Panaji: Supreme Court judge Justice A K Sikri (retd) on Monday said many measures are required at various levels to reduce the pendency of cases in courts but they are not undertaken. He also said various reasons are responsible for a huge pendency of cases in Indian courts despite around 1 crore cases decided upon every year and a majority of judges working 15 to 16 hours a day.
He was interacting with the audience after delivering a guest lecture on 'Constitutionalism and Rule of Law' at the Bar Council of India Trust-run India International University of Legal Education and Research (IIULER) in Goa. "To deal with the issue of pendency or delay in justice there are so many measures which are required to be taken at various levels which actually are not happening," Justice Sikri (retd) said.
In India, today, we may be having only 23 to 25 judges per million population whereas in the UK, in the US and even in China it is around 150 to 160. They are at least five to six times more. If we go by statistics, Indian Judges are working maximum in comparison with judiciaries all over the world and are giving maximum judgements, he said.
He said before COVID-19, the total pending cases remained 30 million for many years. It (the pendency) did not come down but it did not increase either. The Indian judiciary is deciding 10 million cases (one crore) every year with only 22,000 to 23,000 judges at the district level, over a thousand at various High Courts and over 30 at the Supreme Court, he said.
Justice Sikri (retd) also said that people think judges work from 10 am to 4 pm only but they are working 15 to 16 hours a day, and there are no Saturdays or Sundays at least for the SC judges. He said the number of judges should be increased and the government should also create adequate infrastructure.
