Reducing the burden on Supreme Court of India

WHAT DOES THE THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA DEAL WITH?

• At present the Indian Supreme Court deals with 400 types of cases such as matrimonial matters , landlord-tenant disputes, bail matters and land acquisition cases, etc.

• Contrary to its counterpart courts, such as in United States, each State has a Supreme Court and there is a single Federal court to hear the cases regarding Constitutional disputes.

• Supreme Court hears around 75000 cases per year which is clearly overburdening the judicial system.This number includes all types of cases including those which are already being decided by the lower courts.

SUGGESTIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

• To establish four benches(north, south, east and west) of Court of Appeal having 15 Judges each having the same calibre as of Judges of Supreme Court. He further pointed out that similar system of Court of Appeal was already functional in 20-25 Common Law Countries.

• K.K. Venugopal the Attorney General of India said that our Supreme Court should only look after the matters of Constitutional and National importance.

• He also stated that such Court of Appeal could help in reducing the cases from 75000 to only 2000-3000 per year.

• He suggests that judges of such a Court of Appeal should be appointed by the collegium only.

• This would not only lead to increase in the efficiency of the Supreme Court but would also lead to wider accessibility of justice. The Southern States account for only 1-2% of litigation due to the distance but establishment of a Southern bench would lead to better accessibility and would ensure better access of justice to all.

• However this suggestion is not a lead-off to the idea of Court of Appeal.In 2016 the Supreme Court already heard debates regarding the applicability of this idea and at that time the government considered it as a ‘fruitless endeavour’.

What do you think about the idea of Court of Appeal? Let us know in the comments section below!