Pendency in courts: This is how the load on judges could be lessened
News reports that the Supreme Court, for the first time in its history, will be working during the summer holidays — with 19 judges sitting on a daily basis — have caught many eyeballs.
Three Constitution benches of five judges each, shall sit simultaneously from May 11 to hear issues of grave importance such as triple talaq, whether sharing of personal information of 160 million Indian users by WhatsApp with its parent company Facebook was in breach of right to privacy, and whether children born of Bangladeshi immigrants are entitled for Indian citizenship.
Chief Justice JS Khehar expressed serious concern at the huge pendency and the oft-repeated blame levelled at the institution. The news, however, was not greeted with enthusiasm by legal practitioners, but with circumspection that such a decision ought to have been announced after taking the bar into confidence.
Yes, it is a historic first — that apart from two benches of two judges each which normally sit — 15 more judges would be on duty.
But why have matters come to such a pass that the Supreme Court was "concerned" to come up with such a solution?
This is the larger question one needs to ask rather than merely applauding the top court for its magnanimity to forego its "hard-earned summer break". There are more than 3.5 crore cases pending across all courts in India and several thousands in the apex court itself.
A lot has been written on this backlog. We have been told that the judges-to-population ratio in India is too low.
But an important issue that has not been flagged off is that the judges in the higher courts or even subordinate courts are being deprived of quality judicial time having to engage in "committee work".
Critical "judicial time" is being eaten up by the fact that judges are under compulsion to focus on "court administration" or "management systems" far removed from their "judicial work".
It is highly regrettable that this issue has not been highlighted. How judges were forced to spend their energy and time on "managerial functions", which they are not professionally qualified for as well.
Imagine a neurosurgeon from a top hospital having to focus on the "administrative" and "managerial" duties in the running of a hospital, even while gearing up to perform a major surgery. Or a top-notch scholar in a high-end educational institution having to concentrate on issues alien to his professorial obligations and losing out on time to deliver on his core competences.
That would be uncalled for. Not only would the "administrative" and "managerial" duties suffer from lack of professional outlook, but the prime duties for which the surgeon or professor were engaged for, would also suffer serious consequences.
These thoughts struck me when a senior judge of a chartered high court irritatedly responded the other day when requested to list a case urgently for hearing before the summer vacations.
"What do you expect us to do? Are we robots? We too are humans. There is a limit beyond which we cannot exert ourselves either physically or mentally. As it is, our boards are loaded with causes crying for attention. Contemporaneously, I have to sit on seven committees and my brother on five, to decide on references made to us. Since each of such committees has four or more judges on it, we need to co-ordinate our appearances and it takes a huge toll on our judicial time too. Ideally, we may like to be judges and not managers."
Saying that, the bench declined permission. But the message was loud and clear. That they were hard pressed for "judicial time".
Research shows that there are "committees after committees" which the learned judges are required to sit in on to manage issues unrelated to "judicial" functions, except that they may be connected to the judiciary.
A run-through, across India, discloses that there are standing, screening , conference, finance, heritage, building, museum, even car (parking facility), and believe it or not, canteen committees too.
In fact, tabulating all of them may well fill this column. No wonder the senior judge was frustrated when he expressed his disinclination to have a cause heard early — as he was "too busy with administrative and managerial duties of critical importance".
A tour of the United States (administrative office of the US courts) and United Kingdom (Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service) that provide the systems of support — including infrastructure and resources — for the administration of the business of the courts, proved to be a revelation. The agencies provide the support necessary to enable the judiciary to exercise their judicial functions independently. The court administration and managerial systems were in place and handled by subject specialists.
The judges were allowed to "sit and judge" rather than forced to waste their valuable "judicial time". Surely, court administrations there were not in the hands of the judges — apart from managing the dockets on their board. So much so that no judge was called upon to sit, deliberate and decide on car parks and/or canteens. The judges were not required to sit on "committees after committees" which actually come under the domain of "court administration and management systems".
Judges get tired with such "chores" and lose out on "judicial time", for research, reading and hearing and pronouncements, which is what they are meant to be engaged in.
In 2012, a body called the National Court Management Systems (NCMS) was established by an office order of the then chief justice of India for "enhancing timely justice”. To the dismay of the NCMS, it was found that statistics, most of the times, have been either incomplete or incorrect — be it the number of pending cases, or the number of judicial officers, or the number of staff members et al.
To tell the truth, the judiciary is still groping for professional "administration" and "managerial systems" to be put in place. So much so that NALSAR, Hyderabad failed to attract students to take Court Management Systems as MBA specialisation for lack of career opportunities.
With judges in charge of car and canteen committees, who would compete?
Supreme Court judges may well have to consider 24x7 routine next, if they are serious to resolve the huge pendency and not be blamed for it.
Is it still unfair to expect professionals to handle court administration and management that would enable judges to have quality judicial time to render "timely justice"?
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