Assignment On:

Various Aspects of Court management

(Seminar paper III) (Court & Docket management)

Name :- Ankesh Kumar

Section :- B.A.LLB(A)

Roll No. :- 1583013

Submitted to- Puranjoy Ghosh (Asst. Professor)

Date:- 04 Apr 2020

Sn. no Index page no.

1. Acknowledgement 1

2. Introduction 2

3. What is Court management 3

4. Aspects of Court management 4

5. Status of Judicial delays in India 5

6. Delay in disposal cases 6

7. Sub-classification of the problem 7-11

8. Method to reduce backlog 12

9. Conclusion 13
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have made efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help my respected teachers. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.

I am highly indebted to my teachers for their guidance and constant supervision as well as for
providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support in completing the
project.

I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents for their kind co-operation and
encouragement which help me in completion of this project.

My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleague in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped me out with their abilities.
Introduction

“The greatest drawback of the administration of justice in India today is delay... I am not aware
of any country in the world where litigation goes on for as long a period as India” Nani
Palkhiwala in “Delays in Administration of Justice”1

The issues of delays and pendency have been the bone of contention for the Indian Judiciary for
a long time. Since the last 5 decades, the Judiciary, the Ministry of Justice, eminent thinkers and
jurists have mooted several strategies to tackle the issues of delays and pendency in India.
Hon‟ble Justice Madan Lokur, Judge, Supreme Court of India had once remarked that
quantifying pendency of cases would be a rude shock. He went on to state that with crores of
cases already pending disposal, it would take more than 300 years to clear the backlog and that
too if no new cases are registered during that time.2 This is just an indication of the immense load
that our Hon‟ble judges handle and the pressure they experience in order to clear as many cases
as possible. It is recognized that India requires proper case management and also court
administration systems to achieve the goal. There is no doubt that there have been many positive
actions from our legislators and the judiciary to keep pendency at its minimum. Besides
increasing the number of courts, appointment of Judges, appointment of court staff, specialized
work force, modernization/digitization etc. changes such as over hauling the Criminal Procedure
Code, setting up of several Tribunals, experimenting with Alternate Dispute Resolution
mechanisms like setting up of Mediation centers at several District Courts have already been
incorporated. One of the more innovative introductions to the schema of Indian Judiciary has
been the introduction of court managers. Coupled with the need for effective and efficient court
management practices, a lot of impetus is also given to computerization.

What is Court Management?

It encompasses many facets of administration of justice. Ultimately court management may be

defined as the application of processes and procedures in a legal forum that address the needs of
our communities through timely and expedient case disposition, provides a forum for fairness
and equality in an environment founded on integrity; and ensures access to our courts for

1
Quoted in, Justice R. B. Mehrotra, “Court Management”
2
Justice Madan B. Lokur “Case Management and Court Administration”
everyone. Only when we are successful in fulfilling these goals and objectives will the public’s
trust and confidence in our courts rise.

Listed below are Eight Purposes of Courts as defined by Mr. Ernest Friesen, former director of
the Administrative Office of United States Courts and founder of the National Judicial College:-

1. To do individual justice in individual cases

2. To appear to do justice in individual cases
3. To provide a forum for the resolution of legal disputes
4. To protect citizens against the arbitrary use of Government power
5. To make a formal record of legal status
6. To deter criminal behavior
7. To help rehabilitate persons convicted of crimes
8. To separate persons convicted of serious offenses from society

Aspects of Court Management

The institutional framework within which the Indian courts operate has historically neglected
the concepts of management and sound administration. 3 It has been widely accepted across
jurisdictions that the utilization of managerial skills in administering the courts can help reduce
the pendency rates of both civil and criminal cases. Trained personnel, however have to work in
tandem with the District Judges and Chief Judicial Magistrates to achieve the desired goal. With
the gradual increase in literacy rate and economic wealth, filing of cases is bound to rise and
more so at the lower level. Therefore, the lower courts and particularly the District court judges
need to ensure professional management of their courts. “Court management” is inclusive of
entire set of actions that a court takes to monitor and control the progress of cases, from initiation
of a case to trial. It is the tool to pursue the institutional mission of resolving disputes with due
process and in due time.

