NEW DELHI: CJI DY Chandrachud on Saturday said that for SC which serves the world’s most populous democracy, there are no big or small cases as every matter is important.
Speaking at an event organised by the Supreme Court of India to commemorate its 73rd establishment, CJI DY Chandrachud said that court while attending such functions performs constitutional duties, obligations and functions.
"For the court, there are no big or small cases, every matter is important because it’s in the seemingly small and routine matters involving our citizens that issues of constitutional and jurisprudential importance emerge. In attending to such grievances, the court performs a plain constitutional duty, a plain constitutional obligation and a plain constitutional function. SC serves the world’s most populous democracy and in true aspect the people’s court as it is a collective heritage of people of India," the CJI said.
Taking pride in SC not only emerging as a strong proponent of gender equality but also ensuring linkage of criminal justice administration within the framework of human rights, he said, “Our court has emerged as a strong proponent of gender equality whether it has to be in the interpretation of laws of inheritance or securing entry of women in the armed forces. The court has also ensured that criminal justice administration is not delinked from the framework of human rights. While the death penalty has been upheld to be legal and constitutional, the SC has laid down various mitigating and aggravating circumstances that the judge should take into account before awarding the sentence of death. This ensures fairness in the process. Procedural innovations, open court hearings in views arising out of death penalty cases or psychiatric assessment of death row convicts has a humanising influence on the law.”
“In the recent budget, GOI has announced a provision of Rs 7,000 crore for phase 3 of the eCourts project. This will help to enhance the accessibility of judicial institutions and improve the efficiency of the justice delivery system in India. Such endeavours will ensure that the court truly reaches out to every citizen of our country. During CoVID 19 pandemic, SC adopted innovative technical solutions to reach out to the people by adopting video conferencing of court proceedings. During the period b/w 23 March 2020 and October 31, 2022, SC alone heard 3.37 lakh cases through video conferencing. We updated our VC structure in courtrooms at meta scale and we are continuing to use such technological infrastructure to allow the hybrid mode of court hearings that allows parties to join court proceedings from any part of the world online,” the CJI said.
“Court’s workload during the initial years was a fraction of what we witness today. In the annual report of 2005-06, one of the former Justice BP Singh recounts that when he visited the court for the first time in 1956, the proceedings were solemn and virtually dull and only 5/6 lawyers were present. Over the years, SC's workload has increased. Every day now SC now has hundreds of cases in its docket. Judges of SC and staff of the registry have put up tremendous work to ensure the speedy disposal of cases. Just to give you a simple sampling, in the last 3 months, 12108 cases were filed before SC and 12471 cases have been disposed of," he added.