PENDENCY OF LITIGATION IN INDIA

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“Justice in common parlance is considered as blind but in India it is lame too and hobbles on crutches”.

Administration of justice involves not only protection of the innocent, punishment of the guilty, satisfactory resolution of disputes but most importantly delivery of justice on time is crucial for litigants.

The Indian Judiciary, working under considerable handicaps such as inadequate funds, budgetary allocations for law and justice not being part of the plan expenditure, shortage of resources, shortage of staff and infrastructure, shoulders the phenomenal burden of the volume of litigation and range of cases, the figures in the second limb reveal an acute need for alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution.

Causes:

Inadequate number of Courts Inadequate number of judicial officers Judicial officers not fully equipped to tackle cases

involving specialized knowledge Dilatory tactics by the litigants and their lawyers

who seek frequent adjournments and delay in filing documents

Role of administrative staff of the Court Corruption and Red Tapism

CURRENT SCENARIO Figures of cases filed per thousand population

comes around 1.2 per 1000 population in India, which is far less than 17 cases per 1000 in Malaysia and 14 per 1000 in Korea.

India in 2004, we had 11 judges per million population.

The Supreme Court of India itself has 189 holidays in 2009 with just 176 working days with only 24 Judges sitting at present.

Delhi High Court hears cases for five hours and 15 minutes a day, and is open for 213 working days a year.

MONTHLY STATEMENT OF PENDING CASES IN THE

SUPREME COURT FOR MONTH OF APRIL 2009 Pending

from the previous months

Registered during the month

Disposed of during the month

Pending at the end of the month

Admission Matters

30834 5743 5568 30928

Regular Hearing Matters

19329 822 926 19220

Total 50163 6565 6494 50148

CONTD.

Recently Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Mr. A.P. Shah said in a report that "it would take the court (Delhi High Court) approximately 466years" to clear the pending 2,300 criminal appeals cases alone.

Over three million cases are pending in India's 21 high courts.

An astounding 26.3 million cases are pending in subordinate courts across the country.

In 2007 it has also been found that over a quarter of all pending high court cases are at Allahabad.

Delhi High Court had at least 629 civil cases and 17 criminal cases pending that were more than 20 years old as of March 2008.

Of the 72.6 lakh civil cases pending in the trial courts, UP accounts for the lion’s share with 12.3 lakh cases. Sikkim is the lowest with just 51 pending cases.

CONTD.

In subordinate courts (2007 figures), Uttar Pradesh again topped the number of pending cases (4.6 million), followed by Maharashtra (4.1 million), Gujarat (3.9 million), West Bengal (1.9 million), Bihar (1.2 million), Karnataka (1.06 million), Rajasthan (1.05 million), Orissa (1 million), Andhra Pradesh (900,000).

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in India shockingly reveals that over 5,000 juvenile cases pending in Indian. Many of them have been languishing for over 12 years.

Of the pending cases in high courts 704,214 were criminal and 3.2 million were civil cases.

At the same time according to 2007 figures there are almost a quarter million under-trials languishing in jails across the country. the number of under-trials in India was highest in Maharashtra (15,784) , Bihar (with 628 prisoners) topped the number of states with the maximum number of under-trials kept for over five years.

TABLE 1: Strength of Indian Judiciary and Lawyers as on April 2009

Name of Court

Approved Strength

Actual Strength

Vacancies

Supreme Court of India

26 24 2

High Courts 719 521 198

Subordinate Court

13,204 11,103 2101

No. of advocates enrolled

8,58,294

TABLE 2: Pendency of litigation as on 30/6/2004

Name of Court Case Pending Average Institution

s per year

Average Disposal per year

Supreme Court 29,315 42,200 40,400

High Court 32,24,144 12,41,000 11,23,500

Subordinate Courts

2.53,50,370 1,42,43,500 1,32,29,000

EXTENT OF CORRUPTION 13.37 percent of total households in the country had

interacted at least once with the judicial department in the last one year. This means, nearly 2.73 crore households had interacted with the judiciary to get one or the other service

Nearly 47.32 percent of those interacting with the judiciary had actually paid bribes. This works out to 6.32% of the total households, (approx. 129 lakhs)

The average amount of bribe paid to the judiciary was estimated to be Rs. 2095/ - (Rs. 2181/- for Urban households, and Rs. 1942/- for Rural households). Therefore the total monetary value of the bribe paid in the last one year works out to Rs. 2630/- crores.

There was a variation in the amount of bribe paid depending up on the nature of work. On an average bribe for a getting a favorable judgment was Rs. 2939/- while the average bribe paid for getting case listed was Rs. 799/-

Delay in Justice Uphaar Cinema case Jessica Lal’s case Nitish Katra Murder Case Priyadarshani Matoo Murder Case Rupan Deol Bajaj v. KPS Gill Safdar Hasmi murder case Tanduri murder Madhumita Sharma

Speedy Trial and Justice Anil Rai vs. State of Bihar M.H. Hoskot V. State of

Maharashtra Katar Singh v. State of Punjab Sheela Barse v. Union of India Hussainara Khatoon v. State of

Bihar Abdul Rahman Antulay v. R.S.

Nayak

Technological Courts and Speedy Justice

Basavaraj R. Patil v State of Karnataka

State of Maharashtra v Dr.Praful.B.Desai

REMEDIES Fast Track Courts Mobile Courts Shift system in subordinate courts Lok Adalats Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Setting up of e-committee Setting up of Gram Nyayalayas (Court) Plea bargaining Judicial Education and Training Judicial Corruption to be rooted out mercilessly

REMEDIES CONTD.

Declaration of Assets by Judges Restatement of Values of Judicial Life Model Code of Conduct for Subordinate Judiciary Strengthening and Streamlining Vigilance Cells

in High Courts In-House Inquiry Procedure invoked against

High Court Judges Periodical Performance Evaluation and Removal

of Judges and officers of Doubtful Integrity Tightening the Selection Procedure of Superior

Court Justices

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