Queue for justice

22 Mar’ 10, Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times

NUMBERS TELL THE STORY

The Supreme Court is reeling under the weight of excess litigation. The high Courts and lower judiciary are worse off.

Cases pending in Supreme Court as on Dec. 31, 2009 = 55,791

Estimated number of pending cases in Supreme Court by 2015 = 87,909

Cases filed in Supreme Court every year = 69,611*

Cases disposed of by the Supreme every year = 64,259*

Cases added to the backlog before apex court every year = 5,353*

*Average of the last four years

37 Minimum number of judges (compared to 27 at present) required at the Supreme Court if the backlog is to be cleared by 2015

4.49 million cases before high courts

27.2 million cases pending before lower courts

ENDLESS DELAY About 100 million people have been waiting for justice. And they may have to wait for 320 more years as there are not enough judges in Indian courts.

There were more than 55,000 cases pending before the Supreme Court at the end of 2009. The figure in high courts stood at 4.49 million and in lower courts 27.2 million till September 2009. And these figures do not include the cases pending in various consumer courts and tribunals.

Perhaps that’s why Justice V.V. Rao of Andhra Pradesh High Court said on March 6 that it would take 320 years to dispose of all pending cases in India.

But Rao’s estimate might actually be highly optimistic. The Supreme Court has disposed of, on average, 64,259 cases per year over the last four years. But an average of 69,611 fresh cases were filed before it every year during this period.

So, far from clearing the backlog, the list of pending cases actually grew by 5,352 every year. This trend shows no sign of reversing.

And the Supreme Court is better placed in this regard compared to the high courts and the lower judiciary.

Says G.E Vahanvati, attorney general of India, who is involved in the government’s initiative to clear the backlog: “We are drawing upon the best minds in management and software to introduce modern management techniques in litigation.”

Will that solve the problem?

That’s the idea anyway. “It will give inputs on how procedural delays can be avoided,” says Vahanvati.

But there are people who think, with good reason, that the government is part of the problem, rather than the solution.

“The government is the biggest litigant. It must scrutinise cases before deciding to file appeals. Done properly, this will reduce the arrears to a great extent,” says Senior Counsel Rajeev Dhavan, one of India’s leading lawyers.

But finally, after 12 Law Commission reports and several other expert panel recommendations, the government has woken up to the problem.

Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily unveiled a Vision Document on October 25, 2009, on how to reduce pendency — legalese for pending or undecided cases — over the next three years.

The government is setting up an 11-member National Arrears Grid (NAG) to ascertain the exact arrears and ensure optimal utilisation of infrastructure.

NAG members will do well to start with numbers on judicial vacancies. The Supreme Court is short by four judges (it has a sanctioned strength of 31), high courts are short by 265 (out of 895) and the lower courts by 2,800 (out of 16,721).

The judicial backlog has serious ramifications on India’s economy. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said delays in resolving judicial disputes were impacting inflows of foreign direct investments. “Foreign investors always consider the additional costs resulting from courtroom delays (before deciding on committing investments),” he said. “Not only are courtroom delays eating up two per cent of India’s gross domestic product, (they are) also leading to corruption, low investment and inflation.”

Are the other arms of the government even aware of the problem?

In its 127th report submitted in 1988, the Law Commission recommended that the 10.50-judges-per-million-people ratio be improved to at least 50 judges per million people. And by 2000, it recommended, the ratio should be 107 judges per million people.

Even after two decades, the situation has not improved much.

The Supreme Court has declared on several occasions that speedy trials ensured the right to life and liberty, but obviously, this has not happened.

Moily says people are losing faith in the system. And this, he has said, is leading to civil unrest, Maoist violence and vigilante justice.

Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, who has been complaining about the poor judge-population ratio and inadequate funding, feels that unless the number of courts is increased, the judiciary cannot be expected to function at optimal levels of efficiency.

There is a Vision Document available with the government that recommends the appointment of 700 additional judges to the high courts and 15,000 new judges in the lower judiciary.

But there are dissenting voices. “We must guard against mindless increase in the number of judges. If you don’t have good judges, you won’t get the optimal quality of justice,” says Dhavan.

There are problems of resource as well. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s suggestion that states must fund the move to increase the number of judges did not find favour with most judges and advocates, who wanted the Centre to bear the cost.

