With full judge strength, Madras High Court hopes to cut pendency

In 2015, the Madras High Court disposed of 1.41 lakh cases while the pendency stood at 2.84 lakh.

The data was for a year when the strength of judges was at an all-time low. “Now that the strength of judges has increased to 75, we can expect manifold increase in disposal,” said Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul in the annual report.

As on December 31, 2015, the number of judges at 37 was half the sanctioned strength of 75 for the principal seat in Chennai and the Madurai bench.

Special attention was paid to specific categories of cases, in particular very old cases, and physical verification of all case files was carried out to identify actual pendency. Specific days in the week were earmarked to deal with old cases in the High Court and in subordinate judiciary.

Subordinate judges are awarded double units for disposal of cases more than seven years old and triple units for disposal of cases more than 15 years old. This resulted in a marked improvement in disposal rate of old cases, the report said.

Landmark case A landmark case disposed of last year related to the deployment of Central Industrial Security Force at the High Court and removal of encroachment.

‘Strikes, gharoes and dharna’ by advocates became endemic and started paralysing Court system. It inhibited free access to justice for seekers and public. The local police had their own reasons to dither. The First Bench stepped in to salvage the situation by registering a writ petition last September directing the Central government to provide CISF security cover to Madras High Court.

Instantly, peace and tranquillity returned to the campus, paving way for public to have access to court system without any hindrance. When the order was challenged, the Supreme Court did not relent and instead remarked that, if required, even the services of the Army can be requisitioned to protect the court system.

“Encroachment, wherever there is and whoever is causing it, has been consistently frowned upon by this court without giving room for real estate sharks to proliferate,” the report said.

A full bench presided over by Chief Justice held that tanks and water bodies that do not fall within purview of Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachment Act, 2007, also require protection from encroachment.

Encroachers should also be removed by State authorities by following the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Land Encroachment Act, 1905, the bench said in the TK Shanmugam, Secretary, CPI (M) vs The State of Tamil Nadu.

Computerisation The Madras High Court is on the right path in achieving full computerisation. By providing iPads, meetings of Judges of various committees like Administrative Committee and Full Court have gone paperless.

Bar coding is done for fresh cases and SMS alerts are sent at filing/copy application stage.

The e-Courts project covering 980 courts across State is in final phase of implementation. The Case Information System is fully functional, and there is auto-generation of cause-lists, hosting of judgments and enlisting pendency/disposal statistics of all categories of cases, the report said.

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