Courts accounted for less than 1% of states’ expenditure

nNEW DELHI: The money spent by state governments on high courts and subordinate courts in their jurisdiction, except Delhi, was less than 1% of their total expenditure for the year 2018-19, a Supreme Court order revealed.

Delhi spent ₹1,045 crore on the judiciary while the overall expenditure of the state in 2018-19 was ₹50,200 crore. Only 2.08% of total spending of Delhi in 2018-19 was on the judiciary although it was the highest among all states in terms of percentage.

The highest amount spent on the judiciary was by Uttar Pradesh, which bore an expenditure of ₹1,614 crore. However, it accounted for only 0.35% of the state’s total expenditure.

In terms of percentage, Arunachal Pradesh was at the bottom of the table, incurring only ₹5.27 crore, or 0.02 percent of its total expenditure in 2018-19.

Assam was second from the bottom, spending only 0.09% of its total expenditure on judiciary. It spent ₹268 crore in comparison to its total expenditure of ₹2.91 lakh crore. Besides Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, only six states — Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal — spent more than ₹1,000 crore on the judiciary in 2018-19.

These details were given by the Supreme Court in a February 28 order asking states to implement the recommendations of the justice P Venkatarama Reddi Pay Commission with respect to pay, allowances and pension of judicial officers.

The pay commission under Justice P Venkatarama Reddi was set up by the Supreme Court in May 2017 on a petition filed by the All India Judges Association -- an organization working towards the welfare of judges of trial courts -- seeking a relook at the service conditions of judicial officers. The commission submitted its report to the court in January 2020.

The court observed that the primary objection raised by the states frequently over the years when it came to the implementation of various directions concerning the service conditions of the subordinate judiciary was the alleged paucity of financial resources. However, such objections, the court noted, had been rejected by the court on earlier occasions too.

It then proceeded to note that the expenditure on the judiciary was inadequate and negligible in comparison to the overall spending by states. “…the expenditure on account of High Court and subordinate courts in the respective states continues to be inadequate and negligible in comparison to its overall expenditure for the year 2018- 2019”, the court said in its order.

The court directed all states to file their response to the pay commission’s report within four weeks. If any of the states fail to file a response, it will be presumed that it has no objections to the recommendations made by the commission, the court said.