Work through vacations to decrease pendency, says Bar Council of India

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has come up with a solution to alleviate the ever-growing pendency in our courts. Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has appealed to lawyers of the Supreme Court and the high courts to work during the vacations “in the interest of poor litigants”..Mishra has also emphasised on the need to fill up the judicial vacancies in the high courts, and has asked the government to increase the strength of the high courts in a bid to combat pendency..A BCI press release states,.“Only in [the] Supreme Court, more than 60,000 cases are pending while the pendency in various High Courts is about 39 lakhs…in order to tackle this situation, it would require the immediate filling up of the existing vacancies in all High Courts…”.At present, there are 462 high court posts lying vacant, with some high courts, like the Allahabad High Court functioning at less than half of the approved strength..Although the BCI’s intentions may be in the right place, the suggestion to work through the court holidays is quite certain to be met with opposition..In 2014, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) made its intentions very clear when it rejected then Chief Justice RM Lodha’s 365-day working proposal. As a compromise, it was suggested that court working hours be increased by an hour..In any case, the perspective of the members the Bar will be made clear when the BCI convenes a meeting involving the bar associations and state bar councils across the country, scheduled to take place on May 7 or 8..From the perspective of the Bench, it would be unfair to ask the judges to work through the year..In fact, Justice Vikramajit Sen, who retired as a judge of the Supreme Court last year said in this interview,.“If you have 80 matters to read per day, it is fatiguing. When our present Chief Justice said that there is very little job satisfaction, this is what he meant. It is a futile exercise, because 80-90% of the petitions are dismissed.”.As regards the reduction of pendency in the Supreme Court, Justice Sen said that a method to decrease the number of SLPs in the apex court is the need of the hour..Read the BCI’s press release below: