"Indian judicial system is reeling under a back-breaking load of 3 Crore pending cases in various levels of the courts across the country."Suggest steps to tackle the situation.

Indian judicial system is reeling under a back-breaking load of 3 Crore pending cases in various levels of the courts across the country. Immediate steps need to be taken to address the situation and at the current pace, it is estimated that the whole process will take about 300 years to clear the backlog.

Reasons

• The current situation of socio-economic development, the advancement of technology, social media support and the increased awareness of legal rights, has given mental strength to common people to approach courts in case of violation of any rights or to seek justice.
• The number of judges, courts are not sufficient enough in line with the population of India.
• Right to Information, Right to Education, Public interest litigation enabled the judicial system to deliver proper rights and justice by empowering a common man.
• A slow judicial process is responsible for the delay in solving cases.

Solutions

• Increasing the number of judges to solve the cases within a predefined time.
• Setting up of additional courts to take the burden of the pending cases.
• Infrastructure development of subordinate courts, training of judicial officers, strengthening of state judicial academies, training public prosecutors, implementation of e-court projects for lower judiciary etc.

Steps taken

CJI has issued instructions to Chief Justices of many High Courts to clear all cases which have been pending for five years in the subordinate judiciary of all states and asked to speed the justice in both civil and criminal cases via Lok Adalats and also alternate dispute resolution mechanisms.

Topics: GS-II: Various Issues Related to Executive Judiciary in India