Miscarriage of Fast Track Justice

The comment of Justice A.S. Anand, former Chief Justice of India and Chairman National Human Rights Commission that the acquittal decision in Best Bakery trial by a fast track court as 'miscarriage of justice', is not confined to just that case only, but can be extended to entire mechanism of so called fast track courts as envisaged by earlier NDA government and now being scrapped by the present UPA administration. The State did very less in bringing the justice back on to the right 'fast' track, and it is difficult for common man to comprehend the question that when he would get final justice in either criminal or civil litigation.
The decision to allow the fast track courts to disappear by the end of April, a year in advance than the scheduled time of five years, by starving them of funds as the Twelfth Finance Commission did not recommend any allocations, will put a full stop to the experiment without finding any viable alternative or doing anything to dispose of pending cases.
Alarming Pendency The number of pending cases is indeed alarming. As per figures available on July 5, 2000, the total number of cases pending before the Supreme Court was 21,600 against 1.05 lakhs a decade ago. As for the High Courts, pending cases number 34 lakhs now, against 19 lakhs 10 years ago. The number of cases pending for more than 10 years is 645 in the Supreme Court and 5,00,085 in the High Courts. (According to Frontline, July 07, 2001)
One of the reasons attributed to the huge increase in the number of pending cases in High Courts is the non-filling of Judges' vacancies in time. There are more than 100 such unfilled vacancies. The number of cases pending trial in the 12,378 district and subordinate courts in the country is estimated to be about two crores. Of the 12,205 posts of judges and magistrates in these courts, 1,500 are vacant.
Fundamental right to speedy trial All the delay and lack of accountability and half baked schemes amount to a daily mockery of the fundamental right to speedy trial. The Supreme Court made it clear that "speedy trial is of essence to criminal justice and there can be no doubt that the delay in trial by itself constitutes denial of justice" (Hussainara Khatoon V. State of Bihar AIR 1979 SC 1364). In yet another case It added that "there can be no doubt that speedy trial -- and by speedy trial we mean a reasonably expeditious trial -- is an integral and essential part of fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in Art 21" (Maneka Gandhi V. Vol, AIR 1978 SC 597)
It is a very important obligation. Even apart from Art. 21 the constitutional mandate for speedy justice is inescapable. The preamble of the Constitution enjoins the state to secure social, economic and political justice to all its citizens. The Directive Principles of State Policy declare that the state should strive for a social order in which such justice shall inform all the institutions of national life {(Art 38 (1)}. This is elaborated by specifically adding that "The State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice..; to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities" (Art 39A). While interpreting this provision the Supreme Court has held that "social justice would include 'legal justice' which means that the system of administration of justice must provide a cheap, expeditious and effective instrument for realization of justice by all section of the people irrespective of their social or economic position or their financial resources" (Babu V. Raghunathji AIR 1976 SC 1734.)
The need for a fair Judge-Population Ratio The fact that the Govt. has not accepted an increase in the judge-population ratio, which has been repeatedly recommended by Law Commission of India. The 120th Law Commission Report said "If legislative representation can be worked out, as pointed out earlier, on the basis of population and if other services of the State bureaucracy, police, etc. can also be similarly planned, there is no reason at all for the non-extension of this principle to the judicial services. It must also be frankly stated that while population may be a demographic unit, it is also a democratic unit. In other words, we are talking of citizens with democratic rights including the right to access to justice which is the duty of the State to provide". The 120th Law Commission while recommending the five fold increase in judicial strength at all levels of the Indian judiciary (from 10.5 to 50 judges per million of population) also pointed out how India's judge-population ratio stands in poor contrast when compared with several other countries.
The NDA government hesitated to address this issue on regular and permanent basis and to spend Rs 4750 crore on revamping the existing judiciary by raising judge-population ratio, instead, it has put forward a 502 crore fast track court scheme for a period of five years, which is an ad hoc, half baked attempt to address a serious problem of baffling pendency. The scheme proposed to start 1750 fast track courts at the rate of five in each district to clear pending criminal cases. The idea is good as it addresses the issue of undertrials languishing in jails for long years becoming a burden on the exchequer.Under the Fast Track Court Scheme, a sum of Rs. 502.90 crores was sanctioned as special problems and upgradation grant for judicial administration for five years till 2005. At present, there are 1.8 lakh undertrials in jails on whose maintenance the Government was spending about Rs. 361 crores a year at the rate of Rs. 55 per person, per day, in prison. About two crore cases were expected to be disposed of by 2005,'' the sources said adding it would entail substantial saving in jail expenditure besides addressing a ``serious human rights problem.''
The then Law Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley, said that ``at least five such courts run in all the districts in the country with full central funding.'' The mechanism, which would also take up undertrial cases, was cost effective as it would entail an estimated expenditure of Rs. 100 crores annually as against the total expense of Rs. 360 crores being spent by States for maintenance of undertrials each year.
The Centre allocated just Rs 100 crore per year for this purpose and expected that all under trial prisoner cases would be disposed within a year of commencement of fast track courts. It is not known whether the task is achieved at least four years or not. According to Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj, out of 8 lakh cases referred to the fast track courts could dispose of 3.8 lakh cases only within four years. The center denied Rs 100 for fifth and last year of the project forcing them to cease functioning all over the country.