‘Tariq pe Tariq’ - that’s what Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya must have felt after he took issue with the large number of adjournments sought in matters placed before him.
To the extent that Chief Justice Upadhyaya stood up and invited those present to join the Bench for some chai “as nobody had appeared in court”. What made it worse, he said, was the rising trend of repeated adjournments sought by young or junior lawyers, better known as proxies, on behalf of senior lawyers.
Of course, there might have been some genuine issues that prevented the lawyers from being present in court. On Tuesday, junior lawyers appearing before the Bench sought adjournments for various reasons. These included stuff like personal difficulty or family bereavement.
But there were some, Chief Justice Upadhyaya lamented, where the main counsel was “on legs in another court”.
It’s an interesting point that judge sahab makes.
If you didn’t know already - the total number of cases pending in Indian courts is a staggering 5.3 crore!
Of these, over 68,000 are older than 30 years. So much so that - no jokes - grandchildren of the original plaintiffs are still fighting the fight in the courts. And none of these look even remotely close to being resolved any time soon.
That’s because a big reason for the rising pendency rates is the ridiculously high number of vacancies across Indian courts. The Law Commission had in 1987 recommended that there should be 50 judges per 10 lakh people. But in reality that number is just 15 - that’s barely even a third of the recommended number. It’s no surprise then that judges everywhere are outrageously overburdened.
The Supreme Court is working at full strength, yes. However, in the High Courts, there are 825 judges against a sanctioned strength of 1,122. The deficiencies skyrocket when we talk about the district and subordinate courts which have a majority of the pending cases.
4.7 crore - just in case you were wondering. As of July 10, 2024, the working strength was 20,414 against a sanctioned strength of 25,523. That works out to over 5,100 vacancies!
If the vacancies weren't enough, Judges also have to deal with availability of counsel - as the recent incident in Delhi High Court showed.
No wonder then that Chief Justice Upadhyaya is so frustrated and quite possibly the millions of petitioners too.
