At a time when there is widespread concern over cases piling up in various courts, there is a good news from a courtroom in Jharkhand High Court.
There is no queue in this courtroom, presided over by newly elevated Judge, Justice Anant Bijay Singh and a petitioner can be pretty sure to be heard the next day if his case is listed after he files a case, seeking anticipatory bail in various criminal cases.
Known to be a hard taskmaster and a workaholic judge, he has been working non-stop ever since he was elevated in April this year. He has been assigned the job of hearing the anticipatory bail applications and he is said to have cleared some 5000 cases so far.
Soon after he was elevated, there was summer vacation but he decided to forgo his holidays and alongwith the then Chief Justice Virender Singh went for resolving long pending criminal appeals and working even on non-working day i.e. Saturday.
According to a survey, Jharkhand is the only High Court in the country where criminal cases outnumber the civil cases.
The survey findings released some time back also said that in a high court, Judges hear 20 to 150 cases everyday, or an average of 70 cases hearings daily. The average time that the judges have for each hearing, derived from the number of cases they hear and the daily working hours that they put in, could be as little as 2 minutes.
According to a senior lawyer, Justice Singh fits the bill of a working judge, recently referred by law Commission of India Chairman and former Supreme Court judge Justice Balbir Singh Chauhan, as a panacea for clearing huge judicial arrears. Chauhan had remarked that increasing the sanctioned strength of judges will not solve the problem. “We need working judges,” he had said.
“Justice Singh is a court of fast justice. He is bold and always remains well acquainted with the case details and a lawyer does not need to argue much in his court,” pointed out former Advocate General Anil Sinha.
Singh was earlier posted as district judge in Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Dhanbad and Dumka and registrar general of the high court earlier.
According to a lawyer, Justice Singh’s orders have also enriched the state government coffer by at least Rs 2 crore. “The State Government’s action against illegal mining has led to a large of persons being booked and when they move for anticipatory bail, the court grants them bails if they agreed to deposit a certain amount in the government treasury depending on the magnitude of offences,” pointed out a lawyer.
“Also, he has also been strict in getting compensation from the government for the victims of heinous crimes,” he pointed out.
The lawyer said that Justice Singh, in criminal cases with civil intents, also takes pains to summon both the parties in his chamber, try to persuade them to leave their adversorial position and go for mediation to resolve their once and for all. And in this endevour he often foregoes his lunch and tea too.
Says a young lawyer, “Adversialism has no place in his courtroom. He invites couple to negotiate in his chamber and even chides them if the parents were behaving like spoiled children and throwing tantrums. He dispassionately reminds them that the real children’s interests were paramount.”