Judicial infrastructure: Will National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation help?

While inaugurating the annexe building of the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court on 23 October 2021, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana sought the attention of Union Minister of Law and Justice Mr Kiren Rijiju (present on the dais) to the sorry state of judicial infrastructure in the country. Exhorting the urgent need to overhaul the judicial infrastructure, the CJI said “Good judicial infrastructure for courts in India has always been an afterthought. It is because of this mindset that courts still operate from dilapidated structures making it difficult to effectively perform their functions”. Justice Ramana is not the first CJI to flag this. Many CJIs before him have sought the attention of the government on this. In fact, in 2016, the then CJI T.S. Thakur broke down while stating the longlist of backlogs, judicial vacancies, and infrastructure woes impacting judicial credibility. The evidences on the ground point to the dire shortage in judicial infrastructure particularly the lower courts. According to the information in the public domain, the total number of the sanctioned strength of judicial officers is 24,280. Currently, there are only 20,143 court halls available, which includes 620 rented halls. The number of halls under construction is 2,423. As far as residential units are concerned, there are only 17,800 units including 3,988 rented units available for the judicial officers. More glaringly, as many as 26 percent of the district courts have no running water in the ladies toilets, only 11 percent of the washrooms are accessible to disabled citizens. Only 2 percent of the courts provide tactile pathways for the visually challenged, whereas only 20 percent have guide maps and 45 percent courts have helpdesks. Further, as many as 68 percent lower courts do not have separate record rooms and nearly half of them do not have a library.

As far as residential units are concerned, there are only 17,800 units including 3,988 rented units available for the judicial officers.

Lack of these critical infrastructures proved a big hurdle during the COVID-19 pandemic when courts were forced to go virtual. With only 27 percent courts being able to place a computer at judge’s dais with video-conferencing facility, justice delivery, especially at lower courts, has greatly suffered during the course of the pandemic. The CJI’s repeated calls for overhauling the processes to improve judicial infrastructure could not have come at better time than now. 

Why judicial infrastructure matters?

Judicial infrastructure includes the physical premises of courts, tribunals, lawyers’ chambers, and so on. It also involves the digital and human resources infrastructure, including the availability of all the resources that are essential to ensure timely dispensation of justice. The focus of this short article is on physical infrastructure. The positive correlation between adequate judicial infrastructure and productivity in justice delivery are empirically well-established. Adequate and quality judicial infrastructure are the basic pre-requisite for judges, lawyers, and judicial officers to efficiently perform their responsibilities while dispensing justice. According to National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms, adequacy of judicial infrastructure is a pre-condition for reducing delay and backlogs in cases. The Supreme Court-constituted National Court Management System (NCMS) says that there is a direct connection between physical infrastructure, personnel infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and pendency. The NCMS plan highlights how infrastructure can fulfil goals such as providing optimum working conditions to increase efficiency. Criticality of adequate judicial infrastructure, particularly the digital, was very much felt during the course of the pandemic when courts were forced to opt for virtual mode. With only one-third of lower courts having proper digital facilities—computer at judge’s dais with video-conferencing facility—justice delivery suffered a major blow. The COVID-19-induced disruptions, since March 2020, have pushed the pendency of cases to 19 percent, taking it to a record 4.4 crore. The most direct outcome of slow justice delivery is felt by the poorest and socially marginalised groups.

Adequate and quality judicial infrastructure are the basic pre-requisite for judges, lawyers, and judicial officers to efficiently perform their responsibilities while dispensing justice.

Why judicial infrastructure is lagging?

