CJI Unveils Tower of Justice, Says Judiciary must be Efficient, Impartial

Syllabus: GS2/Polity and Governance

Context

• The Chief Justice of India  inaugurated the “Tower of Justice” in Gurugram, a new judicial complex with 56 courtrooms and digital infrastructure.

CJI Remarks

• He underlined that the objective of judicial reforms cannot be limited merely to the speedy disposal of cases and priority must always be to establish a judicial system that is both efficient and impartial. 
  • It must also be ensured that no citizen feels deprived of justice due to financial, social, or procedural hurdles.
• The goal is to build a judiciary that is modern yet humane; technologically advanced yet firmly rooted in constitutional values, and a sensitive institution that understands the human lives underlying every case.

Judiciary in India

• Supreme Court: The highest court in India, with the authority to interpret the Constitution, adjudicate disputes between states and the center, and oversee the legality of laws and government actions. 
• High Court: Each state or group of states has a High Court, which handles appeals from lower courts and issues related to state-level legal matters. 
• District Courts handle civil and criminal cases at the district level, and various specialized courts such as family courts, consumer courts, and labor courts.
• Each branch operates independently but is designed to work in harmony with the others, providing a system of checks and balances to ensure fair governance and adherence to the Constitution.

Challenges in the Judicial System of India

• Pendency of cases: The ‘State of the Judiciary’ report points out that there are over five crore pending cases across all higher and subordinate courts in India.
  • To handle them, however, there are only 20,580 judges working in the Supreme Court, the high courts and district courts.
• Infrastructure: Many courts lack basic infrastructure and technology, which can hinder their efficiency.
  • As per the National Judicial Data Grid, 19.7% of district courts did not have separate toilets for women.
• Judicial vacancies: Against the sanctioned strength of 1,114 judges in the high courts across the country, as many as 347 positions are vacant.
  • Similarly, in the district judiciary, out of the total sanctioned strength of 25,081 judges, as many as 5,300 district judges’ positions are vacant. 
• Inclusivity: India’s highest court presently has only two female judges.
  • Since 2014, 170 Women Judges have been appointed in the High Courts, including 96 in the last five years and 06 in the Supreme Court.
  • The district judiciary, however, shows considerable improvement with the strength of 36.33% female judges.

Initiatives taken address the issue

• Leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT);
  • The Electronic Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) project is an initiative to provide the digital version of the apex court’s judgments.
  • Virtual court system: The regular court proceedings are being carried out virtually via videoconferencing. 
  • eCourts portal: It is a one-stop solution for all stakeholders like the litigants, advocates, government agencies, police, and common citizens.  
  • National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG): The statistics of cases pending at the national, state, district and individual court level are now made accessible to the general public, researchers, academicians and the society at large.
• Judicial Reforms: It includes increasing the number of judges, modernizing court infrastructure, and implementing e-courts and technology to speed up hearings.
• Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR): ADR mechanisms like arbitration, mediation, and conciliation are being promoted to resolve disputes outside of the traditional court system.
• Commercial Courts Act 2015 stipulates mandatory pre-institution mediation and settlement of commercial disputes.
• Fast Track courts: Fast track courts are being set up to expedite the justice delivery and reduce the pendency of cases involving heinous crimes, senior citizens, women, children, etc.

Way Ahead

• Workload and Capacity: The courts must operate beyond their current capacity of 71% to match case disposal rates with the inflow of new cases.
• Judicial Vacancies: Judicial vacancies in district courts stand at 28%. Standardizing the judicial recruitment calendar is suggested as a solution to fill vacancies and maintain a consistent flow of recruits.
• District-level Case Management Committees: These committees should be established to identify target cases, reconstruct records and manage cases efficiently at the district level.
• The Malimath Committee, 2003 in its report recommended that the period of vacation should be reduced by 21 days, keeping in mind the long pendency of cases. 
• The perceived gap between the district judiciary and the High Courts needs to be addressed. This gap is seen as a remnant of colonial subordination and should be resolved to create a more unified judicial system.

Source: TH