Can we please give our Justices more Judicial Tine?                     Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

Can we please give our Justices more Judicial Tine?

 

Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

 

 

 

Justice U U Lalit, upon being sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India promised to attend listing of cases in a smooth and transparent manner, mentioning of cases to be streamlined into a clear and coherent system and trying to have a Constitution Bench going, on a daily basis,all year round. He was a Senior Advocate before being elevated to the apex court in 2014. He had long years of experience and is speaking with the backing of it. Earlier, he had even suggested a 09.00 am morning start to courts drawing attention that ‘our children were going up school at 07.00 am’.

 

What does all this suggest? That he is  ‘concerned’ with the Pendency Pandemic.Too many cases are waiting  for too long. The total number of pending cases in Supreme Court of India are 71,411 as on August 2, 2022, out of which 56,365 are civil matters and 15,076 are criminal matters. 5.9 million  cases are pending before the 25 high courts. And sum total of 4 Crore  plus, in the entire  judicial pyramid.

 

Here is my two penny suggestion to the Chief Justice,  as he  has expressed his willingness to play as if the 74 day tenure was slog overs’ time all. One area that has received total neglect is Administration & Case Management Systems in India. To be handled by experts who are trained and only supervised by the Judges.

 

Let us be clear on one thing. The job of a judge is to Judge. Judicial time is too valuable to be frittered away or dissipated. The outside world already complains – why the SC has 193 working days annually, high courts 210 days and trial courts 245 days a year. Of course, we have vacation courts too. Summer vacations always irritate the citizenry.

 

Judging does not come easy. The world sees only the time judges are on the Bench. They must understand it is 24×7 and 365 days’ calling. Or it is  so meant, to the sincere, conscientious and those genuinely sworn to the oaths. Reading  and ruminating all the time. Justices are overworked. It is a thankless job, at the end of the day, as it is difficult to satisfy ‘all stakeholders’.

 

Contextually, let me go to just one high court- Punjab & Haryana. There are forty four (44) Permanent Committees, with at  least 5 Justices as members of each of them. They vary from Administrative Committee, to Training Committee, to Finance and Purchase Committee,Building Committee, Recruitment Committee,Promotion and Protocol Committees,Arrears Committee,Organising Committee et al. There are twelve more (12) ‘ Specially Constituted Committees’. Several High Courts have ‘ Canteen Committees’, ‘ Car Park Committees, Heritage Committees,Library Committees, Books’ Subscription Committees’ , and several more.

 

Should they be manned by Judges alone or at all? Cannot there be non judicial  administrative experts  trained in management occupying those committees? Governance of Judiciary as an institution , does not come easy. It consumes huge time. It eats into vital and valuable judicial time.

 

In the US of A, for instance, The Administrative Office is the agency within the judicial branch that provides a broad range of legislative, legal, financial, technology, management, administrative, and program support services to federal courts. Judicial Conference committees, with court input, advise the Administrative Office as it develops the annual judiciary budget for approval by Congress and the President. The Administrative Office is responsible for carrying out Judicial Conference policies. A primary responsibility of the Administrative Office is to provide staff support and counsel to the Judicial Conference and its committees.

 

In the UK, there is a chief Executive Officer in the Supreme Court. The role involves responsibility for all the non-judicial functions of the Court and overseeing the administration of a team of approximately 50 staff and contractors supporting the work of the Justices. The Chief Executive is an Accounting Officer in their own right. No need to multiply such instances. The bottom line is that Judges in the US and UK are not required to preside over Canteen and Car Parking Committees,  denuding them of valuable judicial time.

 

Judges are compelled by tradition to continue these committees attending to non judicial work. They may not be eager and willing to man them. Or at least most of them may be grumblingly seated in them. I have known a few who have politely excused themselves,  to focus  exclusively on judicial functions, for which  alone they were chosen.

 

The Chief Justice of India, in one fell swoop, can get Justices out of most Committees, which have little or nothing to do with their judicial functions. Let administration be in the hands of non judicial  – administrative expert managers. Valuable judicial time would be released to unleash their energies to hearing more causes and deciding disputes.

 

There may be other areas  too, requiring immediate surgical attention, as reducing adjournments and restricting the time for oral submissions. Allotting times after written submissions are filed. And, as Chief Justice U U Lalit suggests the Supreme Court  may better serve the nation by handling constitutional causes alone. And there being a National Appellate Courts in each State, which could be the last round for the litigious Indian on merits of the causes. But that those are structural changes which may have to wait their turn.

 

Chief Justice has but 74 days in office. While he may have his ideas, this is one idea whose time had come  long ago. And it can be accomplished in a jiffy without need for  any legislative support. Just a fiat that all justices will man only those committees which had an umbilical connect to judicial functions and rest of them to be manned by non judicial experts as managers. Judges can always be there to offer their counsel, if need be.

 

Is Chief Justice U U Lalit game for this simple yet significant change?

 

( Author of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar,Kalaimagal Publications, to be published on 11th Sept,2022, 101st death anniversary of the Mahakavi and practicing advocate in the Madras High Court)