There are various aspects of court management:

 Upgrading of court management system through ICT.

3
“Effective District Administration and Court Management”, Hon‟ble Mr. Justice P.Sathasivam, Judge, Supreme
Court of India on 15.06.2013 at Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy during the Special Training Programme for all
District Judges and Chief Judicial Magistrates
 Moving from manual to electronic data system

 Making the lower court judges take responsibility and lead the court in determining the
administrative policies for effective working of the courts.

 Undertaking appropriate case management system to monitor caseloads and trends and to
identify problems that cause delay in the trial.

 Prioritizing old cases to ensure that the cases pending for more than 2 years or 5 years are
disposed first.

 Entrusting administrative functions of the court to professionals (court managers) under the
guidance of the presiding judge.

 Inspecting the sub-ordinate courts

 Planning the budget

 Arranging meetings between Police and District Judge in order to synergize two bodies.

Now will discuss on these aspects and problems related to court management in detail-

Status of Judicial Delays in India

Everlasting cases, prolonged delays, inexorable adjournments, high litigation costs annihilate the
common man‟s confidence and trust in the justice delivery system of the country. While it is
unpardonable to compromise on the temporal requirements of ascertaining facts and listening to
arguments, time lapse in the pre-requisites and procedural formalities of the Court can be
reduced. As Chief Justice Burger has noted: "A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to
maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that
confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency
and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited
in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal
rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law in the larger sense
cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work,
and on the public streets"4

4 Major reasons cited for judicial delays are:

a) Paucity of judges and court staff

b) Inefficiency of the case management system

c) Apathy towards use of technology in justice deliverance

d) Absence of work culture in court rooms

e) Predominance of „Adjournment culture‟ in litigation

f) Poor judges to population ratio (1 judge in every million)

g) Inadequate infrastructure and ill-trained court staff Statistics reveal that 2/3rd of the pending
cases are criminal in nature which has led to over-crowded prisons with more than sixty-eight
percent of the prison population still on remand. This questions the notion of justice since the
possibility looms large that many under-trials might end up doing their full sentence without a
full and fair trial. This plight has won India 142nd rank (out of 189 countries in the world) on
The World Bank‟s Index of 'Ease of Doing Business.

One of the key reasons cited by World Bank for this poor rank was the large pendency of cases
in Indian courts and non-implementation of judicial reforms.

The World Bank, in its report submitted to the department of industrial policy and promotion
(DIPP) has even suggested useful reforms that can be introduced to improve the situation
through measures like performance evaluation system of judges; performance management
evaluations to assess the liberal grant of adjournments etc. The report suggests India study the
court management models of high ranking countries such as Malaysia (Rank: 18) and UAE
(Rank: 22) in order to address the backlog issues. This very aspect has been the cynosure of
discussions in several Law Commission Reports.5

4
Justice Madan B. Lokur Judge, Delhi High Court “Case Management and Court Administration”, Justice Madan B.
Lokur Judge, Delhi High Court, 29/05/2003, available at
http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/adr_conf/Justice_Lokur.pdf.
5
P. Ramchandra Rao V. State of Karnataka, (2002) 4 Scc 578.
Delay In disposal of cases

Nani Palkhiwala in his Article “Delays in Administration of Justice‟ wrote, “The greatest
drawback of the administration of justice in India today is delay... I am not aware of any country
in the world where litigation goes on for as long a period as India…. The law may or may not be
an ass but in India it is certainly a snail… The fault is mainly of the legal profession. We ask for
adjournments on most flimsy grounds…..” There are good number of cases which remain
pending for 30 years or more in different hierarchy of courts and even after the decision of
dispute up to Supreme Court the matters remain pending for good number of years on execution
side.

