Case Pendency on the rise - Burden on courts

Right to legal remedy is our fundamental entity guaranteed in our Constitution.  However, our Judicial System over the last several years is unable to address the complications and technicalities involved in the pendency of cases that are not related to law.  Though there could be many reasons attributed to the parties to the litigants’ side including a shortage of manpower at many levels, a study is done to explore the three main components related to Case Management which play a huge part related to the pendency. State-wise data extracted for 33 States is furnished as under:

• (a) Undated Cases: 3817331
• (b) Cases Pending Registration:   717031
• (c) Cases under Objection:   207727

Break-up of both Civil & Criminal cases is tabulated as under:

Source- National Judicial Data Grid (District and Taluk Courts in India)

UNDATED CASES:

Usually if cases are transferred to another Court the dates will be shown as undated. In case if the  proceedings pending before High Court there will be no date until the interested party move the Court and get a date for hearing.  Any case for which the next date of hearing has not been assigned is called an undated case. 

States like Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, etc are showing huge cases which are undated that adds huge constraints to the process of adjudication. The main reasons attributed to this factor are, lack of interest by the parties concerned, many deliberately seek delay in the process of adjudication, parties unable to bear the litigation fees, lack of prioritisation assigned to cases, etc.  Hence, it can be minimized when a law is made to assign a fixed time period, say three months is assigned for every case to be listed compulsorily listed and advised directly to the counsels and clients concerned through Mail/SMS  to ensure that the case moves to the next stage under due process of law. One of the Rule should stipulate that if the parties fail to appear for three consecutive hearing, the case should be either dismissed or ordered Ex-partite.

CASES PENDING REGISTRATION:

In the absence of a standard structure format or uniformity across all Courts for both Civil and Criminal matters discrepancies in filing of petitions and non-compliance of procedures spelt under Rules of Practice, etc the rectification process takes considerable time. Though many courts are publishing their observation sheets through website accessible to the advocates on vakalat the process of completion and compliance takes an indefinite period as it involves many reasons like, non-availability of documents from the clients’ side, shortage of manpower, etc. This issue could be addressed when filing of Application or Petition could be enabled through Online publishing a prescribed checklist to ensure that all documents are available beforehand. The scanned copies of documents or enclosures can be verified at the respective courts and queries if any, can be raised through the same online channel without any delay. Once it is approved, hardcopies can be submitted before the filing section and acknowledgement taken for admission. The same could be listed for first hearing for admission to take off the litigation process without any delay.   States  like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, etc can explore technology optimisation to reduce this backlog which poses a permanent pendency on long-term.

CASES UNDER OBJECTION:

Management of cases post objection is a major deterrent to the progress of any case as it results in a number of adjournments sought for many genuine reasons by the parties to the litigation. Generally, objections are put forth during the process of hearing on the grounds like, the court is not competent to entertain the suit on the original side, the principal question of fact arising in the suit is not of civil nature, .suit is expressly or impliedly barred by law, Jurisdiction as to subject matter, the applicability of the doctrine of Res Judicata, the doctrine of Res Sub Judice, limitation, etc. All these factors can be perused at the scrutiny stage itself under the powers of the Registrar who must be equivalent to the rank of the highest Judge of that Court. States like Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are showing huge cases pending under objection.

Hence there is a need to engage young law students to undertake a detailed study to address the core issues related to the pendency of cases across various Courts in our country and to ensure that all preliminary hurdles are removed for the facilitation of smooth progress during the process of case management for early adjudication of matters. There are already nearly fifty lakh cases pending before the District and Taluk Courts in the country excluding High Courts, Tribunals, etc. that attribute to these three major reasons under Case Management.