Union Budget 2025: Village courts, planned to ensure justice at doorsteps, see reduction in funds

New Delhi: Gram nyayalayas or village courts, conceived as a tool to deliver affordable justice at doorsteps, has seen a sharp decrease in fund allocation this year.

According to the budget document, the gram nyayalaya scheme of the Union Law Ministry has been allocated Rs 2 crore in the coming 2025-26 fiscal. As per the revised estimates for 2024-25, the scheme was allocated Rs 10 crore.

The village courts are finding it difficult to live up to their purpose due to manpower shortage and financial crunch.

So far, 481 gram nyayalayas have been notified by 15 states, of which 309 have been made operational in 10 states, the law ministry had told Parliament in the Monsoon session last year.

In 1986, the law commission had suggested setting up village courts to provide affordable and quick access to justice to citizens at their doorsteps. After years, The Gram Nyayalayas Act, 2008 came into effect from Gandhi Jayanti the next year.

The law provides for the establishment of gram nyayalayas at the grassroots level to provide access to justice to the citizens at their doorsteps and to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to anyone due to social, economic or other disabilities.

Citing "certain studies", the Law Ministry had said in Parliament that the main reasons for slow progress in setting up of these village courts include non-filling of the post of 'nyayadhikaris' in many states, non-availability of public prosecutors, notaries and general shortage of first-class judicial magistrates.

Limited pecuniary jurisdiction of gram nyayalayas, insufficient staff, inadequate financial backing from states, reluctance from legal and state authorities and lack of community awareness were the other reasons cited for the present state of affairs of village courts, the government said.

Besides, the issue of overlapping jurisdiction with regular courts is another reason for the "slow take off" of such courts in some states, it had noted.

As per guidelines, the Centre provides Rs 18 lakh per gram nyayalaya to meet non-recurring expenditure as a one-time measure and bears 50 per cent of the recurring expenses of these courts, subject to a ceiling of lakh per courts per annum during the first three years.

In December last year, the Supreme Court had said that there cannot be a "straitjacket formula" for the entire country over establishment of gram nyayalayas as the situation would depend from state to state.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan made these observations while hearing a plea seeking a direction to the Centre and all states for taking steps to set up gram nyayalayas under the supervision of the apex court.