Column

A former Chief Justice of India who has revisited the Constitution to determine whether “we failed it or the Constitution failed us” often said a judge’s conclusion must concur with the reasoning that he offers for arriving at the judgment. Unsatisfactory reasons which aren’t palatable to a man with reasonable brain do shake the confidence in the system.

A country that’s facing the pressure of about 3.5 crore pending cases can’t afford to allow judges to decide the cases late. The government may be satisfied that it has allocated Rs5000 crore for equipping the courts with computer system but computers can’t replace the judicial acumen of a qualified judge having impeccable reputation.

At this juncture of grave crisis, a proactive approach by the Supreme Court is much expected.

Human memory is short lived. That’s one of the reasons for forgetting a landmark judgment passed by then justices KT Thomas and RP Sethi in 2001.

“But what happens when the high court judges don’t pronounce judgments after lapse of several months, and perhaps even years since completion of arguments?” Judges raised had the query and said the Constitution is silent on this aspect presumably because its architects believed that no HC judge would cause such long and distressing delays.

“Such expectation of the Constitution makers remained unsullied during the early period of the post-Constitution years. But unfortunately, the later years have shown slackness on the part of a few judges of the high courts in India with the result that once arguments in a lis concluded, the records remain consigned to hibernation”, judges had observed.

Judges normally forget the details of the facts and niceties of the legal points. Sometimes the interval is so long that the judges forget even the fact that such a case is pending with them expecting judicial verdict, the SC had said.

“Though it is an unpleasant fact, it is a stark reality”, the top court had added. It’s high time that this 10 years old judgment carrying a slew of directions setting up an initial two months time for a HC judge to deliver the judgment is also complied with.

Undue delay in decision making either by the government or any other organ of the State is always a suspect in the eye of people.