View from the ivory tower

Inequalities in the infrastructure facilities in courts are glaring

There is good news for those who have been trudging along the Supreme Court’s overcrowded corridors for the past few years, ducking strolleys laden with lawyers’ briefs and tomes of legal wisdom. The court would go “paperless” when it reopens after the summer vacation. This leapfrog to the digital era was announced last week by Chief Justice J S Khehar while inaugurating a new information system. He also said the government had sanctioned Rs 2,130 crore for the e-court mission for 2016-17 and only Rs 88 crore has been spent till last December. Thus there is plenty of idle money for the venture. 

Those who similarly plough their way in the subordinate courts and tribunals would look with awe and cynicism at the electronic leap forward promised by the Chief Justice along with the Prime Minister. The plight of subordinate courts has been well-authenticated by the media and even in Supreme Court judgments. Last year, the Prime Minister saw the then Chief Justice wiping tears while describing the state of affairs of subordinate courts.  In October last year, lawyers stayed away from the Debt Recovery Tribunal within walking distance of the Parliament building because it had no water and electricity and the government would not pay the rent.

Last week, the Bombay High Court wrote a 220-page judgment on the predicament of the various courts and tribunals in Maharashtra and passed a long list of remedial orders. The case was started by the court on its own motion. The judgment started with the remark that “almost all the courts and tribunals in the state lack proper infrastructure”. Then it went on to describe the chilling details of some of the courts, tribunals and consumer forums where ordinary people start their long trek to justice. If Maharashtra courts are in such a sordid state, their counterparts elsewhere might be in a more dystopian condition. 

 The high court passed some 30 directions, which dealt with basic amenities like drinking water, adequate furniture and computers, chairs for the litigants,  maintenance of lifts (those in Pune had not worked for years), and bottlenecks in sanctioning fund for repair of buildings. Some old buildings in Thane and Mazagaon had been declared unfit several years ago and should have been evacuated; “it may be pure luck there was no untoward incident”. Referring to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the high court remarked that “it is a common experience in case of many court complexes in Maharashtra that the toilets and washrooms are stinking. Moreover, proper cleanliness is not at all maintained inside the courts and in the court premises”.

A study by the Supreme Court last year is in line with the high court’s observations and added that on a geographical average, one judge is available in a distance of 157 sq km (but a police officer can be found within 61 km). The existing court room infrastructure can accommodate 15,540 judicial officers whereas the all-India sanctioned strength is 20,558. The report reeled out statistics confirming the poor infrastructure that cripples judiciary.

The Union Budget 2017-18 maintained its Cinderella attitude towards judiciary, allotting some 0.2 per cent of the total to it. The Budget-makers earmarked Rs 1,744 crore for the administration of justice (Air India got Rs 1,800 crore). Then there were miscellaneous heads like the National Mission for Delivery of Justice and Legal Reform, e-Courts Phase II, Strengthening of Access to Justice in India (whatever that is), altogether getting Rs 432 crore, less than the total budget of the film Bahubali. It is this tight-fisted stance of the Budget-makers at the Centre and state levels that leads to stink in the court buildings.

Therefore, the people who approach the courts at the lowest rungs would not be heartened by the tantalising prospects of the digital era or even artificial intelligence descending on the far-away Supreme Court.  They would tend to nurse their eternal grouse that though the courts are open to everybody (like the Hilton), only those with deep pockets have a chance to reach the techno-utopia. Structural and procedural reforms must start from the murky ground upwards, not from cyber cloud.