As has already been stated, courts alone cannot be blamed for this inordinate delay in disposal of
cases, there are many factors responsible for it, which are beyond control of the courts-one of
them, as indicated by Mr. Palkhiwala- “greatest contribution for causing the delay in disposal of
case is that of lawyers”. The courts have no control over the lawyers, their disciplinary control is
with Bar Councils. 6

Sub classifications of the problem of delay in disposal of cases

Adjournments

The problem of a litigant in getting delayed justice begins right from the level of District Court.
The procedure of the District Courts is so slow going and expensive, that every sensible man
tries his best to avoid knocking the door of the Court. There are various reasons for delay in
disposal of cases in the District Courts but the foremost amongst them is repeated adjournments
of cases. One party is always interested in delaying the disposal of cases, such party adopts all
possible methods for getting the case adjourned. The High Court should issue some specific
instructions laying down the time limit and norms for granting adjournments. According to me,
no suit should be adjourned more than twice on the third occasion the court should fix the
hearing of the case peremptorily. A peremptorily fixed case should not be adjourned except in
exceptional circumstances, the judge adjourning a peremptorily tried case should record reasons
for adjourning the case and should also ensure that the case is disposed of within a month from
the date it was fixed for peremptory hearing.
6
Quoted in, Justice R. B. Mehrotra, “Court Management”, J.T.R.I. Journal, First Year, Issue 3, July – September,
1995.
The High Court should come forward to solve the problem by Issuing specific direction in this
regard laying down that cases will not be adjourned more than twice even on personal ground of
lawyer or lawyer's strike. Unless some such drastic measures are adopted, the problem of delay
in disposal of cases cannot be sorted out.

Injunction orders

Due to long pendency of suits, the interim injunction orders are very vital and important. Exparte
Injunction orders remain pending for years even after the defendant's putting in appearance and
filing objections to the exparte injunctions. The judicial officers most of the time carry this
Impression that It is the discretion of the Court to pass exparte Injunction for safeguarding the
Interest of the plaintiff.

Irresponsible passing of exparte injunction order leads to, many misgiving which also sometimes
creates doubts on the integrity of judicial officer passing such order without proper reasons.
Whenever the integrity of a judicial officer is doubted, it erodes the confidence in the system. For
maintaining this confidence in the system it is necessary that all orders which are passed by
judicial officers in their discretionary jurisdiction should be informed with reasons and be
transparent, may it be an order of Injunction pending a civil case or an order granting bail to an
accused pending trial.7

Miscellaneous cases

A subject wise classification will call for consideration of disposal of miscellaneous applications
in the suit, they are numbered as miscellaneous cases. These miscellaneous cases arise of
applications moved by the parties for restoration of cases dismissed in default for substituting the
heirs of deceased party, applications for setting aside the exparte decree, applications for
amendment of pleadings and so on. All these applications are disposed of on the basis of
affidavits. Long pendency of these miscellaneous applications also results in delay in disposal of
suits. For all these class of applications, a separate concise statement of principles of law, should
be available as a ready reckoner with every judicial officer laying down the guidelines for
disposal of such cases. These guidelines should be drawn out on the basis of up to date case law
decided in this regard.
7
Policy and action plan, National Court management systems (NCMS), NCMS committee, Supreme Court of India,
2012, available at http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/ncms27092012.pdf, accessed on 29-07-15.
Disposal of old cases on priority basis

It has been brought to my notice that many times the Courts instead of giving preference to
decide old cases, choose to decide cases with an eye on completing their quota as per norms
fixed by the High Court for disposal of cases. Mostly the judicial officers complete their quota of
disposal of cases by deciding suits exparte, Sessions trial and criminal cases where prosecution
witnesses have turned hostile or complainant has compromised or civil suits where the parties
have compromised or there is only formal contest. It is the obligation of the Court to dispose of
old cases on priority basis. There are clear directions to that effect. The High Court should issue
positive instructions that decision of cases of the category referred to above will be treated as
1/4th of the case decided. This may encourage decision of old contested cases.

