VIJAYAWADA: Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has stressed the need for reducing the pendency of court cases, saying this is a must to ensure delivery of justice to petitioners across the judicial system.
Addressing the judges, advocates, young judicial officers and others after inauguration of the AP Judicial Academy and other e-court initiatives on Friday, the CJI quoted from the National Judicial Data Grid.
He said that 14 lakh cases were pending in the country for want of some records while 63 lakh cases were pending for want of counsels.
Referring to AP, the CJI said that the oldest civil case booked in Guntur was on March 22, 1980 and the oldest criminal case booked in Kalyanadurga in Anantapur on Sept 19, 1978. He said that from 1980 to 1990, four civil cases and one criminal case were pending in Guntur. From 1978 to 1988, nine criminal cases and one civil case were pending in Anantapur. In AP high court, as many as 138 cases were pending since 1976, he noted.
Chandrachud called upon the AP judiciary to solve the few pending cases so that they would move forward by 10 years in relation to the pendency of cases.
The CJI advised the young judicial officers to develop a sense of emotional stability as they would be witnessing the conflicts of interests between wife and husband, employer and labourer, landlord and tenant etc. Each judicial officer, he said, came from different backgrounds like caste, region, religion etc.
The CJI also advised the judicial fraternity to learn the current trends in the society so that they could deliver justice in a pragmatic manner by protecting the independence of the judiciary. “Judicial officers are not supposed to mix with society for varied reasons,” he pointed out.
The CJI appreciated the increase in the number of women joining the judicial services and wished that the women would play a crucial role in this system in future. AP high court chief justice Prashant Misra, several HC judges, young judicial officers and senior advocates were present.
