Introduction: The 15th August, 1947 is considered very important day for Indians because this is the date when India got freedom. Our struggle to get be an independent country was over on this day. But to be more specific it was the beginning of a new struggle. It was a dawn to establish a democracy based on the ideas of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity and also the beginning of a struggle to live as an independent nation. Keeping these ideals in mind, our founding fathers have given us the constitution keeping justice at the highest pedestal and our preamble to the constitution placed justice higher that the other features like liberty, equality and fraternity. People use to go to the judiciary in the search of justice. But now credibility of the judiciary is at stake as due to mounting arrears of cases, delays in disposal and also high cost of obtaining justice. The denial of justice through delay is the biggest ever mockery of law. It does not amount to mere mockery; the delay in fact hampers the entire fabric of justice delivery system of the country.
Examples: In the latest development in Salman Khan’s hit-and-run case, which has been continuing since past 13 years, the Bombay High Court on Friday suspended the sentence handed over to the actor by the Sessions Court. It is currently held that Salman Khan will now not go to jail but will be granted regular bail. But the questions arises that what explains the long delay in the delivery of verdict in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case? There is clearly no reason why it should take 13 years for the prosecution to collect evidence and examine and cross examine 27 witnesses. There is not only this case which arises the question of delay in justice, this is only one such example. There are more of these like In Safdar Hasmi case, for example, who was killed by political opponents, the criminals were punished after a long 15 years. In Tanduri murder case the accused a Delhi Congress Leader Susil Sharma was convicted with death sentence after long 8 years 6 months. He murdered Nayna Sahani and destroyed evidence by burning her body within a Delhi based hotel. Also in Jessicalal Murder case and Madhumita Sharma Murder case, accused persons were punished after a long legal battle. These all are the cases are of Supreme Court, if the judgment in the Supreme Court takes so long time then what can we expect from the lower courts.
Statistics: There are about 10,000 courts in India .Out of these, one Supreme Court, 21 High Courts, 3150 District Courts, 4861 Munsif and 1st class Magistrate courts and 1964 2nd class Magistrate courts are there. Besides these, there are many tribunals. There are 4.04 crores cases pending in different district courts across the country while there is a backlog of 34 lacks cases in State High Courts. 1, 66, 77,657 criminal cases are pending before Magisterial courts and 72, 37,495 civil cases are pending in various subordinate courts. As many as 70 percent of these cases are -litigations from villagers. Again some of these cases are as long as 25 to 30 years old. The longer a case runs, the more expensive it becomes to pursue. Within the High Courts, maximum number of cases is pending in Calcutta, Allahabad, Chennai, and Mumbai and in Kerala High court. Maximum number of pending cases in lower judiciary is in U.P., Gujrat, Maharashtra, M.P., and W.B. and in Karnataka.
As mentioned earlier there are about 10,000 courts and despite of them we still lag behind in giving justice to our citizens. It takes years to dispose off a case.
Reason: The hopelessly inadequate number of judges and also courts in the country is undoubtedly one of the major reasons for such delay. Successive Governments have failed to increase the numerical strength of judges and also court delays in filling up vacancy of judge. There are about 121 High Courts in India which comprises of 725 judges but also 128 vacancies are yet to be filled. Each judge is handling 34, 00,000 cases and shortage of judges are causing more delay in furtherance to achieve justice. Another reason is incompetency and inefficiency of judges so appointed. The habit of taking adjournment by the lawyers is yet another cause behind the delay. Some lawyers take adjournment unnecessarily to harass opposite parties and to extract money from their clients. The lawyers argue meaninglessly the whole day which causes delay in the path of justice. Another reason as correctly pointed by late Mr. Nani A. Palkhivala, that the tragedy of India is the tragedy of wastage of national time, energy and manpower for grappling with countless amendments. Endless amendment of laws is another reason behind delay. These endless amendments make the legal system slow and confusing. Also every work of courts is carried out very slowly in these courts. In addition to this attraction towards holidays adds to the number of mountainous pending cases in the court as the holidays in the higher judiciary is vast.
Effects: The ill-effect of this delay can be clearly seen on the lives of the people. People unfortunately fall victim to injustice. They suffer day after day. Major portions of the Indian people are very poor and illiterate as well. They come to the court to get justice by paying their hard-earned money. They pay to advocates, Law clerks day after day, and wait for justice. They pay for court fees and vokalatnama and wait for justice. Month after month, year after year passes away- they wait for justice. They become gradually destitute by selling their everything to meet the fees of advocates, and other expenses and still wait for justice. Sometimes they pass away from the world and never get justice. Thus justice remains untouched by many victims in the Indian judicial system. The more they do not get relief, the more their faith in judiciary is gone. As a result, people gradually will take law in their own hand, which will lead a social anarchism.
Conclusion: To speed up the process of justice, computerization of the whole country’s judicial system is very necessary now. Hon’ble Supreme Court has already taken some steps to avoid law’s delay. E-filing has been introduced in the Supreme Court on 2nd October, 2006. It is now possible for any advocate – on -record or any other petitioner to file his matter through internet from anywhere in the world. Computerization has been introduced in some of the High Courts in India. However, at a cursory glance to the reasons behind laws delay and the steps that has already been taken in various quarters after a long time. The real picture is not very satisfactory and encouraging. No effective changes are made particularly in the lower judiciary to prevent laws delays. The reason behind the delay still remains stagnant.
Opinion: Justice and judiciary have an important role to play in this globalize world. If we do not care about this than that we may at our own risk. In my opinion initially the vacancies needs to be filled and the judges appointed should be effective. The judges must set examples for themselves and others by maintaining a decent degree of punctuality and dutifulness. They should prove themselves as efficient and competitive. Further adjournments must not be given on flimsy and frivolous grounds and they should be beyond certain numbers.
BY: SHUBHANGI GUPTA
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