Our subordinate court judges need case administrators, not court managers

AFTER ENDURING 48 YEARS OF ENTANGLED CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS, Lakhan Pasi, accused of murder,  finally walked out of jail on May 20. As an undertrial, he spent more than 8 years behind bars before his  conviction was overturned by Allahabad High Court. The High Court found that the lower court  had erred in finding that the prosecution had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The  bench comprising Justices Vivek Kumar Birla and Nand Prabha Shukla found that  the prosecution had failed to clearly establish the genesis and sequences of events, casting a  doubt on their case and entitling Lakhan Pasi to the benefit of doubt. 

Lakhan’s story is deeply tragic. His wife died fighting the legal battle for his release. She  had to sell their land to pay legal fees. Meanwhile, Lakhan’s five daughters and only son grew up witnessing their parents’ unending legal ordeal. Now, Lakhan Pasi, after decades of  hardship, is free only to spend the remaining days bedridden by old age. 

Lakhan’s court case was fairly complicated, involving four individuals accused of murder and  multiple serious injuries, all set against the backdrop of a longstanding family feud. However,  by no means did Lakhan deserve the systemic injustice that was meted out to him. It speaks  volumes about our judicial system and its failings. 

Unfortunately, Lakhan’s case is not an  isolated incident. Over 32 lakh criminal cases between ten and twenty years old are pending in India’s subordinate courts. Similarly, nearly 5 lakh cases have been pending for 20 to 30 years, while  approximately 53,000 cases are over 30 years old - over 4 lakh undertrials, countless victims  and witnesses waiting for their turn in the due process. These staggering figures do not account for criminal cases pending before the High Courts and Supreme Court, or the backlog  of civil cases at all levels of the judicial hierarchy. 

Our courts and legal processes have been failing at multiple stages and for various reasons. Consider this: once an FIR is filed, neither the accused nor the victim has control over the next course of legal and judicial actions. Instead, it is the police, prosecution and defence lawyer who set the law and court process in motion. Simply put, our cases – civil or criminal – have  several moving parts. Judicial proceedings are inherently complex and involve multiple actors and variables. Without a robust framework and implementation mechanism, the inherent complexity of judicial proceedings makes it impossible for any one actor to dictate the pace or timeline of case processing. 

This is true even for our judges. Despite the complexity of judicial proceedings, there is no designated court official who is entrusted to actively oversee the progress of the cases, from filing to disposal. 

Our legal framework and court practices presuppose that the judge is in charge of a case; as a  manager of the court, he is responsible for the timely disposal of cases. However, this  presupposition is fundamentally flawed for two main reasons. First, a judge cannot effectively marshal all the stakeholders in the judicial process. Why, you may ask? This is because marshalling of key stakeholders is mostly an informal process. The judge has to coordinate not only with advocates and the police, but she has to engage with parties and witnesses to  commit them to a timeline. 

This informal coordinative role, expected to be effectively assumed by our subordinate judges, is fundamentally inconsistent with their role as judges. 

While the judges can wield a degree of influence on the advocates, prosecution and police, there is a danger that their direct  engagement with parties and witnesses would be viewed with suspicion. As a neutral arbiter, to maintain the perception of impartiality, judges cannot, either in the courtroom or  otherwise, engage with litigants and try to nudge them through the process of law. Such  proactive interventions would not be taken kindly by some advocates.