Moily working on mechanism to bring down pendency of cases

While the Supreme Court was burdened with over 50,000 civil and criminal cases in the end of 2008,the high courts had 39,14,669 case pending as on December 31,2008.

Several thousands of cases are pending in courts where government employees,both serving and retired,have challenged decisions of their departments with regard to promotions and benefits.

There are other set of cases where the common man has made government departments like PWD,DDA and police parties in their litigations.

A conference on judicial reforms to be held here on August 29 and 30 will discuss the issue of pendency of cases before court. Jurists and members of the judiciary are expected to attend it.

Before that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate a Joint Conference of Judges of Supreme Court,High Courts and Chief Ministers on August 16. “Similar issues will come up for discussion there too which will help us draw a roadmap,” Moily said.

The Minister said provision of internet facilities in various lower courts will also help bring down the pendency of cases.

Sources in the Law Ministry said the issue of shortfall of judges in various High Courts could also come up for discussion at the National Consultation as well as the meeting of SC and HC judges.

As per June,2009 estimate,the 21 High Courts in the country have a total sanctioned strength of 886 judges. But the actual working strength is 654 judges.

At present,proposals for appointment of 42 judges in various high courts are under consideration of the government. To fill up the remaining 190 vacancies in both the bar and judicial services,proposals are to be initiated by Chief Justices of the various High Courts.

The Law Commission in its 120th report a few years ago had recommended that the strength of judges per million population may be increased from 10.5 to 50 judges (per million).

In its efforts to bring down the pendency of cases,the Delhi High Court had constituted two special benches to tackle the huge backlog of criminal cases.