New Delhi: Recently a Bombay High Court presided over pending cases till the wee hours, painting a sad picture of the ‘overburdened’ judges. While the judge dealt with over 120 cases that day, imagine a vacant courtroom with cases piling up every single day and no judge to preside over them. The result: chaos.
After struggling to get a hearing for his case in one of the courtrooms of Rohini District Court, a disgruntled applicant has now written to the Delhi high court Chief Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice and the Prime Minister’s Office, seeking an immediate appointment of a judge to the courtroom lying vacant.
Chartered Accountant Ghanshyam Singh has been fighting for a case in the family court since 2016. But it was in Mid-November, 2017, that the judge in his courtroom got transferred and since then he and other litigants have been languishing for a hearing.
“I filed my second motion petition in family court room number 7 of District Court, Rohini, on July 31 2017 and it was being looked after by sitting Principal Judge AK Mendiratta. In mid-November, 2017, the sitting judge was transferred to another court and since then no replacement or appointment has been made for the courtroom which is lying vacant and I am only getting dates after dates,” reads the letter of the disgruntled CA.
The applicant had stated that even when he approached another courtroom, the judge refused to entertain the case citing the excessive number of cases being dealt by the judge.
“Last month we filed an application in family court number 4 within the same district for the transfer of case but sitting judge refused to accept my application mentioning that he was overburdened with present cases and advised me to wait for the appointment of new judges in the respective Court,” states the applicant who has mentioned that this judicial vacancy has caused ‘mental stress’ to the litigant.
Singh has highlighted that though there are “higher authorities to look into the appointment of a judge nobody is paying attention for this problem and court is lying vacant since the last 6 months and ultimately people like me are suffering a lot due to an on appointment of a judge.”
He has requested the authorities to appoint a judge at the earliest in the courtroom or arrange an alternative for him.
According to the government’s statement in the Lok Sabha in Feb, 2018, 5,925 vacancies. It is worth reminding ourselves that it is generally the lower courts where a common man commences his journey for justice. With pendency of nearly 2.65 crores cases in lowers courts, it is perilous for such vacancies to remain so for a long period.
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