Hyderabad: Staff crunch hampering speedy justice delivery

Hyderabad: The delay in filling up vacancies and holding orientation and training classes for the judicial staff has affected the quality of administration of the court system.

Legal experts say that it is generally believed that for the speedy disposal of pending cases, the judicial reform needed to be focused on the quality and number of judges. It rarely considers the quality of the administration of the courts system, particularly the back-end functions, processes and filling up of judicial staff posts in the lower courts.

A competent court administration is critical for reducing process delays for effective functioning to ensure that processes are followed, documents submitted and stored, facilities maintained and human resources managed.

Former judge Kiran Palakurthi, who took voluntary retirement and trained other judges, said, “Judicial work is not like clerical work in other government offices. The newly appointed staff should be given training on matters like putting up notes on files and moving cases as priority.” He said that the experienced staff appointed 30 years ago has retired and newly appointed staff is not trained well.

Lawyer Puligari Goverdhan Reddy says inadequate attention is given to enhancing administrative functions, particularly back-end functions vital for the efficient performance of courts. “The productivity of judges should be improved by streamlining the administrative functioning of the judiciary. It explains the need for a clear separation between judicial and administrative functions,” he said.

Bailiffs play a key role in serving notices

The crucial problem of the judiciary — delay in disposal of cases — may not be solved by just increasing the number of judges, lawyers say. There is a large number of vacancies among the judicial staff as well.

Bailiffs are crucial in serving notices, executing warrants and serving summons at the lower courts, but their numbers are few in the trial courts and most of the cases are adjourned only because notice was not served to the respondents.

Retired judge Kiran Palakurthi felt that this one small step of filling up vacancies and sanctioning of new posts according to need would save weeks or months in disposing of cases.

An officer in the judiciary said that around 87.5 per cent of cases are pending in the district and subordinate courts of Telangana state.