Dealing with pendency of cases will be my priority as CJI: Justice Kant

CJI-designate Justice Surya Kant on Saturday said dealing with a huge backlog of over 5 crore cases across courts in the country and promoting "game changer" mediation as an alternative mode of dispute resolution will be his two top priorities as head of the judiciary.

On online trolling of judges and judgements, he said these things never perturbed him. Fair criticism is always acceptable, he said.

Justice Kant, who was appointed as the 53rd Chief Justice of India (CJI) on October 30 by President Droupadi Murmu, will take the oath of office on November 24 to succeed Justice B R Gavai.

In an informal chat with mediapersons at his official residence here, Justice Kant said, "My first and foremost challenge is arrears of cases. Today's scoreboard shows that the Supreme Court arrears crossed 90,000. I am not going into how it happened, who is responsible... maybe listing (of cases) has gone up."  He said he will also seek reports from high courts about the pendency of cases there and in trial courts across the country.

According to reports, more than 4.6 crore cases are pending across India's courts.

The CJI-designate underlined the importance of mediation as an effective alternative dispute resolution mechanism.

"Now the second issue is mediation. This is one of the easiest ways of dispute (re)solution and it can really be the game changer," he said.

Referring to a recent speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an apex court function in which he stressed the need for mediation, Justice Kant said now the entire country is talking about it.

Recently Indian private MNCs, banks and insurance companies officially approached the top court seeking mediation training for their employees. They wanted to have their own in-house mediators because they did not want to go for long litigation, he added.

On ways of reducing pendency of cases, Justice Kant gave an example of batch matters of Delhi related to land acquisition and said by one judgement of his, around 1,200 cases were disposed of.

He further said that the high courts will be asked about the pending cases to be adjudicated upon by larger constitution benches of the top court.

There are many cases stuck in high courts as judgements are awaited in other related matters of larger legal and constitutional issues in the top court and larger benches have to be set up for that, he added.

On online trolling of judges and court judgements, Justice Kant said that once one reaches the office of an SC judge or becomes the CJI, then these comments on social media should not bother them.

"Frankly speaking, I call social media 'unsocial media' and I do not feel pressured by online comments...," he said, adding that during his tenure as a high court and Supreme Court judge, he was never perturbed by these.

Fair criticism of judges and judgements is always acceptable, he said.

Asked about the rising pollution in Delhi-NCR, Justice Kant said he still goes for a morning walk for around 50 minutes every day.

"Despite any weather conditions or anything, I normally go for my walk and average 50 minutes to one hour I walk...," he said.

Talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and its ill effects, the CJI-designate said a holistic view of technology is needed.

"AI can really provide a great solution to the institution, but we will have to find a solution (to its malady)," he said.

Justice Kant will have a tenure of 15 months before he demits office on February 9, 2027, on attaining the age of 65.

Born on February 10, 1962, in Hisar district of Haryana in a middle-class family, Justice Kant went from being a small-town lawyer to the country's highest judicial office, where he has been part of several verdicts and orders of national importance and constitutional matters. He also holds the distinction of standing 'first class first' in his master's degree in law in 2011 from Kurukshetra University.