T S Thakur, the Chief Justice of India, made an emotional plea to the government, on Sunday, asking to upgrade the judicial infrastructure and start addressing the glaring problem of shortage of judges. He was addressing a joint conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda were present.
Justice Thakur said he regretted “inaction” on the government's part in strengthening the judicial infrastructure and increasing the judge-population ratio to tackle the “avalanche” of cases. He said that “it is not enough to criticise” the judiciary alone for the huge pendency. Stating that it were vital to the country's future given the government's emphasis on flagship initiatives such as “Make in India and Invest in India”. “We are inviting foreign direct investment into the country. We want people to come and make in India... we want people to come and invest in India. But those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development,” he said.
“The American Supreme Court decides 81 cases in one full year and here we have more than 17,000 cases being added to the pending cases in the Supreme Court in just five months. People still have faith in us because we are doing, perhaps, the best that we can,” he said. “From 1987 up to now, you have added at least 250 million people to the population of this country. And how many judges have we added? The Central government says we cannot do anything and it is state governments’ responsibility to initiate proposals for increasing the number of judges and improving infrastructure. But the state governments say the Central government must provide the fund first. While this tug of war goes on, judges’ strength remains where it is,” said Justice Thakur.
At a point, he even choked up. “There are 470 vacancies in the high courts. Over six weeks after the judgment (in the NJAC case), we cleared all proposals. So as far as we are concerned, there is no pendency. I have also written to the chief ministers. How much time is required to process appointments when there is an avalanche of cases, and millions of undertrials are languishing in jails?” asked Justice Thakur. Modi, who wasn't slated to address the meet, responded to the appeal saying, he understood the agony of the CJI and that the government was open to setting up a joint panel of representatives from the judiciary and executive to deal with pendency.
