A study conducted by Daksh, a Bengaluru based non-governmental organization that studies and analyses judicial performance has found that judges of the high courts in the country spend less than five minutes hearing a case on a daily basis. The more relaxed high court judges have 15 to 16 minutes to hear a case while the busiest ones have just around 2.5 minutes. The Calcutta high court for instance hears 163 cases per day while
the high court in Patna has 157 cases listed per day. The Orissa high court is less congested with 55 cases per day. This is, by and large, the pressure faced by judges of the high courts. That they are able to dispense justice under such trying circumstances
is a miracle.
All courts in the country put together have a backlog of over
three crore cases and no one knows how long it will take to
clear this load. Besides, every day brings newer cases which
only add to the burden. There are instances where cases take
up to 25 years to go through the judicial
system from the trial court to
the Supreme Court. There are instances
where a case started by the
father is taken up by the son and
even the grandson. Judges have
put their heads together on several
occasions to try and resolve this
sinking situation, without much
success.
It’s easy to identify the problem,
but even more difficult to fix it.
One of the problems is the enormous
number of judicial vacancies that are not filled. In August
last year the country’s high courts had a shortfall of 384
judges while in 2013 there were 4,403 vacancies in subordinate
courts. India has 15.5 judges for every million whereas the US
has 100 judges for every million. These statistics alone tell you
how broken the system really is and the despair with which
litigants approach the court to get justice.
The problem is not restricted to vacancies alone. Lawyers
are an important component and it is suspected that many of
them earn more money from adjournments than actual settlement
of cases. If the defence lawyer is present the prosecutor is
not available and if both are present the witness does not turn
up. So what sets in is a regime of postponements and after a
while judges get used to it and the ‘chalta hai’ attitude eventually
spreads to every wheel and cog in the system.
Another problem is listing of a large number of cases for the
day. How can anyone expect a judge of the high court to go
through 163 cases in five or six hours? And why are so many
cases being listed when even a common citizen knows it is impossible
to sift through so many cases? The result is that litigants
and lawyers have to spend the whole day in court waiting
for cases to come up.
The judicial system, eventually delivers justice, but the
speed at which this happens is a drawback. Certain systems
have been put in place to speed up the process and judges
make it a point to take up important cases on a priority and
fast track older cases, but clearing a mountain of three crore
cases seems like an insurmountable task. Delivery of justice
needs to be done after circumspection and much through. It
is this demand that naturally slows down the process and the
only way to get around it is to increase the number of judges,
strengthen the system of adjournments and simplify procedures
before people lose faith in the system.
