Frequent adjournments sought in civil and criminal matters are proving to be the bane of criminal justice system in the country, a report prepared by the Union law Ministry has said.
Information obtained from States on the pendency of civil and criminal cases in the country has revealed that cases clog the docket of subordinate courts due to procedural delays, a major part of which is on account of the frequent adjournments in the life cycle of a case in courts.
The report focused on the improper application of procedural laws leading to delay in trial contributed by lengthy oral arguments, random adjournments, and non-attendance of lawyers and parties. Although Civil Procedure Code (CPC) provides a maximum of three adjournments to be granted during the trial of a civil case, the report from Rajasthan suggests that subordinate courts end up granting 12-42 adjournments in civil cases. In Odisha too, the average number of adjournments grated in civil cases is 51.
Frequent adjournments are also a cause of delay in criminal trials. Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) requires a criminal trial to be held “as expeditiously as possible” and preferably on a day to day basis. The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act 2008 further provides that no adjournments are to be given at the request of a party “except for circumstances beyond the control of that party”.
Yet, the ground reality presents a different picture. Adjournments have become the order of the day in criminal trials with adjournments recorded by Rajasthan’s district courts averaging 4 to 34 times.
In Odisha too, criminal cases get an average of 33 adjournments. Sometimes, a case remains pending for an average 544 to 1,483 days in a subordinate court on account of stay granted by High Courts. or Supreme Courts, the Ministry note recorded.
All this has contributed to the docket explosion, the figures of which are alarming. According to figures available with the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), there were 2,22,37,248 cases pending across district courts across the country. Among these, almost 22,42,401 cases are pending for over 10 years of which almost 80 per cent are criminal cases. There are 37,20,343 cases pending for a period less than 10 years but over five years.
Experts whom the Ministry consulted on this issue are of the view that an attempt to solve pendency is made by increasing the number of judges or creating additional benches. However, they feel this cannot be the “only” measure to reduce pendency.
Other factors exist, such as lack of court management systems, frequent adjournments, strikes by lawyers, accumulation of first appeals, indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction ad lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing.
The road to solving pendency, the experts opined, has to be a coordinated attempt by the judiciary, the bar and the government, all who are necessary stakeholders in reducing the load on judiciary and making justice delivery system cost-efficient and timely.