Lower courts in crisis

All-round shortages deny citizens basic justice

Debates over the merits of a National Judicial Appointments Commission have often focused on the 40 per cent vacancies in the Supreme Court and high courts and the backlog of critical cases as a result of it. But this problem pales beside the shoddy state of the lower judiciary, as highlighted in a recent report prepared by the Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning. The report is the result of a joint conference between chief justices of the high courts and chief ministers in April 2016, to find ways to make speedy and affordable justice a reality. The report demonstrates that the lower judiciary is, not to put too fine a point on it, a mess. 

The report shows that there is shortage not just of judges but also of basic infrastructure such as court rooms and accommodation. Existing court-room infrastructure can accommodate only 15,540 judicial officers at the magisterial, civil and district judge levels against an all-India sanctioned strength of 20,558. In terms of the residential accommodation for the subordinate judiciary, the shortage is of 8,538 quarters — more than 40 per cent of the sanctioned strength of judicial officers. In addition, 41,774 positions are lying vacant in the subordinate courts, a 19 per cent shortfall from sanctioned strength. The broad trends implicit in these numbers are scarcely novel — the Centre has rarely missed a chance to highlight the fact that lower courts account for almost 90 per cent of the backlog of cases. 

But this report is significant because it approaches the issue from the point of the citizen. Defining the judiciary as an essential service on a par with medical and policing services, the report employs the Human Development Index method to highlight the scale of the crisis. It shows, for instance, that access to justice remains the biggest bane for the common man: One judge is available in a distance of 157 square km compared to one policeman per 61 km. To understand the scale of deficiency, consider the judge-to-population ratio. As on December 31, 2015, India had 18 judges per million people compared to China’s 147 judges per million. To reach the minimum demographic standard of 50 judges per million, India would need over 60,000 judges — three times the sanctioned judicial workforce of 20,558 officers and working strength of 16,176 officers but less than half the 1,36,794 judges recommended by the 120th Law Commission report of 1987. No surprise, then, that the backlog of cases is akin to an immovable object: It was 26.8 million in 2013 and 27.1 million in 2015.

The report, however, emphasises that the lower judiciary is well able to tackle the flow of fresh cases. Over 2013, 2014 and 2015, 18.6 million, 19.2 million and 19 million cases, respectively, were instituted; in the same years, 18.7 million, 19.3 million and 18.3 million cases, respectively, were disposed of. Had the lower judiciary been fully staffed and equipped in the first place, this backlog would never have arisen. The report makes the important point that litigation tends to rise with improving education and prosperity. By the latter yardstick alone, India is headed for an even bigger judicial crisis soon.