Execution cases

It is a sad story that even at the execution stage the case remains pending for years. There should
be positive direction that execution cases will not be adjourned more than once on any ground
whatsoever. Execution cases should also be separately classified in the cause list, and time be
allotted for doing such cases.

Modernizing Copying department in Courts

Now a Photostat machine is available in every court which can prepare the copy of any
document within seconds, there is no justifying reason for preparing the copies from old system
i.e. one person copying the document normally by hand and the other comparing, this is not only
obsolete but Is waste of human energy. In my last inspection to my district I was shocked to
listen the complaint from a person that his application for copy of document is pending for last 1-
1/4 year. The explanation for the delay as given out was that since the document is in Urdu and
no Urdu knowing clerk is available in copying section, the copy could not be prepared. 8 No such
explanation is available after invention of Photostat machines. Continuing with the age old
procedure does create a wrong impression in a litigant that no work can be done easily in courts,
may it be obtaining copy of a document. Imagine the plight of a person who has to wait for more
than a year in getting copy of the document. With the installation of photostat machines, no
application for copy should be allowed to remain pending for more than three days.

8
Ref: National Judicial Infrastructure plan; Chief Justices conferences 2007, 08, 09.
System of Process-serving unsatisfactory

On frequent occasions, we come across complaints that process-server has submitted a false
report, sometimes the complaint is that summons have been served on fake person-impersonating
the real defendant. There is no counter check for ascertaining the correctness of the allegations.
Normally, it is against human conduct that a person even after knowing that he has been
summoned in a Court, where he has been sued, will refuse to accept notice and will take a risk of
being proceeded exparte, but then there can be exception to this rule, there may be clever persons
who may willfully absent themselves with a hope that exparte decree will be set aside.

In the changed circumstances some system of counter checking the process serving system
should be introduced, like publication of weekly court news at district level wherein the list of
cases wherein notices have been issued to defendants should be published in state language. It
should be ensured that at least one month's notice is given to concerned party. The copies of
weekly court news should be pasted compulsorily on the notice boards of all the courts, at ZiIa
Panchayat, Nagar Panchayat, Block headquarters, Tashil headquarters and Gram Panchayat
offices. Some judicial officer should check occasionally as to whether the court news is being
demonstrated on various notice boards. The costs of the publication should be borne by plaintiff
unless the court exempts. In due course this system will have counter check on false service of
summons.9

Bail applications and Remand order

The Magistrates and the Judges disposes of bail applications of serious non-bailable offences,
after the accused and his advocate make a grievance that they have not been properly informed
that in what connection they have been arrested, they are not furnished the copy of F.I.R., nor
they are permitted to inspect the case diary maintained by Investigation Officer for contesting
their remand order and also for making submission on their ball application.

It shall be the duty of the Magistrate, before whom the arrested person is produced, to satisfy
himself that these requirements have been complied with," In many remand orders the directions
of the Supreme Court are not compiled with and necessary endorsement to the said effect Is
9
Report of the Committee on reforms of the criminal justice system, Government of India, Ministry of Home
Affairs, Vol. 1, March 2003, available at
http://www.mha.nic.in/hindi/sites/upload_files/mhahindi/files/pdf/criminal_justice_system.pdf , accessed on 29-
07-15.
missing In remand order. Under Section 167 Cr.P.C. the Magistrate remanding the accused to
judicial or police custody is under an obligation to satisfy itself by examining the case diary that
there is material on the basis of which accused has been apprehended in the alleged offence. I am
of the opinion that a material which the Magistrate examines before passing the remand order,
the accused is also entitled to know the material of the case diary to contend that no case for
remand is made out. It is the right of the accused to inspect the police case diary at the stage of
his remand and such a right is also inherent in Art. 21 of the Constitution of India. Since the
accused and his lawyer are not permitted to inspect the case diary officially at the stage of
arguing bail application -contesting remand, they adopt illegal means for such inspection, all this
reflects on the judicial system. We must endeavour to rule out such systems which compel a
litigant to adopt wrong methods for achieving the just cause.10

Daily Cause list: Classification of cases

Whatever I have suggested will remain an illusion or will be rejected as impracticable unless the
court's daily cause list is drawn on scientific basis, with the help of computer. Till the facility of
the computer is not available the task will require a specialized training and scientific planning
for fixing cases. An improper handling of preparation of cause list will frustrate all suggestions.

