It may be safely assumed that lobbyists of all hues are hyperactive in this Budget season, though one may not have intercepted phone recordings to prove it. The legal system stands isolated since it has no intercessors, and judges cannot use the press or similar platforms. It is the law minister who can be heard time and again. However, his promises and performance in the last two years have underwhelmed the legal community.
The judiciary does send subtle messages about its plight to the budget-makers through asides in judgments and oral observations during court proceedings. In one such digression last week, it remarked that even the special courts took decades to reach their decisions. After 80 pages of discussion of the case, V S Achuthanandan vs R Balakrishna Pillai, it said: “Before winding up, it is our duty to point out that in all cases in which charges of corruption of public servants are involved, normally it takes longer time to reach its finality. Though this case was handled by a special court for the sole purpose of finding out the truth or otherwise of the prosecution case, the fact remains it had taken nearly two decades to reach its finality.”
If this is the state of high-profile cases, litigation involving the little man takes much longer. Some judges express their concern during court proceedings. Last week, one bench attributed the delay in the disposal of 30 million-plus pending cases to lack of infrastructure, non-appointment of judges and poor allocation of funds in Budgets. They pointed out that the budgetary allocation for judiciary is less than 1 per cent. “This shows the government’s commitment to the judiciary,” the judges remarked and added, “where is the infrastructure? They are already under heavy burden. There are only lectures, committees and commissions but no solutions.”
The initiative for tackling the immense problems the legal system faces has come from the Supreme Court, though it has its its own limitations. One public interest writ petition had been going on since 1989 to improve the infrastructure of the subordinate courts and enhance the service conditions of judges (All India Judges Association vs Union of India). For years the Supreme Court has been prodding governments to allot more funds to the legal system and grant higher salaries and allowances to judges and court staff. Though it has partly succeeded, the reluctance of state governments is evident from the orders. The state governments fail to file their responses for years, provoking the court to take coercive measures. Recently, several chief secretaries were summoned to explain in person why the authorities were not implementing the orders. The case continues to be heard in the court of the Chief Justice every Monday.
Reports of two judicial commissions on the ills afflicting the judiciary have portrayed a pathetic picture of the courts in the country. The Jagannatha Shetty Commission and the E Padmanabhan Commission, on the basis of which the Supreme Court has been passing orders, have stated that courts do not have adequate buildings, staff or even stationery to fulfil their obligations.
Another petition presses for the appointment of an adequate number of judges in the subordinate courts and tribunals. The common man meets the legal system for the first time at these courts and arrears pending there are astounding. The case, Malik Sultan vs UP Public Service Commission, has been going on since 2006 and the orders passed by the Supreme Court have nudged the state governments to appoint more judges, though they are far from adequate.
Despite these efforts, the latest figures released officially present a grim picture. While the sanctioned strength of judges for 21 high courts is 895, there are 285 vacancies. The Allahabad High Court has the maximum number of vacancies, 87 out of 160, followed by Punjab and Haryana (22), and Gujarat and Calcutta High Courts, 19 each. The subordinate judiciary is no better. There are 2,980 vacancies, though the total number should be 16,990. The ideal norm of the judge-population ratio recommended by the Law Commission, 50 per million, remains a distant dream.
As many as 4,108,555 cases are pending in the high courts, with the Allahabad High Court again leading with 952,862. The figure for the subordinate courts is 27,374,908. The Supreme Court has 55,717 matters pending. If connected matters are excluded, the pendency is 33,362. Out of the total, 19,680 matters are less than a year old. Therefore, strictly speaking, the “arrears” are 36,037 cases.
The Supreme Court has not released statistics since September. Earlier, it used to publish quarterly figures for the whole country. Therefore, it is not possible to verify whether the reforms attempted by the present Chief Justice since last July and the vision statements of the law minister have made any difference to the dismal setting.
