SC shows the way

THE Supreme Court, with Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud at the helm since November 2022, took several initiatives this year for reforming the justice delivery system. The most significant one was aimed at reducing the pendency of cases as the country’s courts are clogged with crores of lawsuits. The resultant delayed justice is one of the main grievances of the litigants and is often equated with denial of justice. Thus, it is laudable that the SC disposed of 52,191 cases till December 15 this year, an increase of 33 per cent compared to 2022, when 39,800 cases were decided. It is the highest number since the Integrated Case Management Information System was launched in 2017.

The SC harnessed technology to achieve this feat. Strategic reforms, such as reducing the timeframe for verification and listing of cases from 10 days to seven, helped the court ‘set a new standard for timely and efficient justice delivery’, as the SC has noted. Giving primacy to personal liberty, the apex court ensured that matters such as bail, habeas corpus, eviction and demolition were processed in one day and listed immediately. Notably, for the first time, such proceedings were also taken up during the summer vacation. Forming specialised Benches to handle particular types of cases also proved effective in streamlining the process.

Some other key litigant-friendly interventions included the setting up of a hybrid hearing system, an RTI portal and the e-SCR (electronic version of Supreme Court reports), which provides online access to thousands of judgments. The SC linkage with the National Judicial Data Grid has enabled the tracking of cases on a real-time basis, thus reducing opacity and increasing the judges’ accountability. The high courts should take a leaf out of the SC book and expedite trial proceedings.