Is it not sheer irony if those sitting on judgment of others are to be adjudged for almost identical defaults? In a sense, the Constitution of India invests Indian judiciary not only with the highest legal but also moral authority. Independence of judiciary is a reflection of the proverbial might of the State. Society expects the judiciary to be the role model to give direction to the philosophy of governance. Its word is law.
Conscious of its duties and responsibilities, the Supreme Court has been feeling that owing to vastness of the country and the size of its population, there is need to make intermittent review of the functionality of Indian judiciary involving the entire structure from the Supreme Court down to the district level Judicial Officers. An impression lingering with the responsible echelons of judiciary as well as the Ministry of Law is that Indian judiciary needs far-reaching reforms in some areas in a way that justice is not delayed and social aberrations are set right before these become incorrigible. The foremost of these aberrations is enormous pendency at all levels and layers of judiciary. How can the given manpower and structure cope with this Herculean task is what has been disturbing the Supreme Court and the State High Courts in the country. For discussing this and many others related issues pertaining to functionality of judiciary, the Chief Justices of the State High Courts of India held a conference on April 22-23 this year in which a number of serious matters were discussed and resolutions passed. Broadly speaking, the matters discussed were of augmenting the infrastructure of Subordinate Courts, establishment of e-courts, speeding up disposal of cases to reduce pendency, speeding up of trial, strengthening of Legal Aid Programmes like Alternate Dispute Resolution System, fast tracking of matters relating to crime against women, children, differently-abled persons, senior citizens, marginalized sections and expeditious disposal of corruption cases. It hardly needs to be emphasized that these are very serious matters which our judicial structure is called upon to handle. The conference of Chief Justices must have found that most of these issues are common to many States. As such certain resolutions were passed that suggested reform as well as improvement or upgrading of the system that would ensure impartial and speedy disposal of cases. The resolutions laid emphasis on submitting periodical progress reports to the Chief Justice of India to keep him abreast of the progress recorded in improvement of the system.
Consequently, the Chief Justice of State High Court, Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar ordered constituting of an Administrative Committee of four judges of the High Court including himself as its chairman. Even a Mini-Secretariat comprising of Registrar General of High Court and Principal Secretary to the Chief Justice was established for tracking the progress made in the implementation of the resolutions adopted in the Chief Justices’ Conference. Soon after the conclusion of the conference of the Chief Justices of State High Courts, and flow of resolutions, Registrar General of the State High Court issued instructions to all the Principal District and Session Judges in the State to compile information according to the circular and submit the same by July 10, 2016 to be forwarded to the Supreme Court by the end of July. Despite clear instructions and periodic reminders, several Principal District and Session Judges in the State have failed to comply with the instructions. Apart from earlier communications sent to these Judicial Officers, the Registrar General of the High Court sent an urgent message to these District and Session Judges to treat the matter as urgent and furnish information expeditiously as the Secretary General of the Supreme Court was insisting on immediate submission of the data for the perusal of the Chief Justice of India. Evidently, the Administrative Committee headed by Chief Justice has taken serious note of dilly-dallying approach of these Judicial Officers as office of Secretary General of Supreme Court is constantly seeking the status of implementation of resolutions adopted in the Chief Justices’ Conference.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel