BENGALURU:City-based organisation DAKSH on Saturday launched the ‘Rule of Law Project’ and the website www.dakshlegal.in, which will provide to the public details of pendency and backlog of cases and their impact on the society.
According to advocate Harish Narasappa, the project will use data pertaining to cases brought before various courts in India available in the public domain. It will be a user-friendly database that will enable further research and public debate on the topic of case pendency.
Narasappa, who is also the co-founder of the project, said over the next 11 months, the database will contain information on all cases pending before the Supreme Court, 24 high courts as well as five randomly selected district courts. Information on 65,000 cases in the Supreme Court and 45 lakh pending cases in high courts across the country will be put up, he added.
He said pendency has become a major concern and needs to be addressed in a sustainable and meaningful way. According to psychiatrists, a judge can decide on five to six cases a day, but each judge has to hear nearly 60 cases a day.
After Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Gowda launched the website, DAKSH released the first phase information, which included details of cases pending at the high courts of Karnataka, Gujarat, Orissa, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Madras, Jharkhand and Delhi.
Rajeev Gowda said delay in disposal of cases was making people lose faith in the Judiciary. Minimising pendency makes a huge difference in the overall system, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement that fast track courts would be set up for speedy disposal of criminal cases against elected representatives has not materialised, he added.
Senior counsel S S Naganand said a high court judge once told him that they could not find even six qualified district judges across the state during the recent recruitment because of the poor quality of candidates. Law schools were started in Bengaluru to bring changes by producing bright law graduates but most of these graduates are not even practising law.
Former DG&IGP R Srikumar said he would offer his services to DAKSH’s project.