Our 13,000 district and subordinate courts roughly one for every hundred thousand citizens are tottering under the weight of 36 million pending cases.
Written by The Indian Express
2 min read
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Our 13,000 district and subordinate courts roughly one for every hundred thousand citizens are tottering under the weight of 36 million pending cases. These numbers represent this countrys persistent failure to address the delays in the adjudication process. For in India,it is the process itself that is,for so many millions of people,the punishment. Increased funding for the judiciary,in addition to an exponential increase in courts,judges,and magistrates,is an urgent priority area for the government.
Even someone as indifferent to reform as the Union law minister in the first UPA government,H.R. Bharadwaj,seemed to have heard some of that message. His idea to set up 5067 Gram Nyayalayas or village courts in addition to holding mobile courts in villages,has the potential to greatly expand the subordinate judiciarys capacity by 40 per cent,cutting delay drastically. Locating the courts at the village level is also good geography; the litigants or accused are from near by,and access to justice becomes that much easier. Evidence will need to be collected from areas less remote; and,in civil cases,the presence of village courts could encourage out-of-court mediation or within-village settlements.
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But the plan never took off. More than seven months after it was cleared by Parliament,not even a single court brick has been laid. The reason: some states,particularly Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal,claim that they are unable to contribute their share of expenses for the courts. This despite the Central government agreeing to pay for the setting up of these courts,plus half the recurring expenses for the first three years. Justice does not come cheap,and the financial repercussions of the Gram Nyayalayas must be debated and negotiated until an amicable solution is found. But these are quibbles on logistics not on principle; resolving them should be fast-tracked. Such differences cannot be allowed to sink what is otherwise an excellent idea. Only if proposals such as these succeed will justice become literally a stones throw away.
