I often wonder whether it is necessary for the Hon’ble Supreme Court to entertain the PILs which are either of administrative nature or should be looked into in the first instance by Human Rights Commission. But the liberal approach presently adopted by the Supreme Court in entertaining PILs encourages the citizens to bypass Government as well as Human Rights Commission. The courts have themselves acknowledged that some of the so-called PILs are Private Interest Litigation or Publicity Interest Litigation. The way the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India is wantonly using its jurisdiction under Articles 32 and 21 of the Constitution of India hardly has any parallel in the word. The outcome is that core judicial function i.e., to resolve disputes is getting lesser priority. Many jurists have expressed concern over it.
Justice Markandey Katju, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court in his book, Whither Indian Judiciary (2018), has shown the following grim picture of judicial system, “There are thirty-three million cases pending the law courts of India. By an estimate, if no new case is instituted, it will take 360 years to clear the arrears.
While many people talk of clearing the arrears, no one is really serious about it. Arrears, including arrears in the Supreme Court, have kept surmounting. Similar concerns have been expressed by another jurist, late Fali S. Nariman in India’s Legal System: Can it be saved?
The primary purpose of criminal law administration is to restore order in the society. People need an assurance from the judicial system that if anyone does wrong, judicial system will take corrective measures within reasonable time when the incident is within the memory of the society. But in several cases, the results manifest long after the society has forgotten the incident. It does not give any assurance to the public. People just read the news and forget it. That is an ineffectiveness of the judicial system. Unless the judicial system sheds its workload, and transfers some of the responsibilities to statutory bodies like Human Rights Commission, Women Commission, it will not be able to perform its core function effectively. Judicial dispensation system has limited capacity and it must assess its limitations.