DNA: New Delhi: Sunday, February 21, 2016.
For about
seven long decades since Independence, the Supreme Court of India and other
high courts have been following the practice of more than a month-long summer
vacation and week-long Holi, Diwali and Dussehra holidays but have no record
about how and when the practice started.
The apex
court has expressed its inability to provide any record on long summer break
under the RTI application. Informing the Chief Information Commissioner in
response to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal's application, it said
"Information relating to practice of summer vacation etc, there is no
record available." However, the top court's registry works like any
government office during long court vacations.
After
accepting the reply, CIC has disposed of Agrawal's plea recently. According to
Agrawal, long court vacations are said to be continuing as a British legacy
when British judges in India were privileged with such long court-vacations for
helping them evade hot Indian weather and also to facilitate visits to their
British homeland.
Agrawal said
"With long pendency of court cases, recommendation of Law Commission for
scrapping long court vacations, the colonial practice is still there. Union
Ministry of Law & Justice should immediately scrap any privileged vacations
for courts ensuring a common pattern of holidays from Supreme Court to lower
courts."
The CPIO had
submitted that for the Supreme Court, which came into existence from January
26, 1950, holidays and vacations are government-controlled by Supreme Court
Rules, 1966, and the same are available on its website. It said out of 365
days, there are 193 working days in total.
Amid growing
criticism from various quarters in view of the pendency of cases, in 2014, for
the first time, then Chief Justice of India R M Lodha had curtailed the summer
vacation from a maximum ten weeks to seven weeks.
The declaration
of a shorter summer vacation for the top court has come by way of a gazette
notification on the new regulations, to be called the Supreme Court Rules, 2013
replacing its SC Rules, 1966. The fresh rules had obtained the assent of the
President of India.
The Supreme
Court goes on summer vacation for not less than 45 days on average every year.
This year, the vacation would be for little more than 40 days.
As per the
Supreme Court calendar, high courts currently work for 210 days and trial
courts for 245 days a year.
Last year, a
five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had heard the plea questioning the
validity of National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) during summer
vacations.
The Law
Commission in its report in 2009 had recommended that vacations in the higher
judiciary should be curtailed by at least 10 to 15 days. However, the CJI's
proposal did not find favour with lawyers' bodies including the Bar Council of
India and the SC Bar Association, which said that the proposition was not feasible.
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