Role of Judiciary in backlog problem

Context:

India’s courts are well known for huge pendency of cases.

Introduction:

• For 1.7 billion people in India, there are 31 judges in the SC and 1,079 in high courts.
• There are never more than 600 judges appointed at any point.
• As of April 2017, there were 430 posts of judges and additional judges lying vacant in high courts, and 5,000 posts vacant at the district level and lower.
• For 2017-18, the Union budget allocated a meagre Rs 1,744 crore to the judiciary — about 0.4 per cent of the total budget.

Where does the problem lie?

• Strength of judgesin courts is lower than required to fill up the seats. This shortage leads to delay in judgment
• Frequent transfers of judges take the interest out of them to hear the cases that their successor may give judgment to, after the transfer. Such arrears mustn’t exist.
• Vacanciesof judiciary aren’t filled up due to unavailability of good judges
• Fast-track special courts for commercial disputes are established, thus disregarding the poor entirely.
• Appellate courts are falling short in dealing with the cases hencepassing the burden to civil and criminal justice system.
• Higher number of hoildays, lack of time management is the problem which lies to the base of judiciary.
• Poor dispute resolution mechanism.
• Poor manpower and crumbling infrastructure, coupled with a boom in litigation, made the judiciary underperform.
• . Filing of thefrequent government litigation keeps the courts busy instead of serving justice to the people speedily.
• New laws were enacted by Parliament without a commensurate increase in judicial officers or courts. For example, dishonour of cheques was made a criminal offence in 1988.
• Frequent adjournments and indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction.

Implications:

• Right to justice, which is a fundamental right, would stand denied to litigants due to the unduly long delay in the disposal of cases
• Due to the backlog, most of India’s prison populations are detainees awaiting trial.
• This exacerbates the discrimination already faced by India’s minority and low-caste groups.
• There are hundreds of thousands of innocent poor people in Indian jails and the cases against them constitute the backlog for the courts.
• Corruption: People would rather bribe a police officer than go through the lengthy hassle of a trial.
• The impunity that criminals may enjoy because of how slowly the legal system operates.

Measures:

To resolve the issues before judicial system the following measures can be taken:

• Revamping Institutional and Infrastructural weakness
• Increase fund allocation from existing 1 percent to 3-4 percent
• Fulfill the vacancies of judges and subordinates
• Clubbing of cases by the courts of the same nature
• Promotion of Gram-Nayayalay and proper regulation by allowing greater powers
• Conducting Lok Adalat
• Making special proceeding provision for justice seeker of sexually assaulted victims, SC, ST and minority giving proper place to expedient judicial mechanism’
• Increasing budgetary allocation in Judiciary.

Measures suggested by the Law Commission to deal with the problem of pendency:

• The Law Commission of India in its 230th reporthas also offered a long list of measures to deal with the pendency of cases. These include:
• providing strict guidelines for the grant of adjournments
• curtailing vacation time in the higher judiciary
• reducing the time for oral arguments unless the case involves a complicated question of law
• Framing clear and decisive judgments to avoid further litigation.

Conclusion:

Addressing the backlog is necessary to maintain India’s “constitutional democracy”, to adhere to “rule of law” and to “guarantee order and stability in society”. The country’s progress depends on strong judicial system which can provide quick justice because justice delayed is justice denied.