Successive chief justices in recent times have pointed out the neglect of the legal system in budgetary provisions. However, it had little impact on the allocation of funds in Budget 2011 for administration of justice. The increase is marginal, just enough to upset the inflationary factor.
The allocation for the ministry of law and justice in the Union Budget is Rs 1,432 crore, down from Rs 1,631 crore in the previous year (2010-11). It was Rs 1,394 crore in 2009-10. The allocation for the two years before that was Rs 751 crore and Rs 455 crore.
Compare this with the coal ministry, which gets Rs 9,303 crore. One does not dare to look at the allocation for the defence of the country, which has not fought a battle for more than a generation. We seem to need not only missiles but also world-war vintage tanks for the R-Day parade.
However, even the funds allocated to the law ministry are not fully available for administering justice. They include part of the election expenditure as well. In the proposed budget, Rs 85 crore is earmarked for “elections” and Rs 83 crore for “normal election expenses” and Rs 16 crore for preparing voters’ identity cards. Thus, the total election expenditure is Rs 184 crore.
Then there are other expenses not directly related to the courts. There is huge provision for “secretariat expenditure”, meant for translating Central Acts into Hindi and printing them. There is lumpsum provision for schemes for the benefit of the north-eastern region and other administrative expenses amounting to Rs 15 crore.
Some heads that will directly benefit the functioning of the legal system are: computerisation of district and subordinate courts, Rs 267 crore; Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Rs 45 crore; and the National Law Tribunal, Rs 5 lakh. Infrastructure facilities for the judiciary will get Rs 427 crore. One chief justice described the present conditions as: “Most of the courts function from dingy, dilapidated and outdated structures with poor hygienic conditions even for judicial officers.”
Special courts and family courts have been bunched together and allotted a miserable Rs 5 crore. Many districts in the country have no family courts, with Delhi having only a couple of them. The central government has declared that it shall no longer fund fast-track courts. Recently, the Supreme Court lamented that even the special court trying a corruption case against former minister R Balakrishna Pillai took two decades to conclude.
There is a Plan allocation of Rs 5,000 crore over a period of time to the states for improving the justice delivery system in the country. With the help of these grants, states can establish courts in shifts, special magistrates’ courts, lok adalats, gram nyayalays and strengthen mediation as an alternative to adversarial litigation. The income generated by the courts through fees and fines also flow into the general pool of the Budget.
However, owing to the chronic neglect of the system for decades, these funds would scratch only the surface of the problem. The average expenditure on the judicial system was a miserable 0.02 per cent of the gross national product so far. At the ground level, this distresses thousands of families whose breadwinners are often confined in overcrowded jails even before the trial starts. Many of them complete the term of the maximum sentence even as they await their trial.
Nearly 60 per cent of litigation at all levels relate to central laws. New laws are being passed at every Parliament session. Therefore, the Union government has a duty to be less tight-fisted in the allocations. Last month, one Supreme Court bench attributed the delay in disposing 30 million pending cases to lack of infrastructure, non-appointment of judges and lack of funds. Against the Law Commission’s suggestion of 50 judges for 1 million people, the present ratio is 10.5 for 1 million.
Though the sanctioned strength of judges for 21 high courts is 895, there are only 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 not better. There are 2,980 vacancies, though the total number should be 16,990.
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 court is 27,374,908. The Supreme Court has 33,362 cases pending.
In the present Budget, the Supreme Court will receive Rs 95 crore, down from last year’s Rs 98 crore and Rs 99 crore the year before. This might be less than what Parliament wastes in one session. As it is, the court can order distribution of food to the hungry, protect forests from corporate depredation, and even send venal politicians to jail, but its dignity does not permit it to behave like Oliver Twist with his bowl.
