Vacation pe vacation: No major country has their top court going on long holidays. Neither should Supreme Court

Source: The post is based on an article “Vacation pe vacation: No major country has their top court going on long holidays. Neither should Supreme Court” published in The Times of India on 1^st October 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Functioning of Supreme Court

Relevance: concerns associated with vacation of courts

News: The article discusses the issue of too many vacations in the Indian Courts.

Excessive work is not only bad for family relationships but it also affects productivity. Therefore, many organizations mandatorily require employees to take annual leave.

However, there is a difference between individual leave and vacation.

Vacation means shutting down completely and organizations other than courts rarely go on vacation and there are individual leaves given in those organization.

Who decides vacations for Supreme Court (SC)?

The 1958 statute tells that vacation means such periods during a year fixed by SC rules with the prior approval of the President.

The current rule followed by SC for vacation is Supreme Court Rules, 2013 and Chief Justice of India (CJI) issues notifications for the vacation every year. For example, as per the recent notification, “The Chief Justice of India has directed that the Supreme Court will be closed for the annual Summer Vacation from Monday, the 23rd May,2022 to Sunday, the 10th July, 2022 (both days inclusive). ”

There are separate provisions for vacations in High Courts.

What are the findings of the Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System (2003)?

Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System (2003) was headed by Justice Malimath. It had a section on court vacations. The findings of the committee were:

There are no governmental organizations in the country except courts and schools that have vacation.

Schools can be considered for the vacations as there are students studying but vacation in courts is not understood.

There are many countries in the world that do not have vacations in the courts.

For example, France and the US. Judges don’t have vacation, but they can take holidays without affecting the function of the court.

Even in India the subordinate criminal courts do not have any vacation. But the subordinate civil courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court have vacations.

The concept of vacation is originated from colonial rules. Judges at that time came from England, a place colder compared to a India and the summer of India was unbearable to them.

Therefore, a vacation system was introduced so that those judges can go back to England in summer for several weeks. It is not required now.

However, there are different suggestion and steps taken by the Chief Justices.

What were the steps taken by Chief Justices?

CJI Justice Lodha in 2014 sought to eliminate vacations. CJI Justice Thakur, in 2016, appealed to HCs to not go on vacations. CJ of Allahabad High Court, Justice Chandrachud voluntarily gave up summer vacation.

What can be the course of action?

Arrears Committee and 230th Report of Law Commission recommended for a shorter duration in the vacation.

However, the recommendation does not hold any importance as complete vacations for courts are not needed.

There is a need to fix days of annual leave for the judges so that they also get time from the work.