Book Review | With Assam’s Machal Lalung, ‘Stalled Wheels of Justice’ spotlights judicial inadequacies

A legal researcher has given accounts, backed with data and cases, to highlight that the judicial infrastructure is far inadequate to deal with ever increasing legal cases.

Shishir Tripathi, author of the book, has cited data to state that the states are not according priority to fully spend the Centrally sponsored scheme to improve the judicial infrastructure. The states are invariably not matching their shares in the Centrally sponsored scheme as funds lapse year after year while cases of people waiting for several decades for justice only increase.

“In July, 2005, Machal Lalung walked free after fifty-four years as an undertrial. He languished in the Lokprirya Gopinath Bordoloi Mental Hospital in Tezpur for thirty-eight years, even after being declared fit by the hospital in 1967,” Tripathi wrote in the book.

Machal Lalung was arrested when he was 23 years old in 1951 under Section 326 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for voluntarily causing grievous damages, stated Tripathi, adding: “Ironically, his case never came for hearing even once.” Lalung was finally released when he was 77 years old, added the researcher.

Citing several other cases on the lines of Lalung, the researcher quoted from a report titled ‘Budgeting Better for Courts: An Evaluation of the ₹7460 crores released under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Judicial Infrastructure’, saying: “Considerable confusion exists amongst the state governments on the actual working of this sharing formula. The Centre releases its share based on the funds available with it and expects the States to contribute the remaining share depending on the sharing pattern prevailing at the time. Contrary to this, most State governments seem to presume that the Centre will allocate its share keeping in mind the requirement projected by the State in the Action Plan.”

He added that when the states fail to contribute to their share of funds, the money under the scheme is often left unspent and lapses as a result. “There have been instances where the states have redirected a portion of the fund for purposes unrelated to judicial matters,” added Tripathi.

“According to the National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation (NJIC), computer facilities are available only in 27 percent of trial courts. There is a lack of toilets for women, clean drinking water, medical facilities, housing etc. in the courtroom," added Tripathi.

He also stressed on inadequacies of judges along with lack of physical infrastructure to deal with the mounting burden of cases. “Till April 2022, against a sanctioned strength of 24,521 and working strength of 19,341 judges, presently 20,812 court halls (including 578 rented ones) and 18,338 residential units are available in the district and the subordinate courts,” added Tripathi.