Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed on Monday in the Supreme Court seeking that the number of judges be doubled in high courts and lower courts in the country, and that a judicial charter to ensure that cases are adjudicated within three years be implemented. A similar petition had been rejected in 2016 when the Supreme Court asked the petitioner to approach the court again if the government does not act.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) released data showing that recruitment of police personnel in states declined by 21 per cent and of central armed police forces by 51 per cent in 2019. It also highlighted that the country has a vacancy of nearly 5.3 lakh cops. These two, somehow, sum up the problems of India`s justice delivery system.

MISSING JUDGES

Lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, who filed the PIL in the Supreme Court, contends in his petition, "The number of Judges per million populations is less than 20. The figure stood at 19.78 in 2018, 17.48 in 2014 and 14.7 in 2002. These numbers show how the Indian judiciary is suffering due to low man-power." Reports show that high courts are functioning with about 60 per cent of the sanctioned strength of judges. The Supreme Court has four vacancies. At least three high courts — Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Gauhati — do not have a full-time chief justice.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court is also working under an acting chief justice while the Madras High Court`s chief justice is retiring on December 31. The Supreme Court collegium`s recommendation on filing these vacancies is with the government, which is likely to take a call later this week.

The 25 high courts in India have a sanctioned strength of 1,079 judges. Of these posts, 414 are vacant. More than three-fourths of these vacancies are in just 10 high courts. The Allahabad High Court has a sanctioned strength of 160 judges but as on November 1 it had 60 vacancies. The Calcutta High Court has 37 vacancies, the Punjab and Haryana High Court 32, the Patna High Court 31 and the Bombay High Court 29 and the Delhi High Court 29.

POLICE VACANCIES

The BPR&D data show that the police-population ratio — the number of police personnel per lakh population — has fallen from 158.2 in 2018 to 155.7 in 2019. The sanctioned strength of police force in the states and the Union Territories is 26.23 lakh. The actual strength in 2019 was 20.9 lakh. This means 5.3 lakh posts of cops were vacant. There are other considerations too, such as, 43,566 cops were on VIP — MPs, ministers, judges or bureaucrats — security duty for more than six months in 2019. According to the BPR&D data, transport availability per 100 sanctioned police personnel also came down from 7.89 in 2018 to 7.74 in 2019. Moreover, 257 police stations were without any vehicles in 2019, and 143 did not have wireless or mobile facility.

IMPACT

Police and courts are interdependent to a great extent in delivering speedy and fair justice to people. Shortage in police is linked with rise in crime. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NRB), a total of 51,56,172 cognizable crimes were registered in 2019 in the country. This was an increase of 1.6 per cent over 2018. In terms of crime rate registered per lakh population, it went from 383.5 in 2018 to 385.5 in 2019. In his petition to the Supreme Court, Upadhyay has argued that around 5 crore cases are pending from the Tehsil level to the Supreme Court. "On an average, every family has 6 members. This means around 30 crore people are suffering from physical mental and financial stress," the petition reads.

The petitioner says, "Around 5 million cases are pending in the high courts. Out of them, around 10 lakh cases are pending for over 10 years, and 2 lakh for more than 20 years, and around 45,000 for over three decades. These numbers suggest that our country`s judicial system is slowing down day by day." Upadhyay has cited a land dispute case in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh where the aggrieved party has been reportedly given over 400 dates for hearing over 35 years. The case is about a dispute in which a piece of land was gifted — Gift Deed — to somebody and later the same land was sold by another person to a "powerful politician" — Will Deed.

Pendency of cases is huge even in the appellate courts. Reports say all the high courts put together have about 52 lakh pending cases. The number of pending cases in the high courts has increased by 10 lakh in the last year alone.

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