Monitoring the Court Cases Better

                                                          *Saumitra Mohan

                A democratic country wedded to the tenets of ‘Rule of Law’ and liberal values presupposes, among other things, existence of a well-oiled system of governance and justice. A liberal democratic country like India has been committed to these ideas and has accordingly been developing its institutions for realizing the basic ethos. India definitely has come a long way since its independence in 1947 when it comes to ensuring the same, more so when it is compared with many of her peers and time-twins across the world. However, we still have miles to go before we can afford to sleep.

            Notwithstanding all the efforts made by the Government and top leadership of our judiciary, we still have huge number of pending court cases in this country. The enormous pendency of these cases also results in delayed delivery of justice as a good number of cases run into years before being finally disposed of. While the same makes the access to justice a costly affair for the common Indian, it also goes against the grain of truth enshrined in the adage, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.

            As per a statement issued on behalf of the Union Law Ministry in June, 2019, around 43.6 lakh cases were pending in various High Courts of India out of which over eight lakh cases were 10 years or more older. Former Chief Justice of India, Justice Deepak Mishra has said that ‘altogether 3.3 crore cases were pending in different tiers of Indian courts in 2019’. While 2.84 crore cases were said to be pending in subordinate courts, the share of such cases were 43.6 lakh and 58 thousands for the High Courts and the Supreme Court respectively. Reportedly, of all the pending court cases, 60% are more than two years old, while 40% are more than five years old.

            According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), the five states which account for the highest pendency of court cases include Uttar Pradesh (61.58 lakh), Maharashtra (33.22 lakh), West Bengal (17.59 lakh), Bihar (16.58 lakh) and Gujarat (16.45 lakh). While Indian judiciary has been working on detailed action plans and measures to ensure the speedier disposal of such cases, it is also quite imperative for other stakeholders to chip in with matching plans and efforts to make delivery of justice more accessible and timely.

            Reportedly, there are many Government departments and agencies across India which are involved in a humongous number of litigations because of the nature of the subjects and issues dealt by them. The number of court cases dealt by these government departments and agencies is more also because of the number of stakeholders and people affected and impacted by their functioning is many times more than any other agency or department. Such departments include those dealing with land, health, transport, education, police, agriculture or the ones relating to local bodies and general administration.

            While administration and governance in this country has definitely improved drastically ever since its inception as an independent State, still a huge number of cases are filed every day against different government agencies with some departments shouldering a bigger share of the caseload. While a good number of these cases is putatively frivolous and filed with an intention to take advantage of the systemic weaknesses including delayed disposal of the cases, most of the cases are filed with a view to elicit justice due to the alleged slothful, procrastinating and opaque functioning of some segments of the system of governance in the country.

            It has been noted with concern that many of these agencies and departments are often hobbled and handicapped by different structural and non-structural factors and weaknesses. These make it difficult for them to attend to many of the multifarious demands for government services and benefits in time, thereby attracting a concatenation of litigations against them. Such factors, inter alia, include depleted strength of requisite human and other resources for timely responding to the same. Weak administrative set-up, negligence and structural sloth are some other factors.

            Most of these agencies don’t have the requisite number of officers and staff members to attend to all the court cases as are filed against their departments. Even where they exist, they are not suitably trained to appreciate the nuances of handling such court cases, more so when their number runs in thousands. In fact, some government departments have such a huge number of court cases filed against them that it is humanly impossible for them to attend to the same efficiently and effectively given the problems faced by them.

            While handling the court cases are specialized tasks to be attended by legal mavens, they are mostly dealt by officers and staff members with little legal knowledge or perspicacity. These are the officials who not only draft the affidavits, reasoned orders, instructions to the lawyers and other court responses, but often are also the ones doing the basic clerical jobs including stenography, typing and photo copying the required court documents as there are no dedicated clerical support available for the purpose.

