Sir, I
rise to support the Demands that have been placed before the House by the Home
Minister. Sir, I need not remind the House that this year the Home Ministry's Demands are being discussed in a context which can be described as almost unprecedented.
It is for the first time that we are discussing the Demands of this Ministry
after the country passed through the period of the Emergency that rocked the
very basic structure of the Constitution and our policy and made the common
people of our country realise what they have lost with the eclipse of their100 Fundamental Rights and Freedom. Sir, the
nineteen months of rule marked the culmination of a concerted effort to
undermine democracy.120 Those
who wanted to destroy the democracy and convert our system into a totalitarian
system had looked upon the Home Ministry as the main instrument for forcing
their will on the nation. They wanted to substitute the Rule of Law with a
reign of terror to place individuals above the law, to provide immunity to
those whom the group liked and to harass all those who were looked upon as
dangerous to the monopoly of power that the extra-constitutional200 group wanted to preserve. The then Home
Minister was himself a captive of this group. It was practically a totalitarian
regime and was, therefore, bound to be a police regime. That is why, I would
request the Home Minister that240
the whole Police Department should be thoroughly overhauled.
Sir, I
do not want to take the time of the House by listing the various agencies and
organisations that were set up in the Police Department and the Home Department
during Emergency and I also do not want to take the time of the House in
describing the fabulous amounts of300
money that had been placed at the disposal of RAW and other agencies. Even the
money was placed at the disposal of certain individuals and that was exempted
from the scrutiny of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India or the Parliament.
I do not want to go into all these details, but I would only request the Home
Minister360 to go into these
things and ensure that such things do not happen in future.
Mr.
Vice-Chairman, Sir, in the course of his reply, Hon'ble Minister referred to
some of the remarks made on the 18th while replying to Question400 No.4, and he said that his remarks were
misunderstood by some of the Members. Sir, I really admire my hon'ble friend
for making a reference to it, but if I say that some Ministers in the Council
of Ministers at the Centre are wise, how will you take it? Of course, in his
buoyancy he made that statement. I do not know whether he really intended it
but it only meant that some Members, in the Opposition are wise480 and some are foolish. Of course, taken
in a lighter vein it means nothing but I think such a statement500 as a whole could have been avoided. Now,
Sir, I welcome some of the statements made by him and I submit that in April
the vacancies were 64 and in July, the vacancies were 67. According to his own
analysis of the disease of arrears and pendency of cases in the Supreme Court
and in the High Courts, the judge strength was less and, therefore, this backlog
is there. Now, the pendency as on 31st December 1987 was five lakhs. It has now
exceeded 6 lakhs. On that day in the Delhi High Court,600 the pendency was around 2,000. Now. the
pendency is over 25,000. The sanctioned strength of the Delhi High Court is 18
permanent judges and three additional judges. The Delhi High Court has five
service judges, out of whom two are from outside. In principle, I have no
objection to judges being brought from other States. But of the five service
judges, at least two are to be from outside. That means, three are from Delhi.
The judges from the subordinate judiciary do not get any chance of promotion. I
have worked it out and I find that700
promotion is given to only about 40 per cent of the judges from the service
cadre. Therefore, they do not720
have the necessary incentive. I think something has to be done in this regard
also to give proper incentives to the judges from the subordinate Judiciary. If
among the subordinate judiciary, there are efficient and competent people, they
should be promoted as High Court judges. Of course, it will boost the morale of
these judges.
Mr.
Vice-Chairman, Sir, I am happy that this discussion is taking place on the
question of the problem of arrears because there is no doubt800 that if this is the most serious problem
that the entire system of administration of justice facing today, then it is
the problem of arrears. Evidently, it is on account of these arrears that
delays take place in settling the840
disputes, and if delays take place in settling the disputes, the very purpose
of settling them really becomes difficult. If a person has a legal problem and
somebody is contravening his legal right, unless he can have the redress within
a reasonable time, hardly any purpose would be served by providing a procedure
for redressal of grievances. I am entirely900
in agreement with the Hon'ble Member who has spoken on this half-an-hour
discussion, highlighting the problem of arrears pending in various courts. Now,
Sir, as I submitted in this House on the last occasion when this matter was
being discussed in answer to a question, I had pointed out, and I still
maintain my view that the most960
important factor which is responsible for these delays in the High Courts and
of these growing arrears in the High Courts is because of not having sufficient
judge strength in the various High Courts. Now, Sir, I would choose the1000 conference of the Chief Justices. The
yardstick which has been uniformly accepted by every authority who has the
experience of working in the High Courts, is that 650 cases per judge is a
proper 7 yardstick to be applied in determining the average. There are some big
cases, there are some short cases and so on. The Judges may also sit on
Benches. But the overall calculation is that the total number of cases that are
decided by a1080 High Court
Judge in one year resulting in an average of 650 cases per Judge per year, are
considered1100 as proper and
reasonable rate of disposal.
