Chief justice of India rues falling standards of govt pleaders

Making his displeasure at the Centre’s interference in the nation’s justice delivery system public, chief justice of India (CJI) SH Kapadia said on Saturday ignoring section 24 of CrPC was affecting the quality of government pleaders. The section says the government must consult the judiciary in selecting prosecutors, who play a vital role in criminal dispensation.

“Why the power [to help appoint government pleaders] was taken away I don’t want to comment [on],” CJI said.

Addressing lawyers, judges, bureaucrats and law teachers at the inauguration of a conference of Confederation of Indian Bar, a body involving lawyers such PH Parekh, Rakesh Khanna and Harish Salve, Kapadia said judicial reforms was a two-way problem.

Reforms alone would not work, he said, adding, “You can’t have a chariot running on one wheel.”

On the sticky issue of pendency of cases raised by president Pratibha Patil in her inaugural speech, CJI said the figure 3 crore was a myth.

About 50% of these cases counted as “arrears” were in fact filed only a year ago, he contested. Such cases could not be described as “pending”, he said.

Maintaining that 62% of the cases were only a year old, CJI said there was a “vast difference between arrears and pendency”.

Till December 2009, the pendency of cases in high courts was not about 45 lakh as reported, but only 22.75 lakh, he said.

According to CJI, only 1.03 crore cases are awaiting justice in subordinate courts.

Kapadia said he was planning to create a special team of statistical officers that would segregate cases as ‘sticky’, ‘subverted’ and those facing ‘process problem’.

Sticky cases are those which consume considerable time, while subverted cases would be identified as those in which one of the parties tries to delay and the last category are those that have been delayed due to the processing of notices, summons, etc.

This was 50% of the problem, CJI said.

Patil said it’s for the state governments and judiciary to eliminate the pendency since the planning commission had already granted Rs5,000 crore to upgrade the system.

She said government agencies, one of the biggest litigants, should not clog the system by routinely instituting litigation.

“There cannot be better governance without better laws and there cannot be better laws if antiquated ones remain,” Patil said, adding, “Archaic laws and outdated administrative regulations must be scrutinised and if necessary, scrapped or amended.”

She also called for making the language of law simple to prevent unnecessary litigation.