Split verdict on workload for judges

At a seminar on judicial reforms organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, Lahoti sought to buttress his point by quoting jurist Soli Sorabjee from the latest issue of The Sunday Express.

He said Sorabjee made him ‘‘feel proud of the Indian judiciary’’ as the former Attorney General had acknowledged that ‘‘the overwhelming majority of our judges conscientiously discharge their duties under a punishing work-load.’’

Lahoti said that in addition to the time they spent in the court, judges did a lot of homework ‘‘after court hours and most arduously during weekends and holidays.’’

But when Kalam subsequently delivered his inaugural address, he made it clear more than once that he expected judges to work harder and longer than they did to speed up the process of justice.

Pointing to the 24 judges of the Supreme Court sitting in front of him, Kalam said that if all of them decided to ‘‘take up a thousand additional cases to be cleared during two years by working two additional hours on all working days and on Saturdays, I am sure by the year 2007, pending cases can be minimised substantially.’’

The President said that if the Supreme Court judges succeed in bringing down arrears without compromising the quality of justice, they would ‘‘set up a beautiful role model for all the other courts to follow.’’

‘‘The judicial community can consider reduction of the total number of holidays in a year and working on Saturdays at least till the backlog is cleared. Such type of working is normal in mission oriented organisations in the country.’’

In another proposal for judicial accountability, Kalam said that it would be ‘‘a good practice to make the number of cases cleared by a particular judge during the year known to the public through the Internet.’’

The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces also observed that the judiciary would do well to emulate the example of court martial proceedings to tackle the problem of adjournments.

‘‘I am told that in the Armed Forces, the Court Martial proceedings are held continuously and hearing is carried out at least six hours in a day on a day-to-day basis,’’ Kalam said.

‘‘Adjournments are allowed only when the trial is impracticable and the adjournment is necessary to meet the ends of justice. The members of the judiciary can consider this model for implementation in our Courts.’’

Urging the bench and bar to adopt for two years what he called ‘National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission’, Kalam said the judiciary should start penalising lawyers for seeking undue adjournments or initiating frivolous litigation.