Many suggestions by Supreme Court not implemented by High Courts, Justice Madan Lokur

Former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Madan Lokur yesterday expressed his disappointment at the fact that high courts across the country have not implemented the suggestions put forth by the Supreme Court to deal with pendency of cases.

“Many of our suggestions (like all High Courts should have a secretariat) are not implemented…how do you make sure that they are implemented? I don’t know”, Justice Lokur said.

Justice Madan Lokur was speaking at an event organized by Daksh, titled Piloting Justice: A Panel Discussion on Delhi High Court’s ‘Zero Pendency Courts’ Project held yesterday at India International Centre, New Delhi.

His remark came as a response to co-panellist, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar’s question on the Supreme Court taking an “action taken report” from high courts on matters such as pendency.

Justice Lokur stated that the Law Commission under the Chairmanship of Justice M Jagannadha Rao had released its report on Case Law Management for high courts and subordinate courts. The Report was accepted by the Supreme Court and an order to implement the same was also passed. However, it was not adopted or implemented, he added.

“The Case Management Rules are there…if judges are not aware of it…Justice Rao also suggested Judicial Impact Assessment…(but) not done!”

He added that the Supreme Court had even laid down a schedule for filling up judicial vacancies. However, the same was not followed.

Referring to an informal study undertaken by him in 2004-05, Justice Lokur also stated that if the number of sanctioned posts was filled up, pendency of cases would be negative.

Madan Lokur J went on to discuss the Report on the Zero Pendency Courts Project compiled by Daksh in collaboration with the Delhi High Court. The Report was aimed at understanding the functioning of courts when they are not burdened with arrears or backlog. For this purpose, 11 subordinate courts in Delhi with no backlog or arrears of cases called ‘pilot courts’ were compared with 11 ordinary courts with regular caseloads known as ‘reference courts’.

Among other findings, the Report had concluded that Delhi’s lower courts need 43 more judges in addition to the existing 143 in order to clear over one lakh thirty thousand cases that are pending before them within one year.

While discussing the Report, Madan Lokur J remarked that it was very difficult to arrive at a scientific number of judges that were required to achieve zero pendency.

He further said that in order to deal with the issue, there was a need to arrive at some definitions as well. The definition of a ‘pending case’ was discussed.

“A case that is filed one day ago also becomes ‘pending’. I am in favour of One year to determine arrear.”

Justice Lokur added that increasing the number of judges could not be done in isolation, as it would also require raising the number of court staff as well.

“There’s a financial squeeze”, he said as he remarked that since the number of the judges or staff could not be increased, there could not be any change in pendency.

He also remarked that judicial impact assessment of laws was as important as financial impact assessment. Such assessment should ascertain how many courts and registrars will be needed to implement a law.

Justice Lokur also took the opportunity to state that studies similar to that of Daksh’s Zero Pendency Courts Project should be carried out in different parts of the country.

“District Courts in Delhi are perhaps the best in the country…Therefore, some of these results may sound very good. You can never get a result like this in other places. Delhi does not represent the country.”

Justice Lokur also spoke at length on the plague of adjournments in courts. Referring to the Vijay Mallya case in the United Kingdom which has been adjourned till February next year, and the Nirav Modi case which has been adjourned till May next year, Justice Lokur exclaimed,

“When we fix a date, can we have a meaningful date?”

He thus called for consciously fixing such dates, which may be after six months.

“Unless decisiveness is shown, there will be adjournments”, he said.

Lokur J also spoke on the harassment that witnesses often face due to repeated adjournments. Narrating an incident where costs were imposed by the judge when an adjournment was sought by an advocate, he said,

“At some point of time, somebody has to be ruthless. Till then we can keep discussing.”

Justice Lokur suggested that one needed to look at technology “very, very seriously” and advocated exploring possible usages such as service of summons through a smartphone.

Taking the discussion forward, Madan Lokur J also explained the working of the recently inaugurated Virtual Traffic Court in Delhi.

“The idea is to expand it to other statutes also…all compoundable cases can be taken care of by these courts.. It’s still in its infancy. It will be used for a lot of petty offences.”

Senior Advocate Datar laid stress on “how to eliminate wastage of judicial time”. He suggested that if the procedural laws were followed strictly, issues with respect to pendency and delay would be eliminated.

Datar also raised concerns with respect to the “costs” associated with an adjournment and calling a witness repeatedly.

He also laid stress upon the role and responsibility of the  Chief Justice of the High Court in steering and adopting measures for dealing with issues like arrears of cases.

Datar further discussed the consequence of framing laws such as Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act without foreseeing the subsequent explosion in the number of cases pursuant to that law.

He also raised objection against judges being involved in non-judicial work, especially when the same could be outsourced.

“Why should the judges be part of a Committee for everything”, Datar questioned as he narrated instances where such committees were formed for garden management and hiring sweepers in High Court. 

The panel agreed that there is an urgent need to focus on the implementation of judicial orders and recommendations of committees, for which purpose an implementation office/secretariat could be set up. Benchmarks for disposing various types of cases and the need to ultimately codify them in Case Flow Management Rules was also discussed. These rules should aim at prioritising cases based on their type and prescribe a fixed timeline to dispose the cases.

The event was moderated by Daksh co-founder Harish Narasappa. Describing the Zero Pendency Courts Project, he said,

“[It is] A first for evidence-based policy making in the Indian judiciary. The findings of the project provide an in-depth understanding into the nature of and reasons for judicial delay. We hope that the findings of this project will encourage other High Courts to undertake similar projects.”