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Of the long list of recommendations by the First National Judicial Pay Commission, which has just submitted its report, none can interest...

November 13, 1999 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

Of the long list of recommendations by the First National Judicial Pay Commission, which has just submitted its report, none can interest the common litigant more than the one relating to the mountainous backlog of cases in our courts. The proposal is for increased work for judicial officers in the rank of district judges and below the objective to be achieved by increasing the hours of work by five a week and cutting the holidays to 15 a year. This would seem to be the very least that long years of delayed justice would seem to call for, specially to those wearily waiting in the dismal corridors of the district and lower courts. The point made by the commission confining its attention to the subordinate judiciary applies with equal, if not greater, force to the higher judicial echelons.

The arrears of cases in the higher courts have, after all, been a major and strong argument for the setting up of special courts in several instances to meet the demand for speedy justice. The few more weeks of judicialwork a year can certainly make a difference to undisposed-of matters. That the idea has been mooted by a commission appointed at the behest of the apex court itself should make it acceptable and implementable. Obviously, this limited step alone won8217;t mean a giant leap to an unobstructed and, therefore, speedy process of law. It will have to be accompanied by other measures as well as attitudinal changes.

One of the measures that the government and the Supreme Court will have to consider, along with the cost of implementing the commission8217;s proposals on the judicial officers8217; pay and perks, is the appointment of more judges. The Union Law Minister has even talked of the need to induct ad hoc judges, and the proposition may merit examination from the point of view of judicial administration as well. A more important measure is a minimal reform of legal procedures. Of colonial antiquity and Kafkaesque obscurity and cumbersomeness, these have survived despite their comicality even into the eco-friendly andpaperwork-unfriendly days to ensure judicial delays regardless of judges8217; sitting hours and pay scales. The affidavits, attested by wayside attorneys who couldn8217;t care less about the contents, may be the classic example. But there are a myriad other rules and requirements that can be dispensed with and should be, if a reasonably expeditious judicial process is to be ensured at all. A commission with the sole task of clearing this procedural jungle would not, in fact, be a bad idea.

The attitudinal changes that the backlog-busting will call for are of two kinds, and both relate to the higher judiciary that is expected to set an example for the subordinate courts. The first is illustrated by the proliferation of public interest litigations, not a few of which have been found to be frivolous and all of which have certainly cut into the time the judiciary can spare for its mainline work. Associated with this is the practice of judicial activism, which has sometimes left less judicial attention to be given toless glamorous cases. Needed, secondly, is a change in the irresponsible attitude of governments and other institutions of august and independent status that have left to the judiciary extraneous issues ranging from Ayodhya to CBI investigations and Election Commission infighting and thus less time to focus on its foremost task of justice.

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