Speed is the need of this justice system

Expressing concern at pendency of cases isn’t enough. Like corruption, the rising backlog in courts, including the Supreme Court (SC), has ceased to be news, but a case surely hits the headlines if it’s decided in a short time. Such instances, though, are rare.

Chief justice KG Balakrishnan has projected a 10% to 12% annual increase in the pendency in SC and by this estimate, the top court would be burdened with a whopping 1.25 lakh to 1.30 lakh cases after five years.

“We have real problems…we can’t minimise filing of cases, nor can we refuse to hear them,” Balakrishnan said, while making it clear that SC wouldn’t be divided into regional benches, an idea mooted by the law commission to make the last legal remedy available to poor litigants who can’t afford the distant court where adjournments are not an exception.

It is surprising that there are 1,165 types of matters, including about a dozen matrimonial disputes, before SC.

In any given month, the judges of the court decide 20 applications about transfer of matrimonial disputes filed in other courts. That shouldn’t be the job of the apex court, which hasn’t found time to hear lawsuits regarding inter-state disputes filed over a decade ago.

Or for that, a bench headed by Balakrishnan hasn’t found time for 27 months to pass a judgment on the admissibility of narco-analysis as evidence.

Noted constitutional lawyer KK Venugopal feels there is a need to set up courts of appeal, so that this bench could absorb at least 140 categories of sundry matters.

The increasing disenchantment with the tardy justice delivery system that is punctuated with doubtful dispensations is obvious.

“We cannot have a backlog for long periods... people will revolt... system will crumble,” prime minister Manmohan Singh once said, “India has to suffer the scourge of the world’s largest backlog of cases and timelines which generate surprise globally and concern at home....”

A couple of years ago, then president APJ Abdul Kalam warned that the unrest in the form of homemade terrorism was also due to the denial of speedy justice.