National Arrears Grid to help clear pending cases
Govt to appoint judges to speed up justice delivery
In a move to clear the gigantic 3.5 crore pending cases in the courts, the Centre on Saturday said it would set up a ‘National Arrears Grid’ to compile accurate data and appoint high court and lower court judges on contract to bring down 15-year delays in justice delivery to three years.
Unveiling a vision statement to tackle judicial pendency, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said, “Inefficiency in judiciary breeds corruption and delays mean people lose faith in system.’’
In the presence of Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan, judges of Supreme Court and high courts including Karnataka High Court CJ P D Dinakaran, Moily said, “Everywhere around us we see disenchantment that manifests itself in new forms of violence and strife – civil unrest, armed peasant and tribal movements, Naxalite and Maoist rebellions.’’
He squarely blamed the ill of the society to delayed justice with the justification that a feeling of injustice and allenation – “this is what leads to conflict, to violence and to breakdown of civil society”.
The document presented to Justice Balakrishnan said that 700 judges would be appointed in select high courts having greater pendency. The judges would be appointed on contract and paid Rs 1 lakh per month on an understanding that they clear at least 2,500 cases per year — the average disposal rate of a sitting HC judge. Similarly, 15,000 judges would be employed in trial courts for a two-year term and work in three shifts.
As of July 2009, 53,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court, 40 lakh before high courts and 2.7 crore before lower courts. This is an increase of 39 per cent for SC, 46 per cent for HC and 32 per cent for lower courts, the CJI said.
The CJI said only Parliament can take away the right to appoint a Judge to the Supreme Court or High Court from the Apex Court. “The proper forum for suggesting changes to the appointments process is the Parliament.’’
‘Litigation Policy’
Realising the fact that the government was the biggest litigant in the courts either as a respondent or appellant, the Centre said it was all set to adopt a ‘National Litigation Policy’ “to transform itself from compulsive to reluctant litigant.” The National Litigation Policy will entrust the task of weeding out the senseless litigation from the government’s docket to the office of the country’s top law officers – the Attorney General of India and the solicitor general, which will be established as a full-fledged office, assisted by a total of 52 lawyers and 26 law researchers.
