HYDERABAD: ‘Judiciary does not fear criticism’, said Supreme Court judge, Justice NV Ramana, at a gathering of working and retired chief justices, judges and advocates on the occasion of centenary celebrations of the Telangana High Court building at Hyderabad on Saturday.
The need to improve manpower and infrastructure to deal with the piles of pending court cases echoed in one voice during the meeting. The legal fraternity also warned of people losing faith in judiciary and lawlessness taking over the society, if the trend continues.
The acting Chief Justice of Telangana High Court, Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan pointed out that while there is 1.93 lakh pending cases at the High Court, there are only 11 judges to deal with them. Whereas in the district courts of Telangana, there are 5.22 lakh pending cases and only 350 judicial officers against a sanctioned strength of 413.
Supreme Court judge, Justice NV Ramana speaking at the event, called the shortage of manpower across all courts in the country as the main culprit behind the delay in quick dispensation of justice and warned that the day is not far when people will lose confidence in the judicial system.
He highlighted that there are 3.3 crore pending cases in courts across the country. At the Supreme Court, there are around 38,000 pending cases, as a result of which a large number of undertrials are languishing in prisons.
Justice Chauhan said that there is a need for a ‘Vision 2030’ for each High Court in the country with short, medium and long-term goals.
He said, filling up of vacancies in the court fall in the short term goals, whereas better coordination between different execution bodies and judiciary, strengthening of judicial institutions like legal services authority, inducting latest technologies, teaching methodologies and improving research in judicial academies should fall in the medium and long-term goals.
Telangana State High Court Advocates Association, president, Damodar Reddy, said that there is an urgent to fill the 13 vacant positions of judges in the High Court and increase the sanctioned strength of judges from the present 24 to 42.
Justice Ramana said the issue has been brought to the notice of Chief Justice of India and in a few days names will be considered for filling up the vacant position of judges in the High Court.
State of the poor condition of buildings of district courts and lack of Information Technology apparatus there also came under criticism at the event.