lack of adequate judges cited as a major cause of pendency may not be true. A scientific study conducted by the Department of Justice under the Ministry of law and Justice has revealed that the worst figures of pendency of cases is in States with high ranking in terms of judge-population ratio. The converse is also true. Those States with considerably low figures of judges per 10 lakh population fared extremely well on the case disposal chart.
This study has come as a counter to the popular notion that the Centre is to be blamed for holding up judicial appointments, thereby resulting in the mounting pendency in subordinate courts across the country. This perception gained much credence in April 2016 when the Chief Justice of India (CJI)TS Thakur, while addressing the Joint Meeting of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers broke down during his speech as he insisted the Government to fill judicial vacancies and relieve judiciary of the mounting burden of cases. He was referring to almost 434 vacancies in High Courts remaining unfilled despite the collegium making suitable recommendations for the posts.
Coming in this backdrop is the Agenda Note prepared by the Department of Justice ahead of the 10th meeting of the Advisory Council, National Mission for Justice Delivery and legal Reforms. The note, cleared by the Union law Minister, who is the Chairman of the Council, conducts a detailed study to bust the myth that more the judges, higher the disposal rate.
For instance, Kerala has the highest disposal rate per judge of 3028, which is the highest among States. The judge population ratio in this State is only 14 per cent, which is ranked 26th among States. Even Uttar Pradesh which has a miserable judge-population ratio of just 10 per cent, ranking 32nd among the States and UTs, has an effective disposal rate of 1813 per judge.
The Ministry in its note said, "Shortage of judges is not the sole reason for the increasing pendency and lower rate of disposal." This becomes clear when we analyze the results of States privileged with the best judge-population ratio. For instance, Delhi is ranked No 2 with 47 judges per 10 lakh population but has a disposal rate of 1250 per judge, worse than Uttar Pradesh.
Another State which follows this trend is Gujarat. With 32 judges on population of 10 lakh, the State maintains fifth position, but despite the effective strength, the disposal figure is only 934 per judge.
The Ministry notes that between 2005 and 2015, the number of civil cases instituted in district and subordinate courts came down from 40.69 lakh to 36.22 lakh, marking a decline of 11 per cent. During the same period, he pendency of civil cases increased from 72.54 lakh to 84.05 lakh, an increase of 16 per cent. During the said period, the working strength of subordinate and district judges increased from 11682 in 2005 to 16070 in 2015.
The note, which is part of the agenda meeting fixed later this week, concludes that there is a need to analyze other reasons for pendency without focusing on judicial manpower alone. This could be lack of court management system or absence of a uniform methodology among High Courts to collect judicial statistics.