For several decades now, the Indian judiciary has been facing the burden of an overwhelming and tedious problem. With more than 54 million cases in various arms of the judiciary, the age-old saying “justice delayed is justice denied” is no longer just an idiom but an inescapable reality of life.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a paradigm shift occurring. All across the nation, High Courts have abandoned their traditional ways of solving this problem through ad-hoc procedures and have opted for an approach that is focused and driven by technology. These efforts involve implementation of the Dynamic New Case Disposal Strategy, driven by the Supreme Court Committee’s Model Case Flow Management Rules and spearheaded vigorously by the Punjab High Court among other pioneers. But will such a strategy be able to address the structural delays of the system?
Blueprint for Dynamic Disposal Strategy
As against considering the problem as one large block of case backlogs, it is a database system, which needs to be surgically sorted. Important aspects of the modern approach to solving the problem include:
- Stringent Action Plan & Phased Disposal: The Bench has set up its agenda to clear old cases according to a definite plan. For example, an ongoing drive has cleared cases, which are more than 30, 20, or 10 years old in respective quarters of the year. After clearing a certain case, the registry automatically shifts the next old case into the advanced list.
- Equal Case Allocation: With the help of data tools, heavy clusters of litigation can be detected, and Chief Justices can assign those cases equally to operational judges for achieving maximum productivity in court.
- Zero Adjournment Manifesto: In lieu of accommodating adjournments in procedures, courts have zero tolerance for mechanical adjournments.
- Utilizing High-Octane Infrastructure: NJDG system has been improved to trace bottleneck problems and patterns of delay in real time and convert registry into a data center.
Real World Proof of Concept: The Chandigarh Backlog Success Story
Punjab High Court at Chandigarh was recently one such venue where the very same model was put into practice. The court has witnessed its entire backlog of cases stuck at a plateau of stagnation for almost six months.
Post a series of structural changes in the system, the court has managed to register a sharp decline in its backlog. The total backlog figure has reduced from 4,13,500 cases to 4,04,217 cases in less than four months, which means that almost 9,283 cases have been cleared off.
The Core Obstacles to the Strategy
While there have been these advancements within the institution, adjustments through internal management will not be sufficient to solve a system riddled with structural problems.
1. The Judicial-to-Population Gap
The key stumbling block here is a basic lack of manpower. While the Law Commission of India has called for a ratio of at least 50 judges for every one million people in India, at present the ratio stands at 21 judges per million people. Regardless of how efficient an automated registration system might become, only a certain number of judicial officers will work a certain number of hours on the bench each day.
2. Government as a Predominant Litigant
The government is largely responsible for the enormous judicial backlog in the form of inter-departmental conflicts, machine-generated appeals from standard labor tribunals, and bureaucratic rigidity that makes the government a predominant litigant responsible for almost 46% of all cases yet to be solved in the country.
3. Shortcomings at the Grass Roots Level
Whereas the High Courts have technological capability and resources to use dynamic analytics, lower courts comprise around 85% to 87% of all pending cases in the country. The grass roots trial courts lack even the basic facilities in terms of digital technology deficiencies, administrative positions vacant, and clerical shortcomings.
The Verdict: Is It Able To Solve the Problem?
Dynamic Case Disposal Scheme is an important evolution of the process. It shows that it is possible to clear up the past backlog and avoid any unnecessary delays in procedures via good management.
Nevertheless, for the model to become a real solution, there should be two legislative measures implemented:
- Appointing more judges in order to fill many vacancies.
Establishing a strong national litigation policy that will prohibit governments from filing unnecessary appeals.
- Dynamic case disposal is the right way to go; however, for India to solve the problem of judicial backlog for good, there is a need to increase the capacity of the entire system.
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FAQs
Q1: How does it prioritize older cases?
A1: This approach categorizes cases based on their age (like cases more than 10, 20 or 30 years old) and allocates certain periods on the calendar for their settlement before proceeding ahead.
Q2: What is the role of technology in this approach?
A2: Advocate Neha Gupta answers it in a way that the integration of Courts with NJDG allows tracking of bottlenecks, proper case allocation between the judges and documentation through digitization.
Q3: Is there any evidence of its success?
A3: Yes, as seen in the Punjab High Court which was able to reduce its backlog by 9,200 cases in just three months through such an approach.
Q4: Is it applicable to the subordinate district courts?
A5: Although developed for the High Court, this approach offers a model which is gradually extending to subordinate trial courts to handle major parts of India’s litigation
