Now that Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir and the UPA government have finally decided to hold the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts this weekend, there is hope that some long-pending issues in the country's judicial and justice delivery system will be resolved. Originally meant to be an annual affair, the conference was last held in August 2009. Rather than discussing the need for judicial reforms, which has been brought up so many times that one has lost count, the higher judiciary and the government would do well to use this year's conference to take stock of what has been achieved since the last conference.
The law ministry is suggesting that the issue of an All India Judicial Service would be discussed at this meeting. But wasn't it discussed almost four years ago too? And what about making appointments to higher judiciary more transparent? Successive law ministers, including the current one, have announced plans to replace the collegium system with a more transparent one. But since this requires a constitutional amendment, the chances of this happening any time soon are remote, what with the government and opposition divided on the composition of the proposed National Judicial Appointments Commission.
Both the judiciary and the government repeatedly talk of increasing the strength of the subordinate judiciary. CJI Kabir is reportedly aiming at increasing the number of judges manning subordinate courts from the current 18,871 to 30,000-plus in the next five years. Earlier this year, Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar had also asked all state governments to increase the strength of the subordinate judiciary. But what about first filling all vacant posts, both in the high courts and the lower courts? At last count, out of the sanctioned strength of 906 high court judges, a whopping 292 posts were vacant, that is, over 30 per cent. The picture is no different when it comes to lower courts. According to data for December 31, 2010, out of the sanctioned 17,151 posts in states and Union Territories, 3,170 were vacant.
At the last conference, the government and judiciary had also agreed to set up more morning/evening courts and also to reduce the states' financial burden to set up more gram nyayalayas. As of December 17, 2012, 168 gram nyayalayas were notified, while only 151 were operationalised. Five thousand gram nyayalayas had been planned in the 2008 Gram Nyayalayas Act.
About a year ago, the Supreme Court cleared the National Court Management System (NCMS), aimed at setting up a real-time system to keep a check on pendency and make the judicial system free of cases more than five years old, which would mean 26 per cent of all pending cases. Here is what the introduction to the action plan for the NCMS said: "It is manifest that many of the important recommendations made by the Law Commissions (on judicial reforms), from time to time, have not even been properly discussed, leave aside their implementation by the Government." The Supreme Court also acknowledged that many recommendations of the Law Commissions do not need to pass through legislative or executive channels and can be implemented straightaway by the judiciary. It also noted the urgent need to shorten the average life cycle of all cases, "not only time spent within each court, but also total time in the judicial system as a whole". It spoke of bringing the average down to "no more than about one year in each court". None of these issues has been dealt with effectively.
Jurists have said that courts should not grant adjournments at the drop of a hat, on flimsy excuses such as the lawyer who was supposed to appear in the matter had too much work on his hands. But this suggestion has not been taken seriously. Despite the infusion of hundreds of crores, the use of technology to track pendency remains minimal. Last year, the CJI had cleared the setting up of a National Framework of Court Excellence (NFCE), designed to put in place "measurable performance standards for Indian courts" by "addressing issues of quality, responsiveness and timeliness". There has been little progress on this front.
While it is a fact that India has one of the lowest judge-to-population ratios in the world, this statistic can no longer be an argument for the growing pendency of cases and the failure of our judicial system to deliver timely justice.
Also, while pitching for fast-track courts for certain kinds of offences, our policy-makers and judges should keep in mind what former CJI J S Verma has said on the subject: "Why fast-track courts for some offences? Shouldn't all litigants be assured fast-track decisions by the courts?"
maneesh.chhibber@expressindia.com
