Justice delayed, justice denied?
With the population in our country increasing by the day, so are the number of cases. Crimes seem to be increasing in our country like never before, but speedy justice still seems to be a farfetched dream. Is the backlog of the cases pending in our system acting as an obstacle for us to move forward? Are our systems that are in place competent enough to handle and magnitude of cases that are clogged in the system? Close to Twenty-Seven million (26922755) cases are pending across the country out of which 8.35% (2247360) of them are over 10 years in pendency.
As per Daksh’s report on judicial performance, An average High Court hears about 70 hearings a day with the working time to be around 5 hours. When broken down, this means “The most relaxed high court judges in the country have 15-16 minutes to hear a case, while the busiest have just about 2.5 minutes to hear a case and, on average, they have approximately five-six minutes to decide a case," The average pendency of a case in a High Court is about Three years and One month and the average pendency of a case in a subordinate court is close to Six years.
Increasing of judges alone is not the solution to this problem. Strategically increasing them with judges to population ratio is what the government must be focusing on.
The need of Judges is the need of the hour
On the other side of the problem, As per the data (as of 01.04.2018) by the Department of Justice, there are a total of 410 vacancies (over 37%) in the various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. There seems to be a massive void in the of the vacancies for the post of judges in India. Orissa has a sitting bench of 27 Judges, but unfortunately 13 of them are currently vacant. The primary reason attributed to the judiciary and government in lieu of appointment of judges.
The Union Cabinet has given its approval for the second phase of the eCourts Mission project allocating a budget of One Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty Crores. The eCourts Mission project aims to computerize all district and subordinate courts of the country. Over 800 Crores was been dispersed to various High Courts across the country. 23 of the 24 High Courts have spent less than 50% of the amount and with March 2019 being the deadline for the project. Three years into the second phase and still there are various High Courts and subordinate courts that do not upload daily orders.
Imagine (an innocent) being an accused in a case which is dragged on for years together. The mental trauma an individual undergoes is incalculable. Does being an ‘accused’ for years together inherently affect one’s basic human rights?
Will effective ICT (Information and Communication Technology) pave the way forward for the judiciary in India? Can some parts of the technology be outsourced to private players instead of NIC taking upon itself the entire burden of developing everything for the judiciary?