No seating areas for litigants in 77% district court complexes

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, December 23

Often described as the most important stakeholder in the judicial system, litigants continue to be at the receiving end with even basic facilities such as washrooms, drinking water and seating/waiting areas not being made available to them in a large number of courts across India.

According to the Supreme Court’s ‘State of Judiciary’ Report, 2023, only 62.8 per cent of the district court complexes across the country have drinking water with purifiers available and 19.7 per cent do not have separate toilets for women.

While 62.4 per cent of the district court complexes across India do not have toilets attached to lock-up facilities, in Uttar Pradesh, the situation was worse, where lock-ups in many districts were without toilets. In the state, only 32 per cent of the district court complexes have separate lock-up facilities for women, the report highlights.

Noting that “women have distinct sanitation needs, especially with respect to menstrual hygiene, leading to a need for gender-based segregation of sanitation facilities”, the report points out that 73.4 per cent of the district court complexes did not have any sanitary pad vending machines.

“To ensure equality, dignity and the right to menstrual health and sanitation facilities to women, it is essential that women toilets in institutions of justice have sanitary napkin vending machines with appropriate menstrual waste disposal options,” it says.

More than 83 per cent district court complexes don’t have ‘vulnerable witness deposition centres’, the report states.

Lamenting that 77.80 per cent district court complexes had no waiting areas available for litigants, the report says, “Many district courts do not have dedicated seating/waiting areas for litigants. Seating arrangements are often made on the corridors and verandahs in front of the courtrooms, in open places and under the canopies.”

Ironically, the report notes that “in the Indian judicial system, the district judiciary provides the primary interface between the litigant and the justice system… Justice without accessibility to the litigant is an illusion”.

Available data shows that in district court complexes across India, only 7.8 per cent have a post office, 22.6 per cent have canteen facilities and merely 4.3 per cent have banking facilities. Besides, disabled-friendly facilities like ramps were available in only 49.7 per cent of the district court complexes.

“It is a ground reality that court complexes at the district level not only have inadequate washrooms, but at times have washrooms that are dysfunctional and have no running water. Sometimes, washrooms are not attached to the chambers of judicial officers and both male and female judges have to share a common washroom,” highlights the Supreme Court’s report.

“I have been told that there are no washroom for women district judges. For some, the washrooms are away from the courtroom, so when a judge has to go to the washroom, she has to pass by undertrials, which is very embarrassing,” the report quoted CJI DY Chandrachud as having said at a function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association.