Assessing the judiciary’s fifth plan

The Supreme Court on July 16  introduced its fifth strategic plan of the judiciary. This management instrument aims to guide the planning process toward a shared plan based on a sound analysis of the functioning of the Supreme Court and the subordinate courts for the next five years. Initially launched 20 years ago, these plans derive from a Situation Analysis that forms the foundation for defining the court’s vision, mission, values, goals and strategies, aligned with its mandates and functions. 

Judicial administration

The plan aims to achieve a good deal of objectives, including that of speedy and quality justice delivery; access to justice to all; protection and promotion of judicial good governance; strengthening effective court management and to enhance public faith toward the judiciary. Under chapter four, the plan prescribes mission, vision and fundamental values to be associated with the judiciary and its judicial functions that ultimately aim to ensure justice for all. The plan reiterates the judiciary's mission to ensure fair and impartial justice. There appears an explicit recognition of more than a dozen judicial values, including that of allegiance to the Constitution, independence, representation and inclusiveness, and participation and coordination, for accelerating the cause of fairness and impartial justice delivery system. The current plan borrows the mission, vision and values from yesteryear’s plan. The plan prioritizes prompt adjudication; judicial good governance and enhancement of public trust and faith toward judiciary; robust use of information technology (IT) and adequate availability of human resources and proper arrangement of infrastructures to digitalize the entire judicial administration process.

Goals and strategies

The plan hosts as many as 29 strategic objectives. It categorizes five major goals with their separate strategic objectives. It recognizes that the goal of prompt and qualitative adjudication cannot be achieved unless the courts succeed in adopting strategic objectives to adjudicate the cases on time.   In order to quicken the pulse of the speedy justice delivery system, there has to be compliance with effective measures to dispose of the cases; special arrangements for the courts with caseloads; and promotion of mediation and arbitration mechanisms to resolve the disputes between the parties. Also, it underscores the need for adopting measures to write judgments within the stipulated time-frame and utilizing optimum use of IT in court procedures.

Secondly, the victim-friendly judicial system; service-seeker friendly court atmosphere; strengthening of effective legal aid; and gender-friendly and inclusive judicial system could work as catalysts to enhance access to justice to all.  Thirdly, the plan aims to expedite judicial good governance and public faith toward judiciary. To achieve this goal, it suggests strategies, including that of robust monitoring and inspection to ensure the adherence of established judicial norms in the entire judicial department. Fourthly, the plan aims to ensure a sustainable and result-oriented use of IT in the judiciary. 

To achieve this goal, it suggests strategic objectives, which include: Strengthening of human resource management (HRM); improving physical infrastructure; providing adequate number of vehicles, computers and among other equipment; ensuring availability of adequate budget; ensuring effective implementation of the plan to ensure the overall development of the judiciary.

Implementing a new system

The Supreme Court has introduced a Differentiated Case Management (DCM) system in district courts from 16 July 2020 and from 17 Aug 2020 at high courts. This case management system differentiates the cases into three major path groups, viz., simple, general and special paths. The cases under the simple group have to be dispensed within six months; the cases under the general group have to be adjudicated within 12 months and the cases under the special group have to be finalized within 18 months from the date of their registration. The plan directs the Supreme Court to adopt all necessary measures to dispense the cases, which are sub-judice for five years or more, by 15 June-16 July 2026. The apex court has to dispose of the cases pending for more than three years by 16 July 2028.

The cases, where jail sentence for a term of 20 years or more, or life imprisonment have been awarded to the defendant, needs to be presented before the court of appeal, as per the mandate of section 10, Justice Administration Act, 2016 and Section 145, National Criminal Procedure Code, 2017 for the confirmation. And those cases produced before the apex court have to be adjudicated within nine months from the date of their registration. The appeal cases, where the defendant is in custody at the verdict of the trial court or high court, ought to be disposed of by the apex court within two years. In addition, the plan directs the high courts and trial courts to dispose of the cases as per the mandate of the DCM.

The plan directs the courts to refer, at least, 50 percent of the civil matters and among other private prosecution cases, which could be adjudged by way of arbitration and mediation, into the mediation process. Also, it directs the courts to ensure that at least half of the cases so referred in mediation be disposed of by way of alternate dispute resolution (ADR). As the prevailing Civil and Criminal Procedures Codes both direct the courts to ensure the availability of the copies of the judgments within 21 working days (from the date of the pronouncement of the said judgment); the plan directs the courts to adopt all necessary measures to give effect to these legal mandates. The plan directs the courts to execute their final verdicts (civil and criminal, both,) within six months. In case of public interest litigation (PIL) and other writ petitions, the court verdicts’ ought to be implemented within the stipulated time-frame so directed by the court itself; or in case of otherwise, within a year from the date of pronouncement of the final order.

To ensure effective implementation of the automation system, the plan directs the courts to adopt all necessary infrastructural and human resource measures to make certain that the cases are ‘cause listed’ or dates (Tarikh) are given to the parties without any human intervention. Basically, this automation system is in the nature of the lottery system, which bars the chief judges of the courts to assign the cases to respective benches. Further, it limits the role of the office chiefs or any other officials in either bench formation for particular cases or in giving dates to the parties.

Necessary measures

The plan recognizes a fact that the ultimate goal it aims to achieve would not be realized in letter and spirit unless there is availability of adequate number of employees; proper infrastructure; adequate budget; and capacity building training to the staff deployed at the courts with a flood of litigation. Also, the plan aims to ensure the robust use of apps, technologies and AI tools to expedite a smoother judicial administration process across the country. Moreover, the plan envisages that if its strategies are implemented, in letter and spirit, the Supreme Court would not have backlogged cases of two or more years. The plan envisages that this will require an estimated budget of Rs 26.227bn to accomplish the entire goals and strategies the fifth plan aims to achieve.

Without proper budget allocation, reform of existing laws and availability of adequate resources, the plan may not succeed. There ought to be compliance of strategic measures, including that of expediting dialogues and discourses with the concerned government authorities so as to allocate proper budget and to reform existing laws. The plan promises to make the justice delivery system more efficient by institutionalizing a set of values. These values will shape the judiciary’s external and internal behaviors, promoting judicial good governance, technology-friendly court procedures, impartial adjudication and inclusiveness and participatory court administration. The judiciary may not be able to achieve its cherished goals unless governments and other concerned authorities stand together and strive for these goals and strategies in a true and material sense.  

The authors are judicial officers at the Rajbiraj high court