This article is written by Aarlin Moncy, from HILSR, School of Law, Jamia Hamdard. This article deals with the lack of maintenance of Indian courts and courtrooms.

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss and try to come to a conclusion at the end regarding, “Lack of maintenance of Indian courts and courtroom.” It has been more than 70 years of Indian independence from British rule. India is now a developing country, and has a fast-growing economy, has a population of 130 billion and the largest democracy with so much diversity in religion and culture and still a successful democratic nation. 

Even if we are a successful nation, sooner or later this success can change into our biggest failure as well. The reason behind this would be our ignorance about our Justice system because we are not maintaining our courts and courtrooms. Ignorance towards maintaining the courts and courtrooms only signifies the lack of care and respect we have for the legal and justice system of our country because these are the only places where a person/party can seek justice. Not maintaining this system from which the public gets justice indicates the creation of a gap between justice and public order. 

Reasons behind why India needs judicial reforms

The reasons behind India’s need for judicial reforms are multiple, but we will focus on the major factors affecting the delay of justice and the need for judicial reforms as early as possible. In such a densely populated country of over 130 billion people. The number of cases in India every year shows that even if there are cultural differences, inequality, class division, but there is also easy access to justice. Even though the access to justice has become comparatively easy as compared to years ago, still there isn’t much difference. Reason being, with easy accessibility of justice, at the same time we need a better and faster approach of delivering justice to the victims and the accused.

The current issue is the pendency of cases in all the 3 levels of courts, District courts, High Court, and Supreme court. Every year, not only the rate of new cases increases but with that, the old cases are also piled up together and are delayed further. This leads to the failure of the justice system, as what it has promised the society and what it is exactly doing. As we know, the majority of our laws were enacted during the British rule, that means the laws which are in force today are over 100-150 years. The laws enacted during that time were based on the Christian principles and it’s been more than 70 years that we are free from the British rule. India being a secular country still uses British laws. Although the majority of these laws are still considered to be nearly the perfect ones, as a growing and evolving society, amendments to certain laws are very important and crucially needed.

Even changing the way in which we interpret laws has to be changed. By judicial reform, what we mean is enhancing and improving our judiciary through new advancements, like promoting Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) over Litigation, and during the COVID-19 crisis even shifting to Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), coming with fast track courts, and always focusing on both the quality of the judgment and the time taken to resolve such disputes. Indian courts already have thousands of cases pending, and if we don’t talk about this and further work upon this, then the whole idea about justice will be a total failure.

The required steps to maintain courtrooms

Before mentioning the required steps/measures to be taken for maintaining courtrooms, we need to understand how to maintain courts and courtrooms which are directly linked to the faster delivery of justice. It is absolutely disheartening if we want to know the reason behind maintaining courtrooms, it is a place where people get their hope back and if we can’t respect that place, then we are not eligible to comment when justice is delayed. When the whole idea of having a justice system is executed and when we are ready with a working system, we need to keep a check on regular intervals.

Same goes with the idea of law, the law in our society was initially a person’s vision or maybe a divine will and only later the idea about building a judicial system was crafted and here we are. People often forget to maintain or keep a check on the maintenance part. Without maintaining our courts and courtrooms we are compromising on many things like, mainly on the quality of judgments, a reformation that could help our society in the long run, and the taking away a ray of hope from the poor, underprivileged and disable section of our society. The steps that we can take to maintain our courts and courtrooms are:

1. Keeping a check on all the equipment used inside a courtroom, from all the electronic devices like computers, cameras, microphones to proper internet and mobile networks.
2. These checks should be done on a regular basis before every judicial hearing.
3. If any of the equipment is found to be broken or not working then immediate action should be taken by either replacing the equipment with another one and also beforehand informing the staff and judicial officer about it.
4. Taking the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic, if we had maintained our courtrooms beforehand by equipping every courtroom with an online hearing interface, then it would have been very easy and simple to conduct online court trials during this time in a much simpler way. Right now, everyone is almost confused and the majority of advocates don’t have the proper equipment and technical support needed to use such platforms.
5. Maintaining all the necessary records and storing data every data of each case in the court’s database. As we are living in a digital era, where data is everything, we should take all the required measures in maintaining the data safely.
6. Security of courts and courtrooms, a 24X7 CCTV camera in every corner and checked in every interval is a mandatory measure. Fire safety measures should also be taken and should not to be compromised.
7. Electricity backup is also very much important as if any issues relating to electricity arises then that could hinder in the process of delivering justice.

The importance of maintaining the proper infrastructure of courtrooms

As we’ve discussed above how maintenance of courts and courtrooms have a direct link with the delivery of justice, here we will further focus on one of the elements that majorly affects the smooth functioning of our Indian courts. Infrastructure is one of the most important elements and sadly we have not raised much concern about it and over the years, we’ve been completely ignorant about this fact. Sadly that’s why we have over 20 million-plus pending cases in district courts, 4.5 million cases in High Courts and 60,000 plus cases pending in Supreme Court. Infrastructure plays a vital role in the justice system because, without the infrastructure, there cannot be any possible way of providing justice. Courts are important because they accommodate litigants, lawyers, judges, clerks, police officers and security staff at the same time.