            All said and done, the factors affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of these government agencies are more or less the same as result in the piling of massive number of pending court cases in different tiers of our judicial system across the country. Such factors include unavailability of adequate number of officers and staff members trained to handle sensitive and delicate court cases, absence of basic minimum resources and logistics like vehicular support for regular movement between office, court, lawyers and other stakeholders or the unavailability of the required number of computers, printers and Xerox machines for timely printing or Xeroxing of soft copies of writ petitions, appeal petitions, affidavits and other documents. Vague rules and anomalous government orders is another reason encouraging filing of more court cases against certain government agencies and departments.

            Besides, unavailability of the requisite financial resources for timely payment of lawyers’ fees for defending the government in court or for doing other legal homework like drafting and filing appeal petitions or obtaining certified copies, efficient drafting of reasoned orders and affidavits, absence of efficient  and knowledgeable law officers, timely briefing and instructions to lawyers and a better system of communication among all stakeholders are some of the other factors affecting the timely responses of the responding agencies. Often, the writ petitions or the court orders are not received in time because of sundry factors, thereby delaying the response from the respondents. The latter could happen because of systemic weaknesses, but also happens because of the deliberate collusion of some vested interests.

The delayed response or disposals of cases are also because of the delayed receipt of relevant inputs and reports from the respective stakeholders. The increasingly huge number of cases pending with certain departments or agencies also means that their timely hearing and eventual disposal accordingly gets affected and impacted by the overload of the cases, thereby giving rise to a vicious cycle. Sometimes, the sundry other factors beyond the control of respondents also conspire to delay the timely or effective disposal of these court cases.

Such factors could include loss of file, inability of the subordinate officials to bring the writ petitions or court orders to the notice of the superior officers or actual respondents, long absence of concerned staff or officials conversant or dealing with the matter concerned, unavoidable or prolonged preoccupation of the concerned officials with other assignments or works as directed by their superiors or simply the complexities of the issues involved in the some of the court cases.

            Many of these departments facing massive number of litigations either don’t have the complete record of the court cases filed against them or have actually lost track of the number of cases filed against them because of different structural constraints including poor record-keeping, thereby making it well-nigh impossible to dispose of the same efficiently and effectively. Hence, instead of proactively dealing with these cases, they are usually found to be only reacting to the immediate and emergent court orders as they come.

            Often, the matter involved in court cases are not attended and disposed by the official respondents on the plea of the matter being subjudice. However, they need to understand that as long as there is no express judicial prohibition or injunction against proceeding further, one can very well dispose of the cases. This should be definitely done, at least, after the writ petitions are filed without waiting for the final order. If the petitioners’ claims are admissible as per the extant government rules, orders and guidelines, the same should be granted right away without awaiting the final order. Again, if the petitioners’ claims have not been granted or delayed due to some systemic lapses or wrong interpretation of the obtaining government rules and orders, the respondents should allow the same forthwith as long as there is no stay-order or specific instruction of the relevant court against doing the same.

            The miscommunication, discommunication or the misrepresentation of facts and circumstances sometimes results in the judicial direction being served even upon those officials or agencies who are not connected with the compliance or where the actions or compliances with the relevant court orders don’t lie. The petitioners’ lawyers sometimes implicate the superior officials as respondents just to force an early decision and action in the matter. The ploy often works as the senior officials’ attention, once drawn to the details and merit of the case, ensures early disposal of the cases in line with the demands of the petitioners. However, hauling those who are not responsible for compliance or delayed action on court orders seems to be against the grain of justice.

            Usually, the lower level functionaries are hobbled by the bureaucratese or administrative red tapism for obtaining permission of their superior authorities for filing an appeal in time or for complying with a mandatory court order because of their conflicts with the extant governmental orders, guidelines or policies or simply because the same is beyond their jurisdiction. The departmental protocol, rules of business or standard operating procedure often warrant these functionaries to obtain such prior approval before proceeding or taking a decision on such court orders whose compliance may have implications and ramifications for the existing government policy. Often some court orders impose a financial liability on the government by way of cost, penalty or creation of recurring financial burden by sanctioning employments which also require reference to the higher authority for permission of compliance, more so when an appeal is being contemplated.

