Tribunals should help reduce judicial burden
Better court management and stopping unnecessary litigation can be solutions
Alaw commission report submitted this week says that the top five central tribunals in India have more than 3.50 lakh cases pending before them. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal alone is scheduled to consider 91,000, the report says. Although the disposal by the tribunals in relation to the cases filed every year has been high at 94%, the pendency is worrisome. The role of the tribunals is spelt out clearly in the country’s justice mechanism: to overcome delays in dispensation of justice by regular courts. By dealing with disputes related to the environment, the armed forces, tax and administrative issues, they are meant to take some of the load off India’s overburdened courts. Clearly, that isn’t happening at the necessary pace.
The judiciary-citizenry gap in India isn’t new. The country has just 18 judges for every million people. The United States, by comparison has a judge-to-population ratio of 107 judges for every million people. A Law Commission report in 2009 observed that it would take 464 years to clear the arrears with the present strength of judges. Still, just adding more judges may not be the only answer. One of the solutions being mooted by the law panel to reduce the number of pending cases is to ensure that the orders of the central tribunals are not challenged in the Supreme Court directly. The Central Administrative Tribunal, for instance, should be the last word on matters related to service conditions, without any scope for appeal.
Better court management will help. Although the Code of Civil Procedure recommends that the number of adjournments in one case be capped at three, it is routinely flouted. Truant lawyers can be fined if they don’t turn up for hearings. Another possible solution could come from the government itself. The central and state governments are the biggest litigants in the country. If the State could slash its own burden of litigation, it may help the overstretched judiciary streamline its operations.