India is Yearning for Judgments Not Justice Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan “60 Cases in Under 3 Hrs, 592 Matters Heard in All in SC: With Action-Packed Day 1, CJI Lalit Has Big Plans in Short Tenure. News report on Day 1 of Justice U U Lalit on 29th Sept,2022”
India is Yearning for Judgments Not Justice
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
“60 Cases in Under 3 Hrs, 592 Matters Heard in All in SC: With Action-Packed Day 1, CJI Lalit Has Big Plans in Short Tenure. News report on Day 1 of Justice U U Lalit on 29th Sept,2022”
Chief Justice of India, Justice U U Lalit, has set a frenetic pace for himself and his twenty eight fellow Justices. He may have just 74 days (unless the UOI moves at equally frenetic pace to extend the age of retirement of Supreme Court judges, a little bird tells me that it is within the realm of possibility).
What strikes one most is the ‘focus’ he has bestowed on long pending and forgotten causes. As a practitioner, one is always concerned with the here and now and newer and newer causes. You see, for the older ones, long pending, one has already minted money and less is likely to come from focusing on the pending ones. Courts cannot continue to oblige this scenario.
It is no rocket science to note that the focus of constitutional courts is on the freshly minted cases on the cause lists. Long pending cases get a short shrift. Today, the new case is heard and admitted and notice sent. It gets listed within days/months and disposed of in a jiffy. While the long pending ones gather dust, more dust and more and more, until they become infructuous, by sheer efflux of time. Is it fair? Is it Just? Can it be Justice?
Justice U U Lalit seems to be the first among the Chief Justices to turn inwards into the closet, to bring out the ‘old ones’. Just getting them listed before the apex court is an ‘expensive exercise’. Check with honest Advocates on Record and their clients in long sufferance. They will share the tales of woe as to what it costs to Mention through Senior Advocates and then pursue them to just get listed let alone be heard. Old causes may not be worth the rupee. Sad but true.
One is convinced that Justice U U Lalit is in the league of some of us who do not just believe but truly convinced that the Pendency Pandemic or mounting docket explosion in arrears – four Crores plus across the hierarchy with several thousands over 10 years and above- that India is yearning for “JUDGMENT NOT JUSTICE”. Unless we accept this disease, we cannot provide medicines.
Here is a two penny suggestion. It can turn gold if tapped into. In the ‘good old days’ constitutional courts hosted ‘Grouping Officers’ in the Registry. They were well informed, trained and smart. They read the papers and ‘grouped’ cases which may come as a common cause. Decide one case.Rest will follow the leader. No wastage of time hearing each cause separately, as is now happening. Bar must co operate for it to happen, as they have invested in delayed disposal for their commercial success.
Bench can request and avail the services of willing and able senior practitioners to sit in the Registry -and play the role of Grouping Officers. A couple of months to one set of specialist practitioners in each portfolio to lend their services. Besides grouping on commonality they can hit upon cases that may have become infrucutous or be ‘covered’ by a settled precedent.
Short Notes could be prepared and kept in the docket. It can be shared with contesting parties. The entire hearing can be reduced to minutes, if there is consensus. It is possible. It happened before once in the time of Justice V Ratnam. He called me to his Chamber and asked me to to give a List of cases pending in our office, which could bd grouped. He also requested me to give those cases – which may be covered by a precedent. I did so.
Then he extended the request to others’ cases also. Quietly it was done. It enabled the Bench to dispose of hundreds of appeals with just one common order. There was no complaint from any practitioner. Each one was given the opportunity to say whether their cause came under the ‘grouped head’ or not. If agreed, they got the benefit of a common order. Alas, even as Justice V Ratnam got steam, he was elevated as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh. There may however be no recorded notes of his proactive permissible disposal route.
Unless Bar and Bench co operate, Chief Justice Lalit’s commendable initiatives may end up antogonising the Bar which has a vested interest in the pendency. Bar must realize its duty. Not by sacrificing the interests of the litigants for expediency of disposals, for sure. But realize their duty to the judiciary as an institution and assist for early deliverance of Judgments and liberal life deliverance for the litigants from the portals of courts, which itself may be a huge relief considering the continuing clogged docket explosion.
No point in harking back to ‘Justice hurried is Justice Buried’ or ‘ Justice delayed is Justice denied’ vintage. Neither does make any sense in the India of today. They have become slogans. Technology can also help in Grouping. Justice could/would be done by mere Judgments in most causes,if one knows and realizes the real situation on the ground . Continued Pendency is eating into the vitals of the institution and delayed focus is not good in societal interest, as a frustrated citizen may be compelled to ‘take law into his own hands’ ( if he has already not) than be anguished that he even went to court for the cause!
Chief Justice U U Lalit appears to have hit upon the right nerve. ‘ India is Yearning for Judgments not Justice’. And if the Judgments are imbued with Justice, grateful and fine, by We the People.
( Author of Mahakavi Subbramania Bharathiyar, Kalaimagal Publications, Chennai, to be published on 11th Sept,2022, and trying to practice in Madras High Court, if/when cases are Listed)
