business.
The judiciary must be given a say in Budget-making by inviting them to provide an estimate of the annual expenditure and it should be granted from a unified source. There could be a fixed rate in the Budget for the judiciary. When Bills are introduced, they must carry an estimate of the expenditure on adjudication. The judiciary must have financial autonomy and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India must have a monitoring role. More ideas could be found in the Law Commission reports, which finance ministers could dust and open if the spirit is willing.
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