Problems faced by Judiciary in India

The constitution of India enshrines basic principles of justice-social, economic and social. Where as part III of the constitution of India provides various Fundamental Rights to the people which ensures betterment of all. The guarantee to equality, equal protection of laws and to live a life with human dignity has been the heart and soul of our constitution. The sole purpose of judiciary in India is to check proper governance and to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens. The importance of judiciary cannot be undermined just as the role of legislature cannot be overlooked. This article stresses upon the problems faced by lower judiciary in India with the change in needs of time.

The basic problems faced by the judiciary are:

I) Delay in justice:

• Huge pendency and backlog of cases.
• Low judges strength and appointment problem.
• Strike by lawyers

II) Lack of transparency

III) Hardships of under-trials and the system of bails

IV) No interaction with society

V) Less use of tecnology

VI) Corruption in judiciary

The above mentioned problems are explained further:

I) Delay in justice

The Indian judiciary system has failed to deliver the justice expeditiously lately and has not been able fulfill the requirements of the people. This delay in justice has proved to be one of the biggest drawbacks of the judiciary system. Delay in justice implies the time taken to dispose of a case, in excess of the time which should be reasonably consumed by the court to decide the case. Delay of justice creates disillusionment among the litigants, it also undermines the capability of the judicial system.As it is also said justice delayed is justice denied. One of the main reason for the delay of justice is that the institution of cases in the courts far exceeds their disposal. The institution of the case is increasing more rapidly

Delay of justice can be due to:

(a) The pendency of cases –

The pendency of cases in the courts across the country is the biggest problem faced by Indian Judiciary .This number is increasing day by day which shows the inadequacy of the courts to deal with this matter. Generally, the victim of this are the ordinary or poor people. The pendency of the cases also creates big blockade for international investors and corporation to do business in India. The Civil Code Procedure, 1908 suggest that not more than three adjournments shall be given in a case, however, Vidhi center for legal policy finds the Delhi High Court gave more than three adjournments in nearly 70% of all delayed cases.

(b)  Low judges strength and appointment problem

The vacancy of judges can also result in the delay of the justice. There is a tussle between executive and judiciary over who should be appointing judges rather than how should judges be appointed. There are almost 5000 vacancies in trial courts.The basic reasons causing delay in recruitment and filling up of vacancies is the utter tardiness in the process of calling for applications, insufficiency in the funding to pay and appoint new judges and magistrates. Other reasons include the lack of infrastructure and the less number of lower courts in the states.Subordinate courts perform the most crucial function as it directly affects the life of common people by solving disputes, conducting trials and implementing the laws as enshrined in the Constitution of India. Any failure in this functioning will directly affect the working procedure of the subordinate courts.

 (c) Strike by Lawyers

The Supreme Court bench stated that lawyer strikes are one of the major reasons for pendency of cases.

• As per the High Court of Uttarakhand, advocates were on strike for 455 days between 2012 to 2016. That means that on average, lawyers went on strike for 91 days per year.
• The figures of the UP courts are worse, as the periods of the strike over five years in the worst affected districts were

Districts	Days of absence
Muzaffarnagar	791
Faizabad	689
Sultanpur	594
Varanasi	547
Chandauli	529
Ambedkar Nagar	511
Saharanpur	506
Jaunpur	510

• Recently the High Court Lawyers of Odisha went on a strike for two and a half months. Due to this strike the pendency of court cases has gone up by around 4,600 in past months from 1.67 lakh to 1.71 lakh.

II) Lack of transparency

Judiciary does not come under the ambit of the Right to the Information Act. In the functioning of the Indian judiciary system, the substantial issues like the quality of justice and accountability are not known to the citizens properly. There is also a need for transparency in the appointment of the judges. Right to know is a part of freedom of speech and expression, as provided by the Constitution, however, the present system violates this fundamental right. The citizen’s right to know is also an international trend also supported by the judicial decisions. Right now we do not have a transparent and foolproof system of appointment of judges. These also lead to delays in filling the vacancies.

III) Hardships of the under trials:

Under-trials not guilty till convicted. In India, over two-thirds of India’s roughly 4.2 lakh prisoners are under trial, which is one of the world’s largest number of under-trial prisoners. They are in jail not because they have been found guilty but because they are being prosecuted on charges that are non-bailable or when they are too poor to afford a bail. In most of the cases they end spend up more time in jail during the prosecution than the actual term awarded of the crime has been actually committed.

The issue of under trials is a hindrance in the effective judicial system. Little priority is given to investigation and even less to the enforcement of bails. The nucleus of the problem can be traced to be a combined inefficiency of courts and police in effectively conducting investigations. The present bail system calls for a pre-trial detention that further deteriorates the issue. Thus, the system of bails and under trials needs a significant change in order to improve our justice system.

IV) No interaction with the society

In order to form an effective judiciary, it is necessary that the judiciary form an integral part of the society. Judiciary’s interaction with society is a must and it should be both regular and relevant. Several countries involve their citizens in judicial decision making, however, in India, there is no such setup. The citizens need to actively take part in judicial activities to build an effective judicial system.

V) Less use of technology

In order to have a more effective judiciary, it needs to adopt better technology and infrastructure. This will reduce the huge amount of paperwork involved. The database of the court is also not maintained in one place and there is no recording of the proceedings and hearings.

The court rooms in India are not equipped with proper infrastructure and are mostly overcrowded. By solving this issue the judges will be relieved of a huge burden of maintaining the working conditions in the courts and can focus more upon the cases. Generally overcrowded court rooms lead in to mismanagement, thus with proper infrastructure and use of technology this problem can be resolved.

VI) Corruption in judiciary

Corruption has been rampant in India. A United Nations report states: “Corruption is universal. Nowadays, all States, whether developed or developing, suffer from the same phenomenon to varying degrees. ” Looking into the corruption in judiciary there are instances of misuse of power by the metropolitan magistrates and at times the judges tend be bias for personal gains. The impeachment procedure in India is very difficult which tends to further deteriorate the problem.Bribes ought to advance or bend the judgement. Also, presently there are lot of middle men involved in the paperwork which increases the chances of rise in corruption within the internal administration.

Conclusion

There is no doubt upon the credibility of Indian Judicial system and is one of the largest systems in the world.But the issues like corruption, pendency of cases etc. cannot be avoided. Thus if our system removes this backlog,we might see it as one of the best judiciaries and this will help in regaining the faith of people in the justice system.

-Deeksha Chugh