The High Court has expanded the list of cases before judges far beyond the number they can hear. The judges even took vacations and heard old and sometimes even forgotten cases on Saturdays – which are not otherwise court days. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the need to protect flora and fauna, which make up a large part of the ecosystem, is immediate. He added that environmental destruction and wildlife degeneration are the „greatest threats“ to Earth and human civilization as a whole. In delivering its verdict in the Tata Camelot case, the Supreme Court affirmed that development and urbanization at the expense of the deterioration of the natural environment would impact human devastation and cause human devastation, as seen in the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand and the 2018 floods in Kerala. „With warmer temperatures, flowering plants bloom earlier in the year and migratory birds return from their wintering grounds earlier in the spring,“ the bank added. The established procedure of allowing a maximum of three adjournments per case is not followed in more than 50 percent of cases heard by the courts, leading to an increase in the number of pending cases, a government panel said. The panel stressed that the law of three adjournments should be strictly followed to reduce pendentions – a whopping three crore cases in Indian courts. The working group was set up by the government to propose changes to court procedures to speed up the resolution of trade disputes and improve the country`s ranking in the World Bank`s Business Facilitation Index. The Bar Association called for „not working“ to protest things it felt were wrong. He must now ask for „days without adjournment“. Of course, there will be cases that simply cannot be heard; a party on whom no communication has been served, a reply which the official concerned has not filed with the respondent Government, or a party to the proceedings who is too ill to attend the hearing. But in all other cases, the Bar Association must cooperate and implement the decision in letter and spirit.
Among other things, this would mean not appearing before a judge with a prior request to schedule the case for trial on a date other than the „no announcement“ date. The need for courts to reduce the number of adjournments has never been a matter of presumption. The courts are obliged to grant each defendant and plaintiff a strict adjournment in accordance with article 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides that „a party may not be granted an adjournment more than three times during the examination of applications“. However, it is well known that an increase in the number of judges does not necessarily lead to a reduction in the number of cases. The fact that the proposed and implemented reforms have not led to transformation is a fact that cannot be denied. The need to implement innovative plans is evident even in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, with as many as 5,07,366 cases awaiting justice. The Supreme Court of Allahabad added in its decision that the settlement of cases pending before the courts could be expedited not only by bailiffs, without the necessary cooperation of members of the Bar Association. The gravity of the problem can be seen in the words of the former Chief Justice of India, JC Shah: „.. The backlog has reached such a level that there is a risk that the administration of justice will collapse in the coming years if court cases increase as they do today.
One shudders when one thinks about what the situation of the administration of justice will look like in a decade or two, when the worst gap between the influx and the resolution of cases persists. If this issue is not resolved, litigants may be gripped by a sense of frustration and a loss of confidence in the courts. In order to restore order, judges and lawyers of the high courts and district courts must regularly observe the days without adjournment. The system, if implemented, would include a full hearing in all cases heard in court that day, with neither counsel requesting an adjournment nor the judges granting it, unless the facts and circumstances warrant otherwise. The bank added: „It`s the bar that plays an important role. Lawyers should not be involved in fulfilling their clients` innate desire to postpone or prolong the case. The Bar Association must adopt the attitude of the co-participant in the expeditious justice process.“ The Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice is exploring the possibility of amending the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appeals Division of the Supreme Courts Act 2015 to allow for the establishment of district-level commercial courts in some states. The issue was discussed at a recent meeting of the Task Force. The Supreme Court recently clarified its position on postponing the hearing of cases, ruling that the absence of a defence lawyer was not grounds for adjournment. The three judges in the case „Ram Siromani Tripathi and Others v. State UP and others“ added that a request for restitutio in integrum would not be considered under any circumstances, as it did not consider the antenna as a valid reason for postponement. „The Code of Civil Procedure already contains provisions relating to general time standards in a civil case – the number of adjournments that can be granted in a case under normal circumstances.
However, these time standards and the rule on adjournments are not respected in more than 50% of cases,“ the task force noted at one of its recent meetings. At a time when 3,14,14,446 cases are pending before district courts and 44,69,720 before supreme courts across the country, the need to adopt drastic and inventive systems to eliminate pending cases is no longer debated. This is nothing more than an urgent priority. The solution lies elsewhere. In addition to expedited tribunals, sanctioning a larger number of agencies and a variety of other measures, the agenda is to identify and focus on the problems plaguing the system in order to optimize its operation in order to achieve maximum efficiency through innovative ideas. The requirement is to do something strange and something, even with judges and lawyers getting together. Respecting „days without amendment“ could very well prove to be an instrument of change. In addition, much has been said about judicial reforms, from increasing the number of judges to reducing leave and increasing working hours.
The Committee on Legal Affairs also addressed the issue in its 230th and 245th reports. It was also proposed to establish temporary additional courts to deal with cases older than one year and to strengthen the permanent judicial system so that divestments and institutions are balanced and there are no new backlogs.