The Hindu : National : Vacation is a privilege Supreme Court can ill afford: Parliamentary panel

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Vacation is a privilege Supreme Court can ill afford: Parliamentary panel

J. Venkatesan

In the interest of speedy justice, this colonial legacy should go

Pendency threatens to cause the collapse of judicial system
When cases drag on for years, people will lose faith in courts

New Delhi: The parliamentary standing committee attached to the Law and Justice Ministry has asked the Supreme Court to cut vacations and holidays to reduce the huge backlog of cases.

The committee, headed by E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan (Congress), in its 28th report placed in Parliament last week, said: “The system of vacations is a colonial legacy that has no relevance today. Given the huge pendency of cases at various levels, including at the Supreme Court, vacation is a privilege that the judicial system could hardly afford.”

The panel considered the fact that judges also worked at their residences for studying the cases and writing judgments after office hours and even on holidays and therefore vacation should not be treated as a privilege. The panel was informed that from 2006 the court’s summer vacation had been reduced from eight to seven weeks and the number of working days increased from 185 to 190.

However, given the huge pendency in the Supreme Court, the system of lengthy vacation “is better done away with. Reduced vacations will automatically add to the number of working days. The committee, accordingly, recommends increasing the number of working days in the Supreme Court to accord speedy justice to the people and to break the vicious circle of pendency.”

Expressing concern over arrears, the committee said the pendency of cases in the Supreme Court (over 47,000), High Courts (37,64,565) and the subordinate judiciary (about 2.75 crore cases) threatened to cause the collapse the entire judicial system.

“When foreigners come to invest in India, they are very happy with our democracy, they are very happy with our independent judiciary, but they are all quite upset at the disposal rate of cases, which is very bad. It is good that there are more cases because people have confidence.” But when cases dragged on for 40, 50 or 60 years, people would “lose confidence in the administration of justice.”

While recommending to the government that it increase the strength of judges at various levels to cope with arrears, the committee asked the Supreme Court to devise mechanisms and take corrective measures to enable people to get timely justice.

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