DNA: Mumbai: Thursday, 27 November 2014.
With the Maharashtra government on November 18 sanctioning 179 additional posts of judges, there seems to be hope of reducing the massive
backlog of pending cases in the city's courts, which is more than 3.65 lakh as on March 2014.
The number of judges in the state will rise from
the existing 1,781 to 1,960. The government has also sanctioned 759 posts of support staff for
the additional judges.
This development comes in compliance with a Bombay
high court order. The HC had directed the government to appoint more judges in
pursuance to a Supreme Court judgment in the case of Brijmohan v. Union of
India. In this 2012 case, the SC had asked all the states to increase the judges' posts by an
additional 10%.
As per information received under the Right to
Information (RTI) by activist Chetan Kothari, there are a total of 3,65,418 cases pending in various magistrate courts across Mumbai as on March 31 this year. Of these, around 43,647 cases were more than 10 years old while 72,047 cases were pending for over five years.
The RTI reply also states that last year a total
of 2,19,842 cases were disposed of, while in 2012, the number of disposed
cases was 3,49,116.
"High pendency of cases has always been an issue. With increasing
litigation, there was a need for more judges to dispose of the cases faster.
Hopefully, now the disposal rate of cases will be speedier," said advocate
Jamshed Mistry.
The state government has sanctioned Rs 48.41 crore for the additional posts and support staff, read the cabinet
decision.
State government statistics say that lower courts
have over 56,000 pending cases of crimes against women. Of these, 11,074 cases are pending with the
sessions court and 45,057 with the magistrates' courts.
There are nearly 90,000 cases of motor accident
claims, say the government stats.
Moreover, 3,768 pending cases pertain to
crime against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, while 3,336 cases were lodged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The HC order was passed while hearing a public
interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Vihar Durve seeking that the
government should be directed to implement the SC order and accordingly increase
the posts of judges in the state.
The PIL sought the establishment of additional
fast track courts to try cases of crime against women, which are on the rise.
Government's apathy towards the judiciary reflects
in the fact that since May 2010, the HC has been exchanging communications with the state on the matter,
but the government kept raising queries about the appointments.