Parliament Watch: Court proceedings and legal education in regional languages, government expenditure on lawyers

The 2022 Winter Session of Parliament on Friday saw replies to questions on women representation in judiciary, government expenditure on engaging counsel and implementation of regional languages in courts..In response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, stated that as on December 5, 2022, 101 women are serving as judges across various High Courts, as against a sanctioned strength of 1,108 judges.Five High Courts - those of Manipur, Meghalaya, Patna, Tripura and Uttarakhand - have no women judges.Following is a table showing the sanctioned strength of judges, the working strength, the number of women Judges and their percentage in the High Courts as on December 5, 2022..This table shows the State-wise working strength of women judicial officers in district and subordinate judiciary as on December 5, 2022:.In four States - Goa, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim - the working strength of women judicial officers in the district judiciary is more than half of the sanctioned strength. The State of Goa has 28 women judicial officers against a working strength of 40..To a question by Lok Sabha MP Kalaben Mohanbhai Delkar, it was stated that proceedings are being conducted using video conferencing in all High Courts and district courts within their jurisdiction.As on September 30, 2022, the total number of cases dealt with by courts across the country through video conferencing was 2,29,16,528. Over 75 lakh cases were heard virtually by the High Courts, while the lower courts dealt with over 1.5 crore cases through this means.Among the High Courts, the Madras High Court has dealt with the most cases via video conferencing, 14,24,292. In comparison, the Bombay High Court dealt with just 36,849 cases virtually.Among district courts, the ones under the jurisdiction of the Allahabad High Court have disposed of 36,39,634 cases.This table shows the number of cases dealt with via video conferencing in High Courts and District Courts during the pandemic as on September 5, 2022. .In reply to a question by Lok Sabha MP Debasree Chaudhuri, the Law Ministry said that it was emphasizing promotion and enhancement of use of Hindi and other regional languages in the legal education system as well as in proceedings across all courts."We are digitizing 65000 words Legal glossary and make them available to public and creating an online platform to crowd–sourcing of the coining of legal terminology for Indian Languages," the reply stated.The Ministry is in the process of identifying frequently used words in legal documents and creating a transitive vocabulary by coining words from common roots which would be adaptable by all Indian languages so that the translation of legal documents from one Indian language to another would be easier.It is also planning to convene a meeting of Vice-Chancellors of law universities and representatives of the Bar and the judiciary to prepare a Ten Year Perspective action Plan for Promotion of Indian Languages in Courts and Legal Education. Further, a committee under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde has been constituted by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to recommend measures to enhance the use of Hindi and other regional languages in legal education..To a question by MP Vijay Vasanth on cases disposed of by Lok Adalats, it was revealed that the 3rd National Lok Adalat, organized across the country on August 13, 2022, disposed of 1,08,51,553 cases. Out of these, 82,46,801 were pre-litigation matters and 26,04,752 were pending before courts.From June 2020 to September 2022, 1,63,78,857 pre-litigation cases were taken up and 38,39,258 were disposed of by E-Lok Adalats. Out of 96,13,800 pending cases taken up, 14,99,042 were disposed of.The following table shows the details of cases disposed of in Lok Adalats over the last two years: .To a question by Odisha MP Aparajati Sarangi, the Law Ministry revealed that the Department of Legal Affairs has incurred expenses of ₹48,94,54,767 during 2021-22 for engaging law officers and panel counsel across its litigation branches in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru. This table shows the details: