About 63 lakh cases out of the over four crore cases pending in lower courts in the country are due to non-availability of counsel, as per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), as of January 20.
Out of these, at least 78 per cent are criminal cases, while the rest are civil, says a report by Times of India. Uttar Pradesh has the most cases pending due to lack of counsel. An analysis of a few randomly selected states shows thousands of such cases in the pendency list. Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, UP, and Bihar together account for 77.7 per cent, or more than 49 lakh, of the 63 lakh cases, as per the report.
A variety of reasons could be behind this, including death of lawyers, unaffordability of advocates when cases continue for long, delay in fixing of lawyers by prosecution, and inefficiency of free legal services, said advocate KV Dhananjay.
“Delay is one of the major barriers and this happens for a variety of reasons like a large volume of cases, not enough judges and adjournments for various reasons (one of them being lawyers not being available),” Anisha Gopi, team lead of Nyaaya, an initiative helping citizens understand legal rights, told Times of India.
“Lawyers are often overburdened. The way the registry in our courts functions, case listings come up at the last minute and lawyers are then often forced to miss either of the hearings. Another reason is that an average case in India takes four years to be completed. When litigation continues for longer than anticipated, the aggrieved person may run out of resources to continue paying hefty legal fees,” said Gopi.
Between 2017-18 and 2021-22, over one crore people benefited from pro-bono legal services, offered through the legal services authorities, in sharp contrast to the performance in the previous decades, separate data from the Union Law Ministry shows.
The five states that saw the maximum increase in 2021-22 were MP, UP, Jharkhand, Bihar and Assam, as per the report. Together, these states accounted for a whopping 94 per cent (58.6 lakh) of the 62.2 lakh beneficiaries in 2021-22, while they account for 70.4 per cent (73.1 lakh) of the 1.03 crore beneficiaries in the past five years. However, experts argue that the exponential increase the data shows was hard to accept and called for a more detailed study.
Experts, however, argued that the sharp increase the data shows was hard to accept and called for further study.
In December last year, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud addressed this issue, saying that there is a need for support to ensure lower courts function at optimum capacity.
“Across the country according to the NJDG (National Judicial Data Grid) data, almost 14 lakh cases have been delayed as some kind of record or document is being awaited which is beyond the control of the court,” he said, as per PTI.
“Similarly, across the country over 63 lakh cases have been considered to be delayed, as per NJDG data due to non-availability of counsel. We really need the support of the Bar to ensure that our courts are functioning at optimum capacity,” the CJI said.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment