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| Edited By: DNA |Source: DNA |Updated: Aug 01, 2019, 07:00 AM IST
While vacancies at the level of higher judiciary — the Supreme Court and the high courts — are a matter of intense discussion, the subordinate judiciary, which caters to the largest segment of the country’s population, remains a relatively unknown proposition.
It is the lowest end of the Indian judicial pyramid, comprising district judges sitting in district courts, and magistrates of second class and civil judge (junior division) at the bottom. Subordinate courts also include village courts, Lok Adalat and Nyay Panchayats. In other words, it is one of the most wide-ranging webs of dispensing justice anywhere in the world, given the sheer size of the population it caters to. The Economic Survey 2018-2019, released earlier this month, has expressed concern over the huge pendency of cases in Indian courts due to shortage of judges, saying India needs additional 8,521 judges within the next five years to clear the backlog.
Former Chief Justice of India (CJI), Dipak Misra, had raised similar concerns over a year ago when about 3.3 crore cases were pending. That figure went up to 3.53 crore on July 1, 2019, with all high courts and lower courts short of 5,535 judges.
According to a submission made in February 2019 in Parliament by former MoS for law and justice, PP Chaudhary, there were a total of 5,132 judgeships vacant in district and subordinate courts across India. The total strength in all lower courts is 22,833. Such staggering figures need staggering remedies and the serving CJI needs to be commended for providing the much-needed push.
After achieving zero vacancy in the Supreme Court, CJI Ranjan Gogoi has chided states and high courts to achieve similar targets in subordinate judiciary, preferably before the end of the year. Till a year ago, when he took over, he was confronted with 5,100-plus vacancies in the subordinate judiciary, with Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Karnataka accounting for over 4,000.
Within a year, there seems to have been a marked improvement, as was visible in the reports tabled by the states and respective high courts to the apex court. According to the Economic Survey, percentage-wise, the shortage is most severe in Meghalaya where 58 out of 97 approved positions are vacant. Puducherry (14 out of 26), Uttar Pradesh (1,208 out of 3,225), Tripura (40 out of 115) and Bihar (622 out of 1,845) follow.
It must be noted that in absolute terms, UP suffers the maximum shortage of judges in district and subordinate courts. Ten states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Maharashtra — have combined vacancies of 3,978. Gogoi’s tenure does reflect positivity.
In June this year, the CJI had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking an increase in the judges’ strength in the Supreme Court. He had also sought raising the retirement age of high court judges from 62 to 65 years. Finally, after years of logjam, things are moving, but they need to be sped up.
