Tareekh pe Tareekh | The Last Word

“We have received only adjournments from this Court, but we have never received justice.”

Who are those in District Judiciary, especially responsible for delays? None of us would be able to answer comprehensively. Should we call it The Commodore Lokesh Batra Situation? Commodore Lokesh Batra had requested for information from Registry of Supreme Court in 2009, asking it for number of cases between years 2007 and 2009 where Judges of Supreme Court had completed hearing arguments, but were yet to deliver a Judgment. Bureaucrats within Supreme Court rejected Batra’s request leading to an appeal before Central Information Commission. CIC, in 2012, concluded, “if Supreme Court is not maintaining such data, it should do so now in order to facilitate Citizens to learn about status of pendency before Supreme Court.” Registry of Supreme Court prayed before Delhi High Court to set aside CIC’s Order. Hon’ble Justice Vibhu Bakhru upheld CIC’s Order. Division Bench of Delhi High Court overruled Justice Bakhru. Batra’s appeal to Supreme Court was simply dismissed in 2016. If India has no access to accurate judicial statistics, it will be difficult to plan for Judiciary and, more importantly, measure performances. If we keep aside The Commodore Lokesh Batra Situation of not knowing comprehensively which Judges in District Judiciary are especially responsible for delays, we should ask, why a delay at all?

Prashant Reddy T. and Chitrakshi Jain in Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts, (Simon & Schuster, 2025) have stepped out on a hunt for a ‘real’ explanation for delays at level of District Judiciary. It is not because of a ‘resource-crunch’ or ‘absent stenographers’! High Courts were asked for number of disciplinary inquiries that were conducted in their States, against District Judiciary, between 2018 and 2023. While Rajasthan High Court refused to answer, it has come to light, Bombay High Court (30), Punjab and Haryana High Court (49), Gujarat High Court (19), Patna High Court (51) and Allahabad High Court (49) have initiated 198 disciplinary inquiries against District Judiciary in these years. A lack of immunity for Judges of District Judiciary has led to a situation where they have been subject to disciplinary inquiries by High Courts for alleged flaws in their Judgments, despite there being no allegations of bribery or misconduct. Such ‘fear’, we should agree, contributes to delays, as Judges avoid hearing ‘risky’ cases for ‘fear’ of attracting ‘patently unfair’ disciplinary inquiries. Another cause are transfers policies. A performance assessment system has been put in place to evaluate Judges, who are expected to dispose of a minimum number of cases to secure a rating of ‘good’ in their Annual Confidential Report. This assessment system, combined with practice of transfers, creates ‘perverse incentives’ for District Judiciary to delay hearing ‘complex’ or ‘risky’ cases. It is concluded, in no circumstance will a Judge have an incentive to spend a majority of her time on a ‘complex’ trial from start to finish since that could lead to missing targets of minimum cases that must be disposed to attain a ‘good’ rating.

Tareekh Pe Justice notes in its Epilogue, an average Citizen is more likely to turn to a Local Politician, Baahubali, Power-Broker for a swift resolution. To restore faith in rule of law is to get District Judiciary functioning efficiently. Readers may explore their own ideas amidst what Prashant and Chtirakshi suggest in their Tareekh Pe Justice endgame. Do read, this.

I offer respect to Tareekh Pe Justice for prompting several characters to jump out of its pages. For example, how many of you would be able to say who Judges Krishna Prasad Verma, Muzaffar Husain, S.J. Pathak, Jayshree Chamanlal Buddhbhatti etc. are? But, each one of them have come alive. So have Hon’ble Justice Vibhu Bakhru, mentioned once, and Hon’ble Justice H.R. Khanna, mentioned twice. For those Judge names on whom Tareekh Pe Justice remains silent, with absolute intent, perhaps, Prashant and Chtirakshi plead, obvious further research!