NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel will on Thursday hear the views of the Ministry of Law and Justice on the delay in filling up vacancies in courts across India. The Union law secretary will present the government’s position on the matter to the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice.
There were 4,432 vacancies of judges in subordinate courts as of December 31, 2015. The 24 High Courts face a shortage of nearly 450 judges. Nearly three crore cases are pending in courts across India.
However, in an internal note, the ministry has already made it clear that the shortage of judges is not the only reason for the mounting pendency of cases across the country.It said the lack of a proper court management system and frequent adjournments granted by judges also contribute to litigation delays. The note, prepared for the Advisory Council of the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms, states that linking the problem of litigation pendency solely to the shortage of judges may not present the complete picture.
Apart from the lack of a court management system and frequent adjournments, the ministry cited several other contributory reasons: strikes by lawyers, accumulation of first appeals, indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction and lack of adequate arrangements to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearings.The note comes against the backdrop of a statement by the CJI during a conference back in April where he asked the government to increase the number of judges from 21,000 to 40,000. He had also pointed out that the Law Commission had in 1987 recommended an increase in the judge-people ratio from 10 judges per10 lakh people to 50 per10 lakh people.