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Judiciary needs to turn to its own experts for solution to arrears problem

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By Saurabh Malik

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THE judiciary needs to indulge in self-medication to recover from prolonged malady of arrears. For it to turn into a robust controller of the problem, it needs to carry out consultations with the specialists inside. The courts need to remember that a solution has to be found from within and universal words of wisdom that look good on papers are not essentially effective when translated into reality.

Viewing of court proceedings through projectors

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  • The Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken trial to the undertrials. It has ordered the viewing of court proceedings through projectors “equipped with voice apparatus”, while permitting them to interact with their counsel through intercom during the trial. The developments took place on a bunch of 73 petitions filed against the State of Haryana. While examination of witnesses through videoconferencing is not uncommon, this is perhaps the first time the undertrials will view the proceedings from where they are, including prison cells.

While the New Year is time for almost everyone to think big in terms of making resolutions, the need for the judiciary to do much more is beyond the realm of denial. It essentially needs to widen the scope of discussion and talk to former Judges, lawyers and even litigants to first diagnose the problem and then prescribe a solution.

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It needs to get into self-observation mode and look back in concern to find out the reasons that drew it away from the speedy justice track before re-strategizing and recovering from the losing battle to arrears.

The wider nation-wide picture presented by the National Judicial Data Grid just before the New Year is far from happy for the litigants, and all other stakeholders. It says no less than 45,37,534 cases are pending adjudication before the High Courts across the country.

In the Punjab and Haryana High Court alone, 5,27,998 cases are waiting for the hammer of justice to fall. As many as 3,80,089 cases have been figuring in the list of pending matters for more than a year. To make the matters worse, 1,29,623 criminal cases involving life and liberty have been awaiting adjudication for the same period. Convincing data on backlog across all quasi-judicial forums, including tribunals, is in the domain of obscurity. But the situation in the subordinate judiciary is certainly not within the ambit of satisfaction.

It is required to be remembered that every case has at least two parties and many more litigants on each side. Going by this, the number of litigants is mindboggling. Estimates suggest every third household on an average is before the courts.

The fact that each High Court has its own set of problems is an actuality that is not in the sphere of conjectures. Also, there is no denying the fact that each court needs to make alterations and there is no-one-size-that-fits-all solution to the problem.

Many brains have pondered over the issue of ever-increasing backlog and the pendency of cases that is neither desirable nor controllable. The search for a general solution travels back to 1924, with the setting up of the Rankin Committee to “enquire into the operation and effects of the substantive and adjective law, whether enacted or otherwise, followed by the Courts in India in the disposal of civil suits, appeals, applications for revision and other civil litigation.”

The Rankin Committee in its report submitted: “Unless a court can start with a reasonably clean slate, improvement of methods is likely to merely tantalise. The existence of a mass of arrears takes the heart out of a presiding officer. He can hardly be expected to take a strong interest in preliminaries, when he knows that the hearing of the evidence and the decision will not be by him but by his successor after his transfer. So long as such arrears exist, there is a temptation to which many presiding officers succumb, to hold back the heavier contested suits and devote attention to the lighter ones. The turnout of decisions in contested suits is thus maintained somewhere near the figure of institutions, while the really difficult work is pushed further into the background.”

The Rankin Commission was followed by the High Courts’ Arrears Committee in 1949 and 1972. Since then, the Law Commission has come out with various reports. The issue has also been examined by an Estimates Committee and Satish Chandra Committee in 1986 and another Arrears Committee in 1990. The reports submitted from time to time have two things in common — recommendations for dealing with the problem, and the failure to do the same.

The Supreme Court in the case of “Hussainara Khatoon versus Home Secretary State of Bihar” had held that speedy trial was a part of Article 21 of the Constitution on right to life and liberty. Reiterating its stand, the Supreme Court in the case of “Hussain versus the Union of India” held: “This constitutional right cannot be denied even on the plea of non-availability of financial resources. The court is entitled to issue directions to augment and strengthen investigating machinery, setting up of new courts, building new court houses, providing more staff and equipment to the courts, appointment of additional judges and other measures as are necessary for speedy trial.”

But the problem continues. The courts, under the circumstances, need to turn to their own lawyers, litigants and former judges for solution. Justice SS Sodhi, former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, among other things, asserted at a seminar: “There is a need for a relook at the procedural laws. It is said laws are weighed more in

favour of the party against whom relief is sought rather than the one that comes to court seeking it.

Such being the situation, can we indulge in the luxury of three appeals — an appeal from the subordinate judge or magistrate to the District and Sessions Judge; from there to the High Court; and finally to the Supreme Court”.

“If the court of the District and Sessions Judge was to be the court of the first instance, would not justice be better served? Eliminating the appeal to this court would reduce the time on litigation by between three and five years. Further, with his qualifications and experience, the quality of justice to be rendered by the District and Sessions Judge must, undoubtedly, be assumed to be superior to that of a subordinate judge or magistrate,” he asserted.

The need for adoption of such steps is well pronounced and can, perhaps, eventually help the court to start with a reasonably clean slate.

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