The main reason behind so many pending cases in India is because of government spending and investing very less on the development and building of new courts and courtrooms. The need of the hour is an investment in building new courtrooms and appointment of more judges and magistrates in the courts, then only can we at least think about the pending cases. Not only maintenance of courtrooms, but also maintenance of waiting rooms, entry and exit gates, ramps, lifts, electronic equipment, canteen, sanitation, security, basic amenities like ATM, library, washrooms(15% out of 665 district courts do not have washrooms for women), etc should be taken care of.

We need to make sure that the transportation route is also well maintained with proper signage both in the local and official language. Keeping in mind the safety, security, and comfort of women, children, disabled people and senior citizens it becomes more important and necessary to not ignore the issue of maintenance, because of them. In 2012, a subcommittee of the National Court Management Systems (NCMS), headed by Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, released a comprehensive report on Infrastructure and Budgeting. It made a case for how better infrastructure planning could improve litigant feedback, public trust, and court efficiency, offering parameters for a modern-day court. 

Important provisions of the Indian High Courts Act

The Indian High Courts Act, 1861 was amended twice, once in 1911 and then in 1915. This act gave the crown the authority to form high courts in India. This act was enacted after the First War of Independence in 1857. This act was made for the reason to combine Supreme Courts and Sadar Adalats in the three presidencies namely Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. Section 1,2, and 3 of the Act are important provisions because it gives the Majesty, the authority to increase the number of judges in the High Court. It gives the authority to form additional high courts and also gives authority to appoint temporary judges.

The present situation of the infrastructure of the courts and courtrooms

The present condition of the infrastructure of the Indian courts and courtrooms are not up to the standards. More than 50% of the district courts do not have basic facilities like washrooms, around 15% out of 665 courts do not have washrooms for women. Courts lack ramps for disabled people and several courts do not even have baggage scan facilities. In a survey conducted by Vidhi Centre for legal policy, it was stated that in Delhi, district judges were near about 660 but sadly only 450 courts were available, remaining 210 judges were jobless because of limited courts and courtrooms. It is mandatory to have washrooms in each floor of the courtrooms but only 53% of courts have it.

The lower courts struggle the most because of their lack of proper budget or financial assistance, so maintenance in the lower courts is a big challenge. Courts in Andaman and Nicobar Islands are considered to be the most hygienic courts and courts in Uttar Pradesh are considered to be the worst in terms of hygiene. In terms of security, courts in Chandigarh and Delhi are considered to be the best, on the other hand, courts in Andhra Pradesh are the worst in terms of security. One of the important aspects of a court’s infrastructure is facilities for the disabled section. For them, proper ramps should be made and barricades on the entry and exit should be removed as it hinders their movement. Again Chandigarh tops and is considered to have a friendly infrastructure for disabled people, whereas Andaman and Nicobar Islands are considered to be the worst in this regard. There should be proper guiding maps available inside and nearby the courts to help the litigants but only 20% have that. To prevent overcrowding in courtrooms, waiting areas should be constructed but only 54% of courts have this.

Proper maintenance and due care should be given to the judiciary at earliest.

The reason behind this is very simple if the judiciary was given due care or reasonable care then: 

1. Pendency of the cases in all the 3 levels of courts would not have been a huge failure of the judiciary. 
2. Proper investment would have been made for the development and construction of new courts and courtrooms. 
3. The appointment of judges would have increased too in order to take care and put off the pending cases because to deal with that, we not only need a good infrastructure but also more judges. 
4. Awareness of many important laws is not even done by the courts. 
5. There is corruption inside the judiciary too, that’s why RTI applications filed regarding the budget and allocation of the funds are not made clear and transparent. 
6. By now, the courts could have taken the next step and adopted an online interface for online hearings during the COVID19 crisis, in order to make justice easily available to everyone, even at their homes too.

Suggestions

According to me, the government and the judiciary should work together and plan things out in terms of yearly development plans, a 5-year development plan and at last a 10-year plan in order to tackle the pending cases and deliver justice to the people who have been waiting for years. Allocation of funds should be made transparent and with the required funds, new courts and courtrooms shall be constructed. After every year, the judicial officers should coordinate with the State/Central government about new development and changes made in the courts, with this we’ll be able to track our progress and growth of each court.

Conclusion

The sad truth is, we are still very much ignorant about the importance of infrastructure of our courts and courtrooms and we still don’t believe that infrastructure is somehow linked to the delivery of justice. Keeping in mind all the points made above, infrastructure does play a vital role in the functioning of the courts, and it is the primary reason why India is still lagging behind other countries’ legal systems and that’s why we have millions pending cases.

References

• https://doj.gov.in/sites/default/files/ASCI%20Final%20Report%20Page%20641%20to%20822.pdf
• https://doj.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20DOJ%20Report_Revised%20%281%29.pdf
• https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/2019/08/01/building-better-courts-surveying-the-infrastructure-of-indias-district-courts/
• http://probono-india.in/Indian-Society/Paper/83_Final%20DOJ%20Report_Revised%20(1).pdf
• https://www.firstpost.com/india/what-ails-indias-courts-crumbling-buildings-poor-infrastructure-cripple-daily-functioning-4456905.html
• https://www.iastoppers.com/flashcard/indian-high-courts-act-of-1861-authorized-the-crown-to-create-high-courts-in-the-indian-colony-right-or-wrong/
• http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukptilga/1911/18/pdfs/ukpga_19110018_en.pdf
• https://www.bloombergquint.com/law-and-policy/only-delhi-and-chandigarh-meet-infrastructure-guidelines-for-lower-judiciary-survey

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