Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Urgent Judicial Reforms Necessary' that was published in Newsband

Urgent Judicial Reforms Necessary

The pendency of cases in India’s overburdened and understaffed judiciary led to Chief Justice T S Thakur making an emotional appeal on Sunday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and this has added a sense of poignancy and urgency to the issue. There is requirement of about 50,000 judges. But we have just 18,000. More than three crore cases are pending in various courts. Substantive and concrete measures to resolve the twin problems of mounting arrears and chronic shortage of judicial resources are not forthcoming. Hence the emotional appeal by the Chief Justice is entirely understandable.

Chief Justice drew attention to lack of empathy for poor litigants and undertrial prisoners, who suffer the most because of judicial delay. The situation demands an ambitious infusion of manpower and financial resources. It is said that a modern society would ideally need 50 judges per million population. But the Law Commission says it is impractical.

The Centre and the judiciary should collaborate on finding practical solutions.

Increase in the number of judges is long overdue. Successive governments have failed in this regard. But there is need for urgent judicial reforms and procedures. One relates to the adjournment of cases by the judges at the drop of a hat. Other relates to urgent hearing of personal appeals of politicians and moneyed litigants. Only cases involving national interests should be granted urgent hearing. Third relates to re-hearing by a broader bench of the same court which cases unnecessary delay. Another issue is level jumping in certain classes of cases to reduce delay. Cases like Jayalalithaa's DA case (over 19 years old), Salman Khan's hit and run case (over 12 years old?) etc. provide a telling commentary on how our judicial system functions.

Along with our civil service examination there should be Indian Judicial Service exclusively meant for appointment of judges. Toppers who ought to be law graduates should be ranked and appointed to the posts as per merit. Secondly the numerous holidays and vacations should be cut down drastically. CJI seems to vote for quantity, rather than quality. The CJI had lamented at the low number of judges. Many would have appreciated if he had shown same emotion at the rapidly deteriorating performance of vast majority of Judges, including the Supreme Court. In fact the CJI and all judges should introspect at the end of every day proceedings, as how were their performances.

Time and again it stands established that the Government and its instrumentalists are the biggest litigants. It is for government to correct this trend. Courts often admit appeals and petitions that most often are frivolous, hear them on priority which could be rejected at the registry level itself. The Courts these days appear to have developed a tendency to go beyond the briefs perhaps to gain publicity. Cases should be decided by the Courts impassionately limiting themselves to the issues before them. Adjournments should be discouraged.

The perks for a judge which is on par with say a MP and MLA with 24H police security, cars, diplomatic passports etc. and this is all out of the taxpayers’ money. It is a huge Government expense. No one has had the courage of revisiting the perks for judges. As much as the private & public sector are being scrutinized for accountability, the judicial system is not, hence the regular stay orders/adjournments/vacations.

A large number of pending cases is not only because of lack of judicial strength alone. There are number of other reasons including deliberate delay tactics adopted by a section of lawyers that hindered speedy trial process, especially in lower courts. Number of measures including Judicial reform, scrapping feudal laws of a police state etc. must be initiated on war footing. Both executives and legislatures on their part must ensure judiciary is not burdened due to their failure. Only genuine PIL must be entertained with strictures. And of course, vacancies must be filled immediately.
(Please visit Dinesh Kamath's Blog: dkamath.blogspot.in)