All cases of the Courts should be classified in different heads, like

i. Peremptorily fixed cases

ii. Cases where arguments have been heard in part.
iii. Old cases
iv. Cases where parties have arrived at compromise or there is a formal contest
v. Miscellaneous cases
vi. Sessions trial

vii. Bail applications etc.

10
P P Rao, “Access to justice and delay in disposal of cases”, Indian Bar Review, vol. 30, 2003, p.208.
 For hearing each class of case a reasonable time schedule should be drawn up, the Court
should try to maintain the time schedule, in case the case is not taken up in the fixed time
schedule, it should be a rule that it will be taken up next day in the same time schedule. This
system will ensure disposal of cases as suggested earlier. The litigant and lawyer will know
as to at what time his case is to be taken up which will avoid unnecessary waiting for whole
day by a litigant -he may attend the court only for the fixed time schedule. This system will
facilitate disposing of peremptorily fixed cases, miscellaneous cases, execution cases and old
cases on priority basis as suggested earlier.11

Methods to Reduce Backlogs

Given the stratified organization of the court and the massive workload, the importance of
planning cannot be underrated. Strategic planning complemented by efficient paralegal staff
would significantly impact both pendency and judicial reforms since it has four vital uses:

i. Guide decisions about budgeting and allocation of resources.

ii. Inform the court managers about performance of the individual units or individuals.

iii. Bind judges and staff in sense of an organization and its goals.

iv. Assist in responding to individual issues as they arise.

Computerization

In Supreme Court have been computerized, simply by a press of button in any part of the country
where the Supreme Court computer system is connected with satellite, one can know that when a
particular case pending in the Supreme Court will be heard. Likewise all decisions of Supreme
Court have been computerized and you can get the information about anyone of them again by
pushing a button where Supreme Court computer system is connected with a satellite. All these
are wonders of computer's application in judicial system. Many software floppies are available in
market where case law have been digested subject wise. Some very useful suggestions on the use
of computers In courts with regard to management Information system have been given by

11
Maria Dakolias, “Court Performance Around the World: A Comparative Perspective”, Volume 2, Issue 1 Yale
Human Rights and Development Journal, 2-18-2014
Justice J.K. Mathur In his Article: “Court Management- A prospect” published In Post Centenary
Silver Jubilee Volume of Allahabad High Court, of course his suggestions are primarily for
dealing with the arrears of High Court but the use of computers at present is imperative at the
District level. The entire information, about laws, precedents and writing should be fed in the
computers, the software floppies should be classified on the basis of classification of cases done
for their disposal. The print out of the computer with legislative provisions and latest decision
should be made available to Judge like ready reckoner for knowing as to what tax you are
required to pay on a particular income. All this require pooling of heads and research on subject.
12

Conclusion

I suggest that right now the Institute should begin a course of Court Management through
computers and judicial officers should be trained in the subject. The humble beginning can be by
providing one computer to each district and linking it with Supreme Court Computer section by
satellite. I have full faith and trust in the capacity ability, tact and learning of the present Director
of the Institute that he will complete stupendous and huge task. Whatever I have said above is
only a small fragment of huge problem. My suggestions are aimed to invite attention of the
concerned people to think over the subject on the lines suggested above along with other ideas. I
confess that I have no specialization or expertise on the subject, these are the ideas on the basis
of which experts may pool their heads together to find out the solution of the problem with
which the country is faced – i.e. the Judiciary is at the verge of collapse. Let us do our best to
save it

12
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA Report No. 245, ARREAS AND BACKLOG : CREATING ADDITIONAL JUDICIAL
(WO)MANPOWER July, 2014