Eroding faith in Indian judiciary's integrity

• This has been reiterated by the statement given by former CJI that corruption is as old as society. Corruption has become an acceptable way of life and judges don’t fall from heaven.
• This statement scandalised the entire institution of the Supreme Court, which demands immediate redress.

Issues of Indian Judiciary

• Persisting Vacancies in courts: There are vacancies even against the sanctioned strengths of courts and vacancies exceed 30 % in the worst-performing states. This causes an average waiting period of around 10 years for trial in lower courts and 2-5 years for trial in HCs.
• Poor State of Subordinate Judiciary: District courts are plagued with inadequate infrastructure and poor working conditions which requires meeting the digital expectations raised by the higher judiciary.
• Increasing digital divide: Digital gap is increasing between courts, practitioners and clients in metropolitan cities and other rural courts.
• Excessive litigation against Government: Poorly drafted orders have resulted in contested tax revenues equal to 4.7 per cent of the GDP and it is rising.
• Less budgetary allocation: 0.08 - 0.09 % of the GDP. Only four countries — Japan, Norway, Australia and Iceland — have a lesser budget allocation and they do not have problems of pendency like India.
• Redundant processes – Large amount of paperwork, rigid rules and archaic practices
• Malpractices by lawyers – The rich and powerful hire lawyers who stall court proceedings by taking advantage of archaic regulations and loopholes in law.
• Lack of Coherent Database – Currently each court is an island of information; disconnected from the rest. As a result, no scientific data available to analyse the problem meaningfully (245th law commission).
• No fixed time in which cases have to be disposed
• Increase in crime rate
• Increase in PILs.
• Increase in frivolous cases
• Tendency to take appeals till SC
• Complexity in the Indian law.

Degrading judicial integrity

• As many as eight cases of a particular business group were assigned to various Supreme court benches. These cases were all decided in favour of the said business house, giving it relief running into thousands of crores of rupees.
• States or authorities are happy to accept even decisions against them running into crores of rupees which are made in questionable circumstances. Thus, what they could not do directly they are allowing it to be done indirectly — by their silence.
• Supreme Court itself has come down heavily on corruption in public life and has directed time and again that action be taken against bureaucrats and politicians found guilty of corruption.

Suggestions:

• Increasing Strength of Judicial Service: by appointing more judges at the subordinate level - improvements must start from the bottom of the pyramid.
• Strengthening the subordinate judiciary : by equipping it with administrative and technical support and prospects for promotion, development and training.
• Institutionalising All-India Judicial Service.
• Adequate Budgeting: The appointments and improvements will require significant but absolutely necessary expenditure.
• Recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission and the India Justice Report 2020: have suggested ways to earmark and deploy funds.
• Summary disposal of unnecessary PILs: The Supreme Court should mandate summary disposal of all ‘hibernating’ PILs (pending for more than 10 years before HCs) if they are insignificant.
• Correcting Historical Inequalities: Women judges, and judges from historically-marginalised castes and classes must finally be given a fair share of seats at the table.
• Promoting Alternative Dispute Resolution: All commercial litigation should be entertained only if there is an affidavit from the petitioner that mediation and conciliation have been attempted and have failed.
• ADR (Alternate Dispute Resolution), Lok Adalats, Gram Nyayalayas can be used to ensure faster disposal of cases.
• One wonders why there is an absolute silence on the part of this great institution. The Court has itself held that in such a situation, it must act on its own without waiting for the Attorney General or any person to move the Court. If not done, citizens’ faith in the integrity of the institution will be seriously eroded — perhaps irreparably.