The Hindu : National : Why blame judiciary alone for delays, asks CJI

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Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007
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Why blame judiciary alone for delays, asks CJI

J. Venkatesan

“Governments yet to act on increasing the number of judges, allocations”

— Photo: Shanker Chakravarty

Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan (centre), along with H.R. Bhardwaj, Minister for Law & Justice (second left), at the Law Day function in New Delhi on Monday. Also seen are (from left): K. Venkatapathy, Minister of State for Law & Justice, P.H. Parekh, president, Supreme Court Bar Association, and Milon Banerjee, Attorney-General of India.

New Delhi: Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan on Monday decried attempts to put the entire blame on the judiciary for the delay in disposal of cases pending in various courts in the country.

In his ‘Law Day’ address on the lawns of the Supreme Court, the CJI said: “There is a lot of misinformation in the media about the state of the judiciary and the status of administration of justice. The question of delay and arrears is often highlighted without analysing its causes, thus putting the entire blame on the less than 14,000 judges.”

Every year November 26 is observed as ‘Law Day’ as it was on this day in 1949 India adopted its Constitution, which came into force from January 26, 1950.

Mr. Justice Balakrishnan said the total strength of judges — in subordinate courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court — was 14,477 and the working strength was only 11,767. “An immediate question one might raise from the statistics is why such a large number of vacancies is allowed to remain particularly at the trial court level where the arrears are constantly on the increase.”

“A way has to be found by the State governments and the judiciary to address this problem in order to maintain a zero vacancy situation all the time.”

Pointing out that institution of cases had increased manifold, the Chief Justice said “there is unanimity of opinion that the judge strength in India has to be considerably increased to cope with the needs and demands.”

The CJI said the apex court in 2002 recommended increasing the judge strength, but the Central and State governments had not yet acted on it keeping the number of judges by and large the same for too long despite mounting arrears and consequent delay. “If only this fact [increase in the institution of cases] is appreciated, no one can blame the judiciary for pendency and arrears.”

He said that during the entire Tenth Plan, the Centre allocated only Rs. 700 crore to the judiciary which was 0.078 per cent of the Plan outlay. “Is not administration of justice an essential part of planned development deserving attention of the State governments and the Planning Commission,” he asked.

Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj, who presided, said the government did not want to tinker with the present system of appointment of judges by the judiciary itself. “We only want to strengthen the system and the Prime Minister was committed in this endeavour,” he said.

Union Minister of State for Law K. Venkatapathy said “based on isolated incidents and casual aberrations, attempts are being made to depict the judiciary in a bad light.” He said “promulgation of codes and propounding of values need to be followed by creating strong and effective mechanisms capable of taking swift action against deviant behaviour … the greatest strength of the judiciary is the faith of the people in it. Faith, confidence and acceptability cannot be commanded; they have to be earned.”

Attorney-General Milon K. Banerjee and the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, P.H. Parekh, explained the significance of Law Day.

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