{"id":79033,"date":"2026-07-13T18:17:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=79033"},"modified":"2026-07-13T18:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:48:14","slug":"centre-amends-drugs-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/13-07-2026\/centre-amends-drugs-rules","title":{"rendered":"CJI Unveils Tower of Justice, Says Judiciary must be Efficient, Impartial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/Polity and Governance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Chief Justice of India\u00a0 inaugurated the <strong>\u201cTower of Justice\u201d<\/strong> in Gurugram, a new judicial complex with 56 courtrooms and digital infrastructure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>CJI Remarks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>He underlined that the objective of judicial reforms cannot be limited merely to the speedy disposal of cases and priority must always be to <strong>establish a judicial system that is both efficient and impartial.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It must also be ensured that no citizen feels deprived of justice due to financial, social, or procedural hurdles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The goal is to build a<strong> judiciary that is modern yet humane;<\/strong> technologically advanced yet firmly rooted in constitutional values, and a sensitive institution that understands the human lives underlying every case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Judiciary in India<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Supreme Court: <\/strong>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.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>High Court:<\/strong> Each state or group of states has a High Court, which handles appeals from lower courts and issues related to state-level legal matters.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>District Courts<\/strong> handle civil and criminal cases at the district level, and various specialized courts such as family courts, consumer courts, and labor courts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Each branch operates independently<\/strong> but is designed to work in harmony with the others, providing a system of<strong> checks and balances<\/strong> to ensure fair governance and adherence to the Constitution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Challenges in the Judicial System of India<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Pendency of cases: <\/strong>The <strong>\u2018State of the Judiciary\u2019 report <\/strong>points out that there are over<strong> five crore pending cases<\/strong> across all higher and subordinate courts in India.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>To handle them, however, there are only <strong>20,580 judges<\/strong> working in the Supreme Court, the high courts and district courts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Infrastructure: <\/strong>Many courts lack basic infrastructure and technology, which can hinder their efficiency.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>As per the<strong> National Judicial Data Grid, 19.7%<\/strong> of district courts did not have separate toilets for women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Judicial vacancies: <\/strong>Against the sanctioned strength of <strong>1,114 judges <\/strong>in the high courts across the country, as many as <strong>347 positions are vacant.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Similarly, in the district judiciary, out of the total sanctioned strength of 25,081 judges, as many as<strong> 5,300 district judges\u2019 positions are vacant.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Inclusivity: <\/strong>India\u2019s highest court presently has <strong>only two female judges<\/strong>.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>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.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The district judiciary, however, shows considerable improvement with the strength of<strong> 36.33% female judges.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Initiatives taken address the issue<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT);<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Electronic Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) project<\/strong> is an initiative to provide the digital version of the apex court\u2019s judgments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Virtual court system:<\/strong> The regular court proceedings are being carried out virtually via videoconferencing.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>eCourts portal:<\/strong> It is a one-stop solution for all stakeholders like the litigants, advocates, government agencies, police, and common citizens.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG): <\/strong>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Judicial Reforms: <\/strong>It includes increasing the number of judges, modernizing court infrastructure, and implementing e-courts and technology to speed up hearings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR):<\/strong> ADR mechanisms like arbitration, mediation, and conciliation are being promoted to resolve disputes outside of the traditional court system.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Commercial Courts Act 2015 <\/strong>stipulates mandatory pre-institution mediation and settlement of commercial disputes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fast Track courts:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Way Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Workload and Capacity: <\/strong>The courts must operate beyond their current <strong>capacity of 71%<\/strong> to match case disposal rates with the inflow of new cases.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Judicial Vacancies:<\/strong> Judicial vacancies in district courts stand at <strong>28%.<\/strong> Standardizing the judicial recruitment calendar is suggested as a solution to fill vacancies and maintain a consistent flow of recruits.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>District-level Case Management Committees: <\/strong>These committees should be established to identify target cases, reconstruct records and manage cases efficiently at the district level.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Malimath Committee, 2003<\/strong> in its report recommended that the period of vacation should be reduced by 21 days, keeping in mind the long pendency of cases.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The perceived <strong>gap between the district judiciary and the High Courts <\/strong>needs to be addressed. This gap is seen as a<strong> remnant of colonial subordination<\/strong> and should be resolved to create a more unified judicial system.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/cji-surya-kant-inaugurates-gurugrams-tower-of-justice-stresses-on-women-friendly-judicial-infrastructure\/article71214238.ece\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nContext<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\nThe Chief Justice of India\u00a0 inaugurated the \u201cTower of Justice\u201d in Gurugram, a new judicial complex with 56 courtrooms and digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/p>\n<p>CJI Remarks<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"\t>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>It must also be ensured that no citizen feels deprived of justice due to financial, social, or procedural hurdles.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><a href=\" https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/13-07-2026\/centre-amends-drugs-rules \" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79035,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79033\/revisions\/79035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}