"What is happening?": Supreme Court pulls up Delhi government for not releasing funds for courts

The Supreme Court on Monday criticised the Delhi government for its lackadaisical attitude towards providing funds for infrastructure in the Delhi district judiciary..A Bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra directed the Delhi government to release funds for lower court infrastructure by December 14."What is happening? What is your government doing? You do not want to give any funds to Delhi High Court? You must release the money by Thursday...It is a model High Court and look at the condition. Judges are undergoing training and there are no courtrooms. Meeting needs to be convened as stated above and all outstanding clearances shall be given. We are listing this on Thursday.".The CJI noted that approvals were granted for three out of four projects as of March 2021. Nevertheless, funds for the projects were yet to be released.The top court noted that as of December 5, the High Court's status report indicated a sanctioned strength of 887 judicial officers, 15 fast track special courts and a working strength of 813 officers. There was a need for 118 courtrooms to accommodate the sanctioned strength and a vacancy of 114 courtrooms for working strength. The delay in approving funds is lamentable and there is no justification for the lackadaisical attitude of the Delhi government towards the Delhi district judiciary, the Court said..The CJI questioned the government as to why it was not disbursing funds to the Delhi High Court.To this, Senior Advocate Shyam Divan replied,"Planned sanction was in 2021. Approval of funds pending with GNCTD are the tabs here.. GNCTD says there was a time lapse.. law minister cleared some proposals and then pending...Finance minister now says it has been sent to the PWD again."Senior Advocate emphasized that it is unacceptable for prosecutors and judges to wait in queues, stating that 200 courtrooms are required in the next one year..Thereby, the top court directed the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court and State government to convene a meeting by tomorrow to figure out a way to handle acute shortage of infrastructure in district judiciary."With new recruits coming in there shall be acute shortage of infrastructure now. We request ACJ HC to convene a meeting tomorrow attended by the CS GNCTD, Principal secretary law, the principal secretary finance, secretary in charge of PWD and the registrar general of HC. We will list this on Thursday by when GNCTD shall inform the court about sanctions issued by GNCTD in meantime. We hope this shall be complied at the earliest," the Court observed.