Order, Order :
India had a total of 31,035,237 cases
pending at all levels of the three-tiered judiciary. In which over two crore cases are
pending in subordinate courts only, a Parliamentary Committee has observed.
Being a law student I observe that it’s not a new problem but it became a topic
of discussion when the Chief Justice claimed that the
country needs 70,000 judges to handle the burden.
Some
of the major reasons for high pendency of cases in subordinate courts are poor
judge-population ratio, costly litigation caused by lawyers, poor
infrastructure and weak alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Unlike most other countries where the political executive
appoints the judges, in India the selection of judges is actually made by the
judges itself through collegium system. Thus, trial court judges are appointed
on the basis of a selection process conducted by the High Court in that State;
High Court judges are appointed on the basis of a recommendation by the senior
most judges of the Supreme Court and that High Court; and the Supreme Court
judges themselves are appointed on the basis of the recommendation of the five
senior-most judges of the Supreme Court.
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| A man carries a pile of documents outside one of the court |
The
National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, 2015 which had been
struck down by the Supreme Court of India which termed that the bill is against
the concept of independent judiciary, but I found that the collegium system
also has too many flaws and lacks transparency.
Our courts need to get out of the “tareekh pe tareekh“ trap
of endless adjournments. Another sensible measure is to discourage frivolous
cases and appeals which is creating logjam in higher courts.
During his Raipur visit on Sunday, Chief Justice of India T S
Thakur pointed out that “If the logjam in Indian courts is terrible today, it's
only going to get worse tomorrow unless major course correction is undertaken
with urgency as the country succeeds in increasing literacy and prosperity and
thereby the courts' caseloads will also rise.”
The Chief Justice’s comments and the
eagerness of the Union Government to pass the Commercial Courts Act is an
indication perhaps of the urgency being felt to undertake serious judicial
reform and as a result the first Commercial court of India has been opened in our
Raipur by CJI which will facilitate the investors in their commercial dealings.
As the legal maxim says “Justice Delayed is
Justice Denied” therefore it’s time India to put judicial reforms on the fast
track.
-Romit Chandrakar, Raipur
Enjoy the BIG Picture
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Feedback- romitchandrakar@gmail.com
Twitter- @RomitChandrakar
