*CJ wants expeditious disposal of 5 to 15 yrs old cases
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 11: Concerned over pendency of cases in different courts of the State, the High Court is going to chalk out a strategy to tackle this problem on February 14. The road-map would be put to implementation with immediate effect as the Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar wants expeditious disposal of cases, which are pending during the period ranging between 5 to 15 years.
Highly placed sources told EXCELSIOR that Chief Justice of State High Court has come to know from the figures time to time obtained from Judicial Officers in the length and breadth of the State that there are large number of cases whose disposal is pending during the period ranging between 5 to 15 years.
“Since the pendency of such cases amounts of delaying the justice to the aggrieved persons and at the same time putting question mark on the performance of the Judicial Officers, the Chief Justice has found it appropriate to hold deliberations with all the Judicial Officers so as to come out with a solution”, sources further said.
Keeping this in mind, the High Court is organizing first of its kind conference on “Delay and Arrears—Problems and Solutions: Strategy and Solutions” through Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy in the winter capital of the State on February 14.
All the Judicial Officers from the districts of Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Rajouri, Poonch, Udhampur, Reasi, Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar including Special Judge CBI Court, Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Special Judge Anticorruption and the officers on deputation at Jammu have been explicitly told by the High Court to ensure participation in the conference.
During the deliberations, Chief Justice along with all the Judges of the High Court would ascertain the difficulties and problems being faced by the Judicial Officers in disposal of cases and the steps required to cope up with the situation, sources said, adding based on the detailed deliberations strategy would be worked out to overcome the problem of delays and arrears.
Besides chalking out strategy, necessary directions would also be issued to the Judicial Officers during the conference so that action on the road-map is initiated with immediate effect, sources further said.
It is pertinent to mention here that in order to deal with urgent matters one Magistrate will be retained in the districts on the day of conference in Jammu.
Similar conference would be held in Srinagar for the Judicial Officers of Kashmir province in the month of March and keeping in view the pendency level in the courts of the Kashmir valley necessary directions would be passed to the Judicial Officers during the conference.
As per the official figures available with EXCELSIOR, 4944 cases of 5 to 10 years old have been pending in different courts of Jammu province. Similarly, there are 687 cases whose disposal is pending during the period ranging between 10 to 15 years while as the number of more than 15 years old cases in Jammu province is 217.
Jammu tops in the list of districts having maximum number of pending cases in all the three categories (50-10 years; 10-15 years and more than 15 years) with figures at 4289. Samba district is at second place with 386 cases and Kathua with 242 cases is at third place. The districts which have lowest number of such cases are Ramban and Kishtwar.
Ramban is the only district in Jammu province which has no case of 10-15 years and more than 15 years old while as districts of Poonch, Rajouri and Kishtwar don’t have any more than 15 years old case.
It is pertinent to mention here that pendency of 5-10 years, 10-15 years and more than 15 years cases is also a matter of serious concern for the Supreme Court, which through its Registry is regularly seeking information from the State High Courts to ascertain the pace of disposal.
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