            Often late filing or mentioning of appeal before the relevant courts by the Govt lawyers also results in adverse court orders. It is because of the unusual delay resulting in the compliance with some of the court orders that many of the subordinate government officers and functionaries are sometimes unwittingly rapped on the knuckles for no fault of theirs by the upholders of justice. More often than not, these officers or agencies are unable to report the reason for non-compliance with a particular order in the open court for bringing any aspersions to their superior competent authorities for not inviting their wrath.

            Often, such decisions and permission for compliance keep hanging fire for months together for unknown reasons, thereby bringing trouble to the poor subordinate officials in the line of fire who meekly face the music and humiliation in open court. If the relevant files or chain of correspondence are duly checked, the onus for non-compliance shall squarely shift at the portals of those who easily escape through the systemic gaping holes. The fire and brimstone courtroom atmospherics on certain days also pre-empts against the dispassionate hearing of the court cases, thereby discouraging younger and inexperienced lawyers to place the facts before the court. But, that is more of an exception than a rule.

            The personal appearance of the officials heading the offices attracting paranormal number of court cases further compromise the systemic efficiencies of these agencies, offices and departments. Because of the dearth of adequate number of dedicated officers and staff members, such officers spend most of their time in court attending to multiple calls for personal appearance, filing affidavits or having conferences with their lawyers, thereby making them unavailable for attending to regular office functions and responsibilities.

            This not only compromises their primary responsibilities and assignments, the same also makes it difficult for them to organise themselves within the limited resources and logistics for attending to the newer or older court cases for working on the systemic improvements or the quality of disposal of such court cases. They are found to be mostly reacting to the latest court orders being served upon them, hardly finding time to proactively attend to the same, not to speak of finding time to monitor and supervise other services and functions of their offices.

            The problem gets further magnified due to the absence of adequate number of empanelled government lawyers and pleaders to attend to the huge load of court cases. The problematic and byzantine process of their empanelment often leaves much to be desired. Because of multiple cases being listed in different courts simultaneously, the lawyers find it difficult to attend to all of them because of which they are unable to appear in particular courts to defend the govt positions thereby attracting adverse or ex parte orders.

            The delayed payment of remuneration of these lawyers also demotivates them for attending to govt cases. The govt fees for the empanelled lawyers in many parts of the country are often so low that it becomes very difficult to convince senior and experienced lawyers to come on the govt panels. Poor homework, shoddy groundwork and weak defence by some pleaders and lawyers are other reasons for adverse orders against the Government interests. More often than not, a lack of timely communication among different stakeholders including government respondents and pleaders also results in government interests being compromised in many of the court cases.

            Besides, overload of work and absence of officers and staff members also mean that many of normal office works are often compromised and remain unattended, thereby inviting increasing number of court cases. The vicious circle only ends up multiplying the number of pending court cases. A nexus of middlemen and vested interest at different tiers also ensures the systemic dysfunctionalalities, thereby encouraging poor work culture or a popular penchant to resort to court cases than trying better and less costly avenues.

            A timely, faster and transparent disposal of pending petitions and applications for availing different government services and benefits in various govt offices, as is being done in many parts of the country, shall save costs both for the govt and the common people. Ergo, it is more than desirable to improve systemic efficiency through process re-engineering and better service delivery mechanism. Hence, it is also advisable that the problems and challenges as identified above are duly addressed for speedier disposal of pending works in different govt offices and departments while also devising an efficient and effective mechanism for the faster disposal of pending court cases.

            A better system of monitoring and supervision aided and assisted by the tools of information technology, better training of officials, better briefing of lawyers, better logistics and financial resources, a good pool of more experienced lawyers and timely disposal of different court orders coupled with an efficient service delivery in different government offices are urgently warranted if we are to become an extended part of the initiative to expedite the disposal of humongous court cases in this country. Once this is ensured, we can promise justice to every citizen while firmly establishing and strengthening the ‘Rule of Law’ in our country.