There is increasing anger among the people of the country due to contradictions and delays in the decisions of judges. Today about 4.88 crore cases are pending in the district courts, yet there is no recruitment on 4721 vacant posts of judges. There are 63.98 lakh cases pending in all the High Courts, there too 325 posts of judges are vacant. Talking about the Supreme Court, about 60 thousand cases were pending there from 2015 to 2019. After that, as the clamor for quick disposal of cases increased, the number of pending cases has also increased to more than 93 thousand. Now instead of recruiting the vacant posts of judges in District and High Court, the law is being amended to increase the number of 4 judges in the Supreme Court. Will people get justice soon by increasing the number of judges in the Supreme Court? There is a need to understand 4 aspects related to this. 1. According to the Constitution, the High Court is the highest court for the final decision in most of the cases. But gradually decisions in the cases of influential parties and big lawyers started being taken by the Supreme Court itself. This led to a flood of contradictory decisions as the merger of VIP justice and litigation increased. During the hearing in the Sabarimala case, the Chief Justice said that if the petition filed in 2006 had been thrown in the dustbin at the same time, the judicial dispute would not have escalated. According to the judges, the judiciary should not violate the Lakshman-Rekha on religious matters. Instead of settling the matter quickly on limited points, lengthy academic debates are going on. Due to this, the hearing of thousands of other cases is being postponed and the burden of cases is increasing. 2. After the implementation of the Constitution, all eight judges of the Supreme Court used to sit together and decide constitutional issues in selected cases. With the increase in the number of cases, the formation of Division Bench started. According to the 1989 decision in the Raghuveer Singh case, a bench of two or three judges can be formed as per convenience. In the live telecast of court proceedings, people are seeing that in most of the cases, senior judges write orders without mutual consultation. This raises many questions. For example, had the judges agreed upon the decision in advance? If so, then what is the point of the lawyers’ debate? If there is no consultation with the junior judge then what is the need to sit with him on the bench? If the other judges in the two-judge bench do not agree, the case will be referred to a three-judge bench. Therefore, there is a need to take better advantage of the qualifications and experience of the judges by forming a bench of three judges instead of two. 3. In the voter list case in West Bengal, the judges of the district courts had settled lakhs of disputes in a month. People of the rank of District Judge become Registrars, who have the power to even hang people in the District Court. According to Supreme Court rules, the Registrar should be empowered to pass judicial orders for disposal of original documents, translated copies, applications for exemption in court fee cases, listing of cases and routine applications. This will give junior lawyers an opportunity to argue and the judges will also get more time to hear the main case. 4. According to the changes in the rules of the Supreme Court in 2020, cases like bail, transfer of cases can be heard by a bench of one judge. It is noteworthy that before becoming a judge of the Supreme Court, most of the judges are all-powerful as the Chief Justice of the High Court. On the lines of the Supreme Court, if the retirement age of judges in the High Court becomes 65 years, then hardly any Chief Justice would like to be promoted as a junior judge in the Supreme Court. Therefore, according to the rules of the Supreme Court, most of the cases can be heard by a single judge. This can reduce the burden of pending cases without increasing the number of judges. According to the Constitution, the High Court is the supreme court for the final decision in most of the cases. But there are lengthy academic debates going on. Due to this, hearing of thousands of cases is being postponed and the burden of cases is increasing. (These are the author’s own views)
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Virag Gupta’s column: On one side there are pending cases and on the other side there are unnecessary cross-examinations.