There are indications that the government is serious about tackling this problem.

It is working on a National Litigation Policy to change its role from a “compulsive litigant” to a “responsible and reluctant litigant”.

Then, a government-appointed taskforce recommended that the judicial fallout of every Bill be weighed carefully since over 2.5 million cases were filed after the amendment to the Negotiable Instruments Act, which made the bouncing of cheques a criminal offence.

Judicial delays affect 100 million people, assuming that each of the 31 million-odd cases pending before the courts in India involves at least three people. That’s almost 10 per cent of India’s population.

And that’s a big enough number for the government to take notice of the problem — and deliver.

www.hindustantimes.com/Queue-for-justice/H1-Article1-521727.aspx

SC backlog up 62 pc in 4 years

16 Mar’ 2010, Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times



New Delhi: The backlog of cases in the Supreme Court has risen 62 per cent in the last four years, amid all the discussions in legal and government circles on how it should be brought down.

The total number of cases pending in the apex court was 55,791 at the end of 2009, against 34,481 in 2005, according to figures released by the Supreme Court itself.

The trend in the Supreme Court is all the more surprising when the number of pending cases in the lower courts is increasing at a much slower pace. The average backlog in subordinate courts rose by just 7.35 per cent in the last three years, while it went up 11.84 per cent in the high courts during the same period.

Six high courts — those of Delhi, Bombay, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Kerala and Jharkhand — actually managed to bring down their backlogs.

“The Supreme Court was meant to decide only constitutional matters of great significance,” said senior advocate K. K. Venugopal.

“But today it deals with a whole lot of other matters too. The apex court wants to correct every error in every judgment passed by about 600 judges of 22 high courts and a large number of tribunals. This is bound to increase the backlog.”

Venugopal suggested the Supreme Court should confine itself only to important constitutional matters and disputes between states, or those between states and the Centre.

“It can be done if a Court of Appeal is created in each region to hear and decide appeals arising out of judgments passed by high courts,” he said. “This will drastically reduce the number of Supreme Court cases.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/newdelhi/SC-backlog-up-62-pc-in-4-years/Article1-519475.aspx

Imprisonment till death for man

DOUBLE MURDER Accused had killed father of eyewitness within an hour and half of first murder

21 Mar ’10, Sunday, Sumit Saxena, Hindustan Times

New Delhi: A city court on Saturday sentenced an accused “imprisonment till death“ for the cold-blooded murder of the father of an eyewitness.

Sumit Nayyar, a Delhi University student then, had called the police after Jitender (36) alias Kalla shot dead a student leader in 1999.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau noted that Kalla killed two people within one- and-a-half hour.

“The present case cannot be put on the same pedestal as other ordinary murder cases,“ said the judge.

The judge said the double murder was committed in cold blood without any instigation.

The court also noted that by threatening and killing witnesses, the eyes and ears of a court are under attack, which is a serious concern.

The accused was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment for 30 years for the murder of Anil Bhadana, the then Satyawati College Students' Union President in March 1999.

Kalla, while on the run saw Sumit Nayyar, an eyewitness, making a police call.

He immediately rushed to Sumit's house in Mukherjee Nagar and pumped three bullets into his father Keemti Lal Nayyar (62).

The court said that the accused would first complete the sentence of 30 years in Bhadana murder case and then would further serve sentence for his entire life till death for killing Nayyar.

In case of life imprisonment, convicts are considered for remission of their punishment after serving 14 years behind bars.

The accused was arrested on January 24, 2000, after evading police for over nine months.
He is also facing trial for fleeing from police custody in August 2000.

The court also ordered that of the total fine of Rs 3 lakh slapped on the accused, a sum of Rs 2 lakh be paid to the victim's family.

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=21_03_2010_005_020&kword=&mode=1

Life imprisonment for two in Pushkin murder case

3 Mar ’10, Wednesday,The Hindu

UNDP employee and his friend were brutally killed on the night of August 13-14, 2004

NEW DELHI: A court here on Tuesday awarded rigorous life imprisonment to two persons for stabbing to death two homosexuals belonging to affluent families in the Capital nearly six years ago.

Describing the double murder as “ghastly and brutal”, the court said: “Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the background of the convicts, social and economic liabilities which they have to shoulder, I am of the view that despite the murder being brutal, the case does not fall in the category of rarest of rare cases.” So the court did not award death penalty.

