Each year, the Supreme Court starts with bleak statistics. This year, it has slipped back to growing arrears after a marginal improvement last year. At present, 66,692 cases are pending. There is a steady climb in the numbers — from 41,730 in 2007, it rose to 46,372 the next year; then 50,148 in 2009; and up to 55,018 in 2010. Only in 2011, was there a marginal decrease to 54,547. Every month more than 5,000 new cases come to the Court, of which it is capable of disposing of around 3,600.
Moreover, there are 44 constitutional bench matters that require five to 13 judges, out of the present 28. Then, there are 161 cases that have been referred to benches of at least three judges, since there are conflicting views on the law in question. Thus, even if the Court tries hard to dispose of old cases, it will not be able to do it in our lifetime. (A voice from the clouds says, “Not in my lifetime either”).
Although the enormity of the situation is known to all, little has been done at the apex level. Whatever improvement that has happened is in the high courts and below. Some high courts and district courts have stemmed the tide and even turned it around — though marginally. But the Supreme Court has not been a model. It is the high courts that have paperless, electronic court rooms as in Delhi. It is Bihar which has video trials with the accused persons seated in jail.
The Supreme Court often admonishes the courts below for adjourning hearings too quickly, violating procedural laws. In a recent judgment, it said adjournments were granted for the asking, quite often to suit the convenience of the advocate. “We make it clear that the legislature has frowned upon granting adjournments on that ground. At any rate, inconvenience of an advocate is not a ‘special reason’ for bypassing the mandate of the law.”
However, any person visiting the Supreme Court can see that it is guilty of the same lapse. It was discovered during the recent Delhi rallies that it has not decided an eight-year-old appeal in a gang-rape case, in which 42 men were charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl for 40 days. Kuber-rich companies don’t wait for over two years.
Another frustrating phenomenon is the Court’s lack of control over the long-windedness of lawyers. The profession has been notorious for verbosity from classical times. One of the first things the Greeks did after discovering sundial and water clocks was to limit the time for pleading in Athenian courts. Demosthenes often asked the time-keepers to slow down the trickle to lengthen his legal speeches. In Rome, the water clock emptied in about 20 minutes and the lawyer had to get permission to proceed further. The US Supreme Court allows only 10 minutes more.
But, in India, counsel run out of control, as it were, and judges are seen to listen to them with no outward sign of fatigue. If the court fee is linked to the time taken by the arguing counsel, at least clients would control their lawyers when the judges have failed, and the court would get richer. As it is, a rich corporation can pay Rs 250 and buy about three-month’s time for arguments.
After the hearing, the parties have to wait for months, sometimes years, to hear the judgment. Recently, the Italians very diplomatically reminded the authorities about the Indian rate of disposal in the case of two marines who shot Kerala fishermen. The Supreme Court admonishes the courts below for such long delays. The high courts have, therefore, begun to mark on top the date of closing the hearing and the date of judgment. The gap is only some weeks in a few high courts.
However, in the top court, infinity is the norm. On the last working day of 2012, one bench shot off nearly a 100 judgments because one judge was retiring. There have been several instances when the retiring judge, who sent drafts to his brothers the night before, has been criticised by colleagues, since they had no time to read and record agreement or dissent.
The Court is accused of meddling in social and political issues and trampling on the constitutional Laxman rekha. However, it does not make any serious effort to change its own ways, which have contributed to the current logjam. Most of the above problems can be solved by exercising the Court’s administrative powers. The government alone cannot be blamed — though the law minister has not looked back to the Court from where he leaped to the government.
If the Court dares to telecast its proceedings, the public would get a glimpse of the proceedings without crossing five security barriers to enter the theoretical “open court”. In a recent public interest petition, the court has promised to look into the issue of allowing video. Tantalising indeed; but before that, judges must press the buttons to activate the audio system that has been lying idle at their arm’s length for over 30 years.
