The district courts in the country in which over 87 per cent of all cases are currently pending can ensure 100 per cent clearance of cases filed in a given year if they function at full sanctioned strength, the Economic Survey 2018-19 released on Thursday has found. It, however, found that an additional 8,152 judges would be required to clear the backlog in the lower courts in five years. The survey’s findings called for special attention to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal as the four states have higher average pendency as compared to the national average. According to the Department of Justice, there are currently 17,891 judges in lower courts while the sanctioned strength is 22,750 judges. The survey stated that the high courts must add 361 more judges and the Supreme Court six judges to clear all pending cases in five years. Last month, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had written three letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking an increase in the strength of judges in the apex court and an increase in the retirement age for high court judges to tackle pendency. “Delays in contract enforcement and disposal resolution is arguably now the single biggest hurdle to the ease of doing business in India and higher GDP growth,” the survey stated. To boost productivity, the survey called for increasing the number of working days for the higher judiciary. The lower courts already work at par with government offices. The case clearance rate — a ratio of the number of cases disposed of in a given year to the number of cases instituted in that year — in the lower judiciary declined to 88.7 per cent in 2018 from 90.5 per cent in 2017. The gap between institution and disposal allows cases to accumulate and remain pending. The survey stated that on an average, a district court judge disposed of 764 cases in a year, a high court judge’s average is 2,348 cases per year and a Supreme Court judge disposed of 1,415 cases per year on average. The survey also called for the establishment of the Indian Courts and Tribunal Services, a specialised service that focuses on the administrative aspects of the legal system. “Most judicial reforms tend to focus only on the quality and quantity of judges, but a major problem lies with the quality of the administration of the court system, particularly back end functions and processes,” the survey stated. Currently, such administration and back end processes in the registry are managed by the chief justices of high courts and by the Chief Justice of India for the Supreme Court.
