Empty Courts: Justice delayed as 40% posts in higher judiciary remain vacant

Justice in our courts remains elusive as over 3.8 crore cases are pending in lower courts and over 57 lakh cases are pending in 25 high courts of the country according to official data, writes ETV Bharat's Deputy News Editor Krishnanand Tripathi.

New Delhi: Hundreds of millions of Indians wait for justice for years, and, in some cases, for decades as over 3.8 crore cases are pending in lower courts and over 57 lakh cases are pending in 25 high courts of the country, according to the latest data shared by the government in Parliament.

There are several reasons for delayed justice but a high number of vacant positions of judges is one of the biggest reason for the delay in delivery of justice to citizens as 40% of positions are vacant in High Courts and over 20% of positions are vacant in lower judiciary across the country.

India’s justice delivery system, which has come to a grinding halt during the Covid-19 pandemic, is coping up with a serious shortage of judges, as out of the total sanctioned strength of 1,080 judges in the Supreme Court and 25 High Courts, 441 posts, nearly 40% of the sanctioned strength remained vacant last year.

Moreover, of 661 judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts, 255 or nearly 40% of the total filled positions, have been appointed in the last three years, with a majority of them being appointed in 2018 and 2019.

While no judge was appointed to the Supreme Court and 10 High Courts of the country in 2020, 66 judges were appointed in 15 High Courts last year.

The situation is better in Supreme Court as out of 34 positions, only four positions were vacant in 2020 but of the 30 sitting judges, more than half the judges were appointed in 2018 and 2019.

High Courts have 40% vacant posts

There are 1,046 positions of judges in 25 High Courts in the country which serve more than 1.35 billion Indians but 415 (40%) of the total sanctioned strength were vacant last year.

What is even more worrisome that there are seven High Courts in the country that have been working with almost half of the strength or less.

In the case of Patna High Court, out of a total of 53 positions, only 21 judges were working last year while 32 positions were vacant, which is more than 60% of the total strength.

Similarly, in Calcutta High Court, 40 out of a total of 72 positions of judges were vacant, which is more than 55% of the sanctioned strength.

In Rajasthan High Court, 27 out of 50 positions were vacant and two benches of the High Court in Jodhpur and Jaipur were working only with 23 judges.

While in Madhya Pradesh, 26 out of a total of 53 positions were vacant, in Andhra Pradesh High Court, 18 of the total 37 positions were vacant last year, which is half of the total strength for the two High Courts.

The same situation is prevalent in Delhi High Court, which serves the National Capital, 29 of the total 60 positions were vacant last year, according to the latest data shared by the government in Parliament on Wednesday.

In Orissa High Court, only 15 judges were working against the sanctioned strength of 27 positions, and 12 positions were vacant, which is 45% of the total posts.

Complex Process of Appointment

In India, appointment in the higher judiciary, Supreme Court and High Courts is a contentious issue as judges are appointed on the recommendations of a committee, known as Collegium.

As per the Constitutional framework, the appointments of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are made under Articles 124, 217, and 224 of the Constitution.

Judges of the Supreme Court of India and High Courts are appointed as per the procedure laid down in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) prepared in 1998 pursuant to the Supreme Court judgment of October 6, 1993, in the Second Judges case, and as per the Court’s advisory opinion given in the Third Judges Case of October 28, 1998.

As per the MoP, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) initiates the proposal for the appointment of Judges in the Supreme Court and in the case of High Courts, it is done by the Chief Justice of the concerned High Court.

Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the lawmakers that the process of filling up of the vacancies in the High Courts is a collaborative and integrated process between the Executive and the Judiciary.

“It requires consultation and approval from various Constitutional authorities both at the Centre and State,” Prasad said.

Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

According to the National Judicial Data Grid, over 57 lakh cases are pending in 25 High Courts, of which more than 41 lakh cases are civil cases while criminal cases account for over 16 lakh cases, 28% of the total pending cases.

The majority of these pending cases are more than one year old. In the case of civil matters, more than 90% of them are pending for more than a year and 85% of criminal cases are more than 1 year old.

If one looks at the latest data on the grid, over 58% of cases are more than 3 years old while nearly 20% of cases are more than 10 years old.

Of the total 12.5 lakh cases that have been pending for more than 10 years, over 1.51 lakh cases are pending for more than 20 years and nearly 92,000 cases are pending for more than 30 years.