SC judge highlights pendency of cases asks if judiciary has fulfilled common people's expectation

New Delhi, Mar 26 (PTI) Supreme Court judge Abhay S Oka on Wednesday highlighted the mounting pendency of cases, including over 4.50 crore in district courts, and wondered whether it could be claimed that justice delivery system has fulfilled the expectations of common people.
    Referring to the pendency of cases, Justice Oka said his personal view was that it may not be a fully correct statement that common man has great faith in the institution of judiciary.
    Noting that there was pendency of over 4.50 crore cases in district courts across the country, he said unless the legal fraternity acknowledged its flaws and deficiencies in the system, there was no chance of improving.
    Justice Oka was delivering a lecture in a function organised by the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) here to celebrate the 75 years of the Constitution.
    "Unless our courts of law are able to render quality and expeditious justice, the pledge made under the Constitution to provide social and economic justice to the citizens can never be fulfilled," he said.
    He said it was not an occasion to celebrate for those belonging to legal fraternity but it was an occasion to introspect and find out whether the justice delivery system has really delivered justice.
    "I always wonder, with this kind of pendency, can anyone seriously claim that we have been able to fulfil the expectations of common man from justice delivery system. And that is how a gap or disconnect has been created between the judiciary and common man," he said.
    Justice Oka said some drastic steps were needed to be taken to deal with huge pendency of cases.
    He said on public platforms like conferences and panel discussions, often the discussion was about the Supreme Court and the high courts.
    Terming the district courts as the most important courts, he said they are the courts of the common man.
    "These are the courts where common man can afford to go and knock the doors. Very few people afford to come to high court or Supreme Court and therefore...I am going to concentrate basically on the subject with reference to our trial and district judiciary," he said.
    Justice Oka said he had attended several workshops and seminars and he used to always hear that common citizens have great faith in the institution of judiciary as it exists in India.
    "We repeatedly kept on saying that. We kept on patting our backs. I think we had no right to say that. This should be said by citizens. This should be said by litigants," he said.
    Referring to the issue of criticism of judiciary, Justice Oka said one should look upon this criticism just to find out whether we were going wrong somewhere and try to take corrective measures.
    "The reasons may be different, but there is a huge pendency, and therefore there is scope to criticize the judiciary, and we must take that criticism very constructively," he said.
    Justice Oka referred to the increasing number of filing of cases in district courts and said the judge to population ratio has never crossed 23 or 24.
    He also touched upon the aspects of rise in matrimonial disputes, delay in disposal of cases and grant of bail.
    Justice Oka said there were cases where bail was denied and the trial takes years to conclude.
    He also talked about legal aid, lack of public prosecutors and disposal of older cases which were pending in courts.
    While highlighting that court's time was very precious when there was such a huge pendency of cases, Justice Oka deprecated the practice of filing bulky and lengthy pleadings in courts.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)