Judicial officers also doing non-judicial work, says Centre to SC; proposes court managers
The Centre’s senior law officer KM Nataraj told the Supreme Court that only 15,391 of the 17,020 judicial officers were working exclusively as judicial officers and the rest were given other responsibilities
NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday said many judicial officers in the country are being engaged in non-judicial work and suggested a specialised cadre of court managers for manning the administrative work of the Supreme Court, high courts, district courts and tribunals.
The suggestion formed part of a note submitted by the Centre to the Supreme Court during the hearing of a suo motu petition dealing with ramping up infrastructure and judicial workforce to handle the rising pendency of cases - 42 million cases are pending - in subordinate courts.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) KM Nataraj said the use of judicial officers for non-judicial work was contributing to the increase in pending cases. “Out of 17,020 judicial officers (based on data received from 18 out of 21 high courts), only 15,391 judicial officers are working exclusively as judicial officers. 1,869 officers are otherwise engaged.”
The total working strength of judicial officers under the 21 high courts is 19,292. This does not include high court judges, which are constitutional posts.
“Judicial time of judges has to be spent for delivery of justice and not for administrative and financial, legal aid, and other works,” the note said, pointing out that high courts had constituted many committees comprising judicial officers to carry out the administration and other miscellaneous work such as financial management, e-courts, legal aid, besides appointing them to judicial academies and legal service authorities at district, state and national level.
As a solution, the note said there was a need for a specialised cadre of court managers to work under the overall supervision of Registrar to save judicial time specified for judges.”
A bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant was not willing to go with this suggestion and asked the Registrar Generals of all high courts to respond to this note in four weeks.
Responding to the suggestions proposed by ASG Nataraj, the bench said, “You are saying that judicial officers are being appointed for non-judicial work as Registrars in Supreme Court, high courts, tribunals, district courts, National and state judicial academies and legal services authorities. Who will run these institutions otherwise?”
On the infrastructure front, the note said that a total of 20,595 court halls and over 18,000 residential units are available for the present working strength of 19,292 judicial officers, although their present sanctioned strength is 24,485.
The court told the Centre: “Even on the infrastructure front, there are states where basic amenities are not available, not only for judicial officers but even for litigant public. Let the states respond how much money have they spent on judicial infrastructure in the last five years. We will also ask the high courts to respond to this note so far as it pertains to infrastructure and availability of judicial officers.”
The bench gave four weeks time to all state law secretaries to provide information on the extent of funds made available by the Centre under the centrally sponsored scheme for developing judicial infrastructure in the period between 2017-18 to 2021-22.
It also sought information on the amount disbursed by states for creating infrastructure, unspent amount diverted for other projects, and details of utilization certificates for the work completed.
Senior advocate Vibha Makhija, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, pointed out that the Centre in December 2021 informed Parliament that there is an abysmally low ratio of 21 judges per million population based on the 2011 population census.
In August 2014, the Supreme Court, in this case, asked the National Court Management System Committee (NCMS) to examine the number of additional judges required to clear the backlog of cases. This committee in its report, for the interim, proposed a “weighted disposal” approach depending on the nature and complexity of the cases.
She pointed out that despite this report being made available in the public domain for over five years, the government has not provided any roadmap for creating additional posts of judicial officers and left it for the courts to decide the issue.
The bench said that on the next date of hearing in September, it will deal with the issue after receiving responses from states and high courts.
According to the Centre’s note, the Centre has released ₹5,265 crore under 60:40 ratio (with 60% being Centre’s share and 40% of state) over a seven-year period under the centrally sponsored scheme and added that the scheme has been extended for the next five years till 2026.
