COIMBATORE: Shortage of judicial officers is the reason for pendency of cases, Chief Justice of Madras High Court Munishwar Nath Bhandari said on Thursday. “The reason for delay is largely due to the number of sanctioned strength of judicial officers. I think the sanctioned stretch is just one-third of the required strength,” he said while speaking at the inauguration of a guest house for judicial officers on the campus of State Judicial Academy in Coimbatore.
Despite the shortage, judicial officers are doing their best in disposing of cases, Bhandari said. “We should not be discouraged by the fact that we do not have sufficient judicial officers. We should try our level best to dispose of the matter as soon as possible so that litigants repose confidence in the judicial system,” he added.
The Madras High Court and subordinate judiciary have performed well in disposal of cases, with the HC achieving 109% disposal rate in April and the rate going up to 121% now, the CJ said. The average is 113%, he said. This calculation has been made by the Union law ministry based on records collected from different high courts. Explaining the methodology, the CJ said,
“Assuming one lakh cases are filed in a month or a year, and if the disposal is more than the number of cases filed then it is converted into a percentage. If one lakh and nine thousand cases are disposed of then the rate is 109%. Hence, the score is negative in terms of pendency, and positive in terms of disposal.”
Further, the Chief Justice appreciated the State government for expeditious allocation of funds and land to create infrastructure for judiciary. Recalling that a decision to allocate four acres for the judiciary had been pending before the government for several years, he said the present chief minister took a decision in no time to allocate the land, worth more than Rs 500 crore, in the heart of Chennai city.