CJI, SC judges reach out to State, district judiciary to hear out challenges

Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has met and interacted with judges and officials of High Courts and judicial officers and staffers from district courts across the country to discuss the challenges facing the judiciary, especially pendency of cases.

Supreme Court judges and senior officials from the Ministries of Home Affairs and Law and Justice participated in the national conference held on Saturday to address the issues faced by the judiciary in States.

An apex court statement said the conference “gave an invaluable opportunity to all stakeholders within the judiciary to come together and engage in a meaningful dialogue” and chalk out a plan.

The discussions were held in the same week a Bench led by the CJI relaxed the conditions for appointment of ad hoc judges in High Courts as a measure to combat backlog of cases, especially in the criminal appeals’ jurisdiction. The apex court has removed the condition that ad hoc judges could be appointed only if judicial vacancies crossed 20% of the sanctioned strength of a High Court.

Chief Justice Khanna and Supreme Court judges, Justices A.S. Oka, B.V. Nagarathna and Dipankar Datta discussed various topics at the conference, including ways to narrow the gulf between institution and disposal of cases, identification of case types flooding the judicial dockets and bottlenecks in case disposal and strategies to reduce backlog of cases at different levels.

A separate discussion was held by Justices B.R. Gavai, P.S. Narasimha and K.V. Viswanathan on the feasibility of having a uniform case categorisation in different courts. They deliberated on ways to leverage technology to better optimise judicial processes.

Judicial officers recruitment

A session with Justices Surya Kant, J.K. Maheshwari and Sudhanshu Dhulia explored measures for timely recruitment of judicial officers and court staff in district courts.

They discussed steps, including a continual recruitment/empanelment of public prosecutors, legal aid counsels, creation of permanent IT and data cadre in High Courts and district courts.

On top of the list of topics for discussions among the Supreme Court and High Court judges, senior bureaucrats and district judges was the need for an objective and transparent transfer policy for judicial officers and measures to enhance objectivity in the process of recommending suitable candidates from the district judiciary for elevation to High Courts.

Chief Justice Khanna, along with Justices Vikram Nath, M.M. Sundresh and Bela Trivedi, had a separate session at the conference on career progression and continuous performance evaluation of judicial officers.

The topics of discussion included mentoring of judicial officers, the need to establish a common curriculum for their training and capacity building, and ways to ensure accountability among judicial officers and court staff.