Supreme Court should accept the responsibility for growing backlog of cases in the courts as it failed to fill the judicial vacancies, Rajya Sabha member and Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said today.
"Having arrogated themselves the power of appointment, having made themselves the most incestuous family in the world by procreating themselves through progeny, they must now bear the responsibility of arrears," Singhvi said, speaking on the issue of backlog at a seminar at Nirma University here.
The issue can be addressed by timely appointment of judges which was not being done, with only 609 posts in High Courts filled out of the total requirement of 1,017 as of November 1, 2015, the senior lawyer said.
The sanctioned strength of lower court judges was 17,715, of which 3,300 posts were vacant, he said.
The country's ratio of 13.5 judges per one million people was one of the lowest in the world, Singhvi noted.
As of October 2015 there were 2.7 crore pending cases across the courts in the country, he said.
"Today, the apex court must take the responsibility. Because you have arrogated to yourselves the power of appointment since 1993, you can't have power and not the responsibility, you can't have power and not the accountability, excuses," he said.
The apex court also erred in holding up appointments of judges while hearing the suo motu petition on validity of National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) which further added to the backlog, he claimed.
The debate on memorandum of procedure (MoP) for
appointment to the higher judiciary between the apex court and the Centre further delayed the appointments, he said.
"The NJAC case took almost a year to decide. When the SC started to hear the NJAC case, it said it won't appoint judges while hearing the case through the collegium system. For 12 months, in a country with 1,017 HC judges, with 40 per cent vacancies, why should you stop appointing judges while hearing NJAC cases?" he said, adding this delayed the appointments by six months.
The problem of backlog was not a big one, the Congress MP said, adding that it can be addressed by "attitudinal changes". He also said that reforms in judicial administration should be taught as a subject in the law colleges.
"The number should neither be a deterrent nor a depressant. If you analyse them, most are meaningless figures which could be reduced drastically and can collapse like a pack of card. The approach has to be holistic and both curative and preventive," he said.
The appointment of ad hoc judges, which could address the issue of backlog, too was marred by "ego and politics", Singhvi said.
