ABOGADOS Y ABOGADAS:

17. Meticulous and closer application to the entire gamut of the problem and due consideration of the relevant factors will bring us to the conclusion that we are in dire need of an environment where the delay is made to appear relatable either to frequent adjournments or to any of the above mentioned causes. It can be there, only if we first bring about a situation where the presiding officer has the option to refuse adjournment. I believe, on the basis of my personal experience as also that of others in judicial business, that in the courts where the presiding officer has to cope with a daily cause list of 120 to 150 cases, the adjournments are not voluntary but a situational imperative. It seems to me that a presiding officer with that kind of cause list and the

people milling around, thus bring about unenviable working conditions, will have every justification for accommodating a counsel on the ground that he is engaged with another case called earlier for hearing in another court, rather than adjourning the matter at the fag end of the day on the ground that the court time is over.

18. And I have heard people saying why the presiding officer should at all have had a list of 120 to 150 cases for one working day and that why he could not manage to fix cases in such a manner that the daily cause list did not exceed 20 to 30 cases. Although an explanation can easily be found, I am constrained to say that try as you might, it is not possible to visualize what exactly happens in the court to force the presiding officer to embellish the daily list to an unmanageable extent. Left to myself for an answer, it would be enough to say that you have to be a presiding officer of a court, with a pendency of 1500 to 2500 cases, to realize what happens when dates are fixed for hearing. There are large number of cases where people clamour, and rightly so, for shorter adjournments.

PROPOSALS

19. In the backdrop of these circumstances and the conditions obtaining in the District Courts, the following proposals are submitted for consideration of the Law and Justice Commission: (a) In the districts, Case Management Committees or Prioritization Committees, howsoever you may call them, may be constituted by the District & Sessions Judges for each court functioning under their jurisdictions, with the presiding officer of the court concerned as Chairman, reader of court, representatives of the stake holders and their counsel as members. The committees may be entrusted with the category-wise prioritization of cases, on the basis of their importance, which will be determined with reference to and on the basis of:

(i) the nature of cases, (ii) dates of institution, (iii) location and value of the property in dispute, (iv) civil rights involved, (v) the parties, (vi) impact of the ultimate decision, (vii) the number of persons affected by the decision of the court, (viii) involvement of public interest, (ix) the nature of questions involved for determination, (x) whether any temporary injunction has been granted in favour of either of the parties, and (xi) other relevant considerations.

(b) In criminal cases, priority can be determined on the basis of:

(i) dates of institution of proceedings, (ii) nature and gravity of the offence, (iii) the number of persons affected, (iv) public interest in the outcome, (v) the impact of judgement to be passed in the case, and (vi) maximum punishment provided for a particular offence.

& Sessions Judges

(d) After the process of prioritization is completed; the presiding officer may put 500 cases, in order of priority, on active calendar for trial and final disposal. Then, at the end of the month, as many cases as disposed of may be brought on active calendar in order of priority from the inactive calendar.

(e) As an important ingredient of the plan, the presiding officer must fix a target in terms of number of cases to be disposed of in a month, in a manner as would ensure that the disposal exceeds the institution by at least 5 to 10 cases in every month, so that the pending file is gradually reduced.

20. This, I would say will be the best local arrangement for case flow management which, as they say, is the central theme and conceptual heart of court management in general. If put in practice, the unproductive time wasted by a presiding officer with a daily cause list of 120 to 150 case and dealing with preliminaries in at least 100 cases, will be utilized by him in disposal oriented hearing of 25 to 30 cases. He will thus be in full control of the calendar and by virtue of that circumstance in that of the court as an organization. If the number of judges is bound to remain inadequate and we fail to make proportionate increase in the present strength of the judiciary to cope with the ever increasing pending file, this arrangement is the only way to address problems of delay and backlogs, for pulling the chestnut out of the fire.

21. We might examine the proposals from another point of view. It must be conceded that the causes of delay enumerated above do play a substantial part in aggravation of the problem and that they must be eliminated to produce results. But what I respectfully maintain is that other causes of delay, such as lack of proper supervision, unsatisfactory service of processes, delay in submission of challans, non attendance of witnesses and frequent adjournments are only collateral and they can be relevant only if the presiding officers will have time to address to these matters. As for instance if the ahlmad fails to issue process well in time or the process server is negligent in effecting service, the presiding officer should have the time to inquire into the matter and bring them to book; and this can be humanly possible only if he does not have more than 25 to 30 cases on his daily cause list.