Additional Sessions Judge A. K. Kuhar also imposed a fine of Rs.3,000 each on the convicts, Rajesh Rekwar, an AIDS patient, and Moti, after holding them guilty under Section 302 (murder) and 380 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code.

Pushkin Chandra, 38-year-old son of a retired IAS officer, and his friend Kuldeep were killed on the night of August 13-14, 2004, at Pushkin’s residence in Anand Lok area of South Delhi.

Before the judgment was pronounced by the court, defence counsel sought a lenient punishment for the convicts saying the photographs showing Pushkin in compromising positions with men spoke about the lifestyle of the victims and the circumstances in which the offence was allegedly committed.

· No material could be gathered to show that Pushkin used to blackmail the poor boys: Court

· ‘The convicts had no justification in killing two human beings in such a brutal fashion’

“Without going further on this aspect, I put a question whether the convicts had any justification in killing two human beings in such a brutal fashion? The answer would be: No,” the court said.

The court, however, acquitted two other co-accused, Munna and Jay Kishore, for want of evidence. They had been charged with destruction of evidence and keeping the stolen properties of the victims.

Earlier, Public Prosecutor Davendra Kumar sought death penalty for the convicts saying “there were multiple stab injuries (11 wounds on Pushkin’s body) on the….. victims. This itself reflects the brutality with which the murders were committed.”

The defence counsel opposed the plea saying convict Rajesh and his wife, who were having three minor children, were suffering from AIDS.

It was also argued that both the convicts belonged to poor families and their dependents would starve to death if they were awarded the extreme penalty.

In a case hinged on circumstantial evidence as no one witnessed the incident, the court in its 49-page judgement relied on the testimonies of two prosecution witnesses who had last seen the victims in the company of the accused.

The CCTV footage of a camera at an ATM centre in Delhi showing one of the accused withdrawing money by using Pushkin’s ATM card after the incident linked them with the offence, the court said.

The arrest of accused from places in Uttar Pradesh and recovery of stolen goods from their possession also helped the prosecution in nailing them.

The defence plea was that Pushkin was killed allegedly by the accused who got provoked as the victim used to blackmail them after photographing them naked.

“....despite these activities of Pushkin Chandra being apparent on record, no material could be gathered to show that he used to blackmail the poor boys with whom he used to indulge in sexually pervert act. Therefore, to say that the accused were being blackmailed by Pushkin and that is why they planned to eliminate him under provocation would be saying something off the record which has no evidential value in the eyes of law. Moreover, nobody gets a right to eliminate a human being for whatever injustice has been caused to him,” the court said.

Pushkin Chandra, working with UNDP, used to photograph nude men with whom he happened to have unnatural sex, the prosecution said. – PTI

http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/03/stories/2010030358430400.htm

2,000 advocates lose bar body membership

09 Feb’ 2010, Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times

New Delhi: In an unprecedented move, the interim board of management (IBOM) of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on Monday cancelled memberships of nearly 2,000 advocates after finding large scale irregularities in making them members of the Bar body.

The IBOM, headed by senior counsel and former SCBA president K.K. Venugopal, noted that membership forms were bought in bulk and "groups of persons were funded towards admission fee...by individuals who had purchased en-bloc pay orders."

The IBOM was appointed last month after the SCBA Executive Committee was dissolved due to breach of procedure and infighting between two groups over admitting new members, alleged tampering with certain documents and running of the Bar canteen.

In meetings held on September 19 and December 19, last year, the SCBA membership committee reportedly recommended 562 and 1,485 advocates for membership, respectively.

After examining the records, the IBOM cancelled the new memberships, as the applications were not in order.

In many applications, addresses, proof of LL.B., enrollment certificates, etc., were the same. The IBOM wondered how the membership committee interviewed 1,485 candidates in less than five hours. "None of them has been admitted as members of SCBA," the IBOM said.

"Consequently, membership cards, library cards and proximity cards wrongly issued to these 562 would stand withdrawn and shall not be used anymore," the IBOM said.
"The eligibility of these 562 and 1,485 applicants will have to be examined afresh and interviews held for each one of the applicants," it added.

http://m.pressmart.com/Home.aspx?event=HTDelhi&dt=09022010&page=006_004&mdl=