M J Antony: More sinned against

OUT OF COURT

A judiciary starved of staff, funds and infrastructure cannot do justice either to the litigants or to itself.

As if to counter the demand in certain quarters that the judiciary also must open up in the era of the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court has started releasing the data every quarter about the pendency of cases in courts all over the country and the vacancies of judges at various levels. The figures just published do not carry any message of cheer; in fact, the situation seems to be getting worse.

In the last quarter, the number of cases pending in the district and subordinate courts all over the country has gone up by 1,27,000, totalling 2,50,00,000. In the 21 high courts, the number has shot up by 33,000 in the same period, making a total of 37,00,000. The Supreme Court has added 1,239 cases to make a total of 44,819. The apex court has shown a particularly negative trend as it had been showing a positive rate of disposal for the past few years.

The reason for this state of affairs is not far to seek. Shortage of judges, apathy of the executive in releasing funds for judicial institutions, lack of infrastructure and a legal profession which delights in delaying the wheels of justice are the main contributory factors.

The district and subordinate courts, where common people get their first taste of the decrepit system, are woefully short of judges. The sanctioned strength for all the courts is 15,399. But there are 3,031 vacancies, which means that nearly one out of three posts of judges are lying vacant. The worst affected states are Bihar, where 541 posts are vacant as against the sanctioned strength of 1,361; Uttar Pradesh, where similar figures are 493 vacancies as against 2,172 sanctioned posts; Karnataka, 207/ 858; Madhya Pradesh, 203/988; and Uttarkhand, 177/266.

The situation in the high courts is also disappointing. There are 206 vacancies in the 21 high courts in the country. The total sanctioned strength is 792. The Allahabad high court has 73 judges and 87 vacancies. No wonder it has added up 12,037 cases in just three months, taking the total pending cases before the high court to 8,27,639. The next worst is the Punjab and Haryana high court, which has 33 working judges and 20 vacancies. Some other high courts with poor judge strength are the Patna high court (13 vacancies out of the sanctioned strength of 43) and Gujarat (14 vacancies out of 42). The Supreme Court has just now added three judges, thus bringing down the vacancies to one, while the sanctioned strength is 26.

Even the sanctioned strength is far below the recommendation of the 120th report of the Law Commission. According to it, there should be 50 judges for a 10 lakh population instead of the present 10.5 judges for the same number. According to the Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, the average disposal per judge in the high courts and the subordinate courts was 2,374 and 1,346 cases, respectively, last year. The country requires 1,539 more judges in the high courts and 18,479 judges in the subordinate courts to clear the backlog in one year. The requirement would come down to 770 and 9,239 judges in the high courts and the subordinate courts respectively, if the backlog alone had to be cleared in two years. This is indeed a tall order, considering the apathy of the successive central and state governments, the population growth and the rising legal awareness of the citizens.

Successive Chief Justices have pointed out that the main hurdle in tackling the situation is the governments' lack of concern. The nation is experiencing the consequences of the neglect of education, health and land reforms. The collapse of the judicial system is another disaster in the waiting. Jails are already overcrowded with "undertrials".

Before Justice Balakrishnan, the then Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal had said, "Most of the courts are functioning from dingy, dilapidated and outdated structures with poor hygienic conditions even for judicial officers." His predecessor, Chief Jusice A S Anand, had said, "Till such time as financial and administrative powers are vested in the judiciary, the state should not hesitate to lay more expenditure for the efficient management of the judiciary. As the position stands today, every high court and the judicial system itself are starved of funds."

One serious upshot of this is that the judiciary is not attracting the best talent available. Grey-haired judges get wages which are a fraction of those drawn by IT graduates in their twenties. This leads to corruption, estimated by an ex-CJI to affect 30 per cent of the judiciary. This is the real crisis in the judicial system; not its perceived confrontation with the executive and the legislature.