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.
