Our judicial system has been saddled with humongous backlogs.
The quality and efficiency of courts in India can be improved with simple tweaks and better data analytical tools.
What is the current state of affairs?
Chief Justice of India ‘Dipak Misra’ recently flagged the high pendency of cases in High Courts across India and demanded an action plan to dispose them.
While periodical review of arrears and addressing them is important, the manner in which judicial performance is measured also needs review.
For decades now, cases disposal rate has been the measure of court’s performance, which is flawed, as it doesn’t account for quality of adjudication.
Additionally, the disposal rate method also fails to differentiate the nature of dispute being heard and the intricate parameters involved in it.
To evolve a better metric for measuring performance and addressing backlogs, courts should start analysing its own historical case data.
This can then be followed up with focussed interventions to counter specific case types or stages at which the case pipeline is clogged.
How is “case listing” causing backlogs?
Thus far, the discourse on case pendency has largely revolved only around delayed appointments of judges and the numerous vacancies in courts.
But other factors like “case listing practices” are also found to have significantly influenced case movement and caused large pendency.
Currently, as much as 100 cases per day are sometimes allocated for judges, which might sound like an impressive work day on paper.
But the cases that actually reach the judicial table are rarely even close to that number, making the listing of cases a flawed measure of efficiency.
The Malice - Firstly, listing patterns are generally erratic, with the number of matters listed for the same courtroom ranging widely from 1 to 126 a month.
Secondly, a large number of cases listed in a day have invariably meant that matters listed towards the end of the day remained left over.
Thirdly, old pending matters barely made it to court and trends show that 91% of them remained unheard despite allocation of specific days for backlogs.
Notably, the main reason for this is said to be the numerous urgent matters that are tabled before judges and the loss of litigant interest with time.
What kind of changes can be done to the listing process?
Case list preparation can be made more scientific if supported by a consistent study of the variance in the number of cases listed across courts.
In addition, the identifying the exact stages at which cases are clogging the pipeline for the longest duration, and the nature of cases left over.
The case list could have cases methodically distributed by type and stage, and systematic limits can be placed on the weightage of each type of case.
This will also help in ensuring that only as many cases as can be reasonably heard will be listed on a daily basis.
Also, final hearings should ideally be heard at first in a day as it requires the complete attention of judges (currently, they are predominantly heard last).
Old cases must be disposed on a priority basis and it should be ensured that adjournments aren’t granted for frivolous reasons.
Scientific listing of cases on these lines will eliminate discretionary powers of judges to decide on the number of cases to be allocated.
