Attorney General K K Venugopal stresses on need to fill up vacancies in subordinate courts

Venugopal said as per national judicial data grid, around 3.61 crore cases are pending as on today in courts across the country and the “extremely sad” part is that around 4.29 lakh cases are pending for over 30 years. Stressing on the need to increase the sanctioned strength of judges, the top law officer said, “I think it is an urgent matter for the state governments to look into this problem and also for the Union of India to take on the responsibility of ensuring that the state governments fill up the vacancy in subordinate courts”.

Attorney General K K Venugopal Thursday stressed on the need to fill up vacancies in the subordinate judiciary and to deal with the problem of huge pendency of cases, saying collective effort was needed to see that justice delivery system is able to “wipe every tear from every eye”. Venugopal said as per national judicial data grid, around 3.61 crore cases are pending as on today in courts across the country and the “extremely sad” part is that around 4.29 lakh cases are pending for over 30 years.

Stressing on the need to increase the sanctioned strength of judges, the top law officer said, “I think it is an urgent matter for the state governments to look into this problem and also for the Union of India to take on the responsibility of ensuring that the state governments fill up the vacancy in subordinate courts”. Speaking on the Constitution Day celebration organised through video conferencing by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Venugopal pointed out about the importance of swift and just dispensation of justice. The top law officer said that the judiciary, governments (central and state governments), members of the bar should pull up their socks and take collective steps to mitigate this problem.

“If we do not do so, people will believe that the justice delivery system is slowly collapsing,” he said, adding that one of the foremost goals of the Constitution is access to justice for one and for all. “Injustice on account of delay would be a threat to judiciary everywhere and this is what Martin Luther King had said,” he said, while stressing that a collective effort was needed to see that “the justice delivery system is able to wipe every tear from every eye”. Venugopal said that rich and powerful would be able to stick out the 30-year time but it is a “daunting task” for the upper middle class, middle class and poor persons to wait for 30 years to get justice.

He said that judges have a daunting task and they spend long hours in reading case files and writing judgements and the way forward is to increase their sanctioned strength and number of courts. The Attorney General said in his 2018 speech on Constitution Day, he had pointed out that national judicial data grid had shown 2.86 crore arrears or pending cases. “Now today, it shows that the total number has risen to 3.61 crore and what is extremely sad is that so far as 4.29 lakh of cases are concerned, they have been pending for over 30 years which means that a person who files a case when he is 50 or 60 year old may not be able to see the final fruits of his efforts,” he said.

“Surely, a justice delivery system cannot be one where no results can be seen by a person whose entire aspirations and hopes are placed in a case which he files,” he said. Venugopal said that the apex court rose to the occasion of COVID-19 pandemic and the period of limitation was extended keeping in view that people cannot go on to file cases due to the restrictions imposed.

He said the number of pending cases might be much higher the day when COVID-19 is gone. Referring to the 120th report of the Law Commission in 1987, Venugopal said it had said that if India has to clear the arrears and pendency of cases there should be at least 50 judges for per million.

“We had at that point about 10 per million. Today the position has increased and I find that we are having 19 per million in 2018. But total strength of subordinate courts is 20,558 while if the Law Commission’s report was followed and the Supreme Court of India had accepted it, the total number of judges should be 1,36,794. Just look at the difference,” he said, adding that even the 20,558 strength is not filled up. Besides Venugopal, Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and others including several judges of the apex court, SCBA president Dushyant Dave and other lawyers were present during the virtual programme.