Endless Wait for justice

ENDLESS WAIT FOR JUSTICE

Starved of funds and personnel, the legal system is in imminent danger of collapsing

The latest statistics released by the Supreme Court regarding cases pending in various courts in the country points to the stupendous task before new law minister. The hundred days agenda declared by the gov. includes a road maps for judicial reform to be outlined in six months an implemented in a time bound manner. The fourth coming budget also has to take care of court and their infrastructure, which was getting only 0.2% of the share, far bellow health and education.

According the to figures released by the apex court last month, there has been little improvement in the disposal of the cases in recent years. Infact,the pace has slow down. The civil and criminal cases pending in the subordinate courts, where citizen comes into contact with judicial system for the first time have gone up. Tow year ago the number cases pending in the subordinate courts was around 25 million. Now it is roughly 26.4 million. Civil cases pending now are 75, 39,848 and criminal cases are 1, 88, 69,163. In three months between October first 2008 and December 31^st 2008, the number of civil cases sort up from 74,96,063 to 75,39,848 despite the disposal of 9,51,406 cases.

The high courts are also struggling with huge numbers. The total for all the 21 high courts is 38, 74,090. The Allahabad high court leads with 9,11,858 cases pending, followed by the Madras high court 4,51,496, Bombay High court with 3,36,080 and Calcutta high court with 3,00473. The Supreme Court showed an increase of pending cases in the first quarter of the year. While the figure at the year end was 49,819 at the end of March, it was 50,163. One major factor for this state of affaires is the number of vacancies of judges in all courts. At the districts and subordinate levels their where 3,129 vacancies out of the total sanctioned strength of 16,685. Uttarpradesh laid with 523 vacancies, followed by Maharashtra 259, Bihar 251, Delhi 226, and Karnataka 216. Only Daman and Diu had the full complement of three judges.

The high courts have sanctioned strength of 886 judges, but 251 posts are vacant. The Allahabad high court, which has a sanctioned strength of 160 judges, has 88 vacancies. The figures for the Calcutta high court are 22 vacancies out of 58 and for the Punjab and Haryana high court 20 out of 68. The sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court was recently raised 231, but the working strength is 26.

Apart from the shortage of judged, shortage of funds is another major cause of cracks in the system. A former chief justice lamented that “as the position stands at present, every high court and judicial system is starved of funds. The expenditure on judiciary in this country is only 0.2% of the GNP as compared to 4.3% in UK. More than half of expenditure on judiciary is generated by the judiciary itself through court fees and fines”.

The financial crunch shows in several ways the judge population ratio is 10.5 judges per million. This should be contrasted with law commissioned recommendation made decades ago that the ideal ratio would be 50 judges per million. Harassed and low paid judges can not be expected to impart justice fairly in the pressure from the lawyer and their mighty clients. The judiciary does not attract the best talent these days as a good lawyer can earn in few minutes what judges get in month.

If this is the situation of the full fledge court, the plight of the tribunal and other quasi judicial-bodies is worse. Till recently, one national appellate tribunal was functioning from a car! Several tribunals have little infrastructure let alone a functional library computer system. Thy function only a few hours in the morning in many places.

The state gov. which are the respondents in many cases before this forums, are not keen to provide them the basic facilities following the lead of the central gov. the state budget also treat the judiciary shabbily. Financial autonomy for the judiciary is still a mirage though several suggestion have been made to the planning commission and the financial commission over the past decades their has been occasional bickering between the executive and judiciary over the unhappy situation. Gov. Representatives blame the judiciary for slow disposal of cases and corruption which has reached the higher echelons in recent times judges counter this by pointing out the poor infrastructure and funds provided to the third state. The challenge before the new gov is to save the legal system from impending collapse.

Sources, Business standard. 10^th June 2009.

By, M. J Antony.