Given this, it is pertinent to ask why has India not been able to fix this, particularly the physical infrastructure, which should have been easier to tackle than the human resources aspect of it? First, the infrastructure problems in judiciary must be seen in the context of the lack of specific budgeting for the judicial branch, which is a standard practice in most democracies. The long and historical neglect of judiciary as CJI Ramana put it bluntly has resulted in inadequate institutional attention. This is clearly evident in the budgetary allocations to the judicial branch, a critical wing of the governance. Even after more than seven decades of independence, the budgetary allocations, including states, are still below 1 percent of the GDP. According to the recently released India Justice Report, between 2011-12 and 2015-2016, India’s annual average spending on the judiciary was just 0.08 percent of the GDP. While this has slightly improved with Centre increasing allocation—13^th and 14^th Finance Commissions—this remains to be an area of serious concern. Plus, the allocation from the Union Budget for the judiciary also remains inadequate and inconsistent. For instance, at a time when pendency of cases have grown astronomically and judicial infrastructure is not able to keep pace with the pressure, there was a steep cut—from INR 990 crore in 2019-2020 to INR 762) in funds for the creation of judicial infrastructure. Second, finance is not the sole reason for the current crisis. Underutilisation of funds meant for specific judicial infrastructure projects does not help either. In fact, over last few years, the Central government has poured money under the centrally sponsored scheme (CSS) to address the infrastructure woes at the lower judiciary. Between 1993–2020, the centre has released INR 7,460.24 crore to the states to spend on improving district courts. This excludes 40 percent of states share as part of the Central scheme. However, a large chunk of the allocated money goes unspent, eventually lapses, for year after year. As an illustration, of the INR  981.98 crore in 2019-20 to the states, just about 84.9 crore was spent by combined five states. Thus, as much as 91 percent of the money was unused. There are many reasons for this underutilisation of money routed through CSS.

The infrastructure problems in judiciary must be seen in the context of the lack of specific budgeting for the judicial branch, which is a standard practice in most democracies.

One, as per the CSS terms and conditions, states have to contribute 40 percent matching grant and most states fail to fulfil this commitment for a variety of reasons. Beyond the matching contribution, in general states have shown lukewarm response to this critical need. For instance, other than Maharashtra, which sanctioned 2 percent, every state in India has allocated less than 2 percent from their budgets towards judicial infrastructure. Two, while the respective  high courts have power to sanction district courts and related infrastructures, the decisions with regards to the implementation including the allocation of land, permission for the complex are undertaken by the state governments in consultation with respective high courts. This consultation and coordination are tedious and very time consuming. Most importantly, with states busy in more pressing priorities and high courts in their own day-to-day dispensing of justice, often projects have no real takers.

Will National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation resolve the crisis?

Given the snail pace in which judicial infrastructure works have progressed, the CJI’s recent proposal to set up a National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation (NJIC) to act as a coordinating agency to speed up the works has generated a lot of attention. For him, the NJIC, which would include the CJI, judges of the Supreme Court, and high courts, finance secretaries of the Centre and states concern can quickly end bureaucratic hurdles and challenges of  coordination amongst multiple bodies. The proposed body is intended to monitor and address the issues of delay in land allotment, funds diversion for non-judicial purposes, evasion of responsibilities by the high courts and trial courts, amongst others. While the NJIC has lofty goals—a detailed blueprint is still not out—the moot question is—will it work? Will it not become another body like the National Green Tribunal which has been struggling to make an impact? Some analysts have already raised strong doubts about its necessity and the roles it desires to play. For them, centralisation of powers under a new body would go against the principles of federalism. The NJIC cannot force the states to spend more or concede powers to a new body. Further, infrastructure projects, particularly under CSS funding, have tedious processes involving considerable paper works between the Centre and states, then there are issues of coordination on land acquisition, tendering, and award of contract, site inspections so on so forth. This would require considerable time and efforts on the part of NJIC. The moot point is should the judges get into something like infrastructure projects when there is mounting backlog of cases requiring their undivided attention?

The proposed body is intended to monitor and address the issues of delay in land allotment, funds diversion for non-judicial purposes, evasion of responsibilities by the high courts and trial courts, amongst others.

While these are pertinent issues to ponder, we must recognise why the CJI is pressing for an intervention that requires ‘extraordinary’ measures. We have a situation in which neither the Centre nor the states have shown any genuine interest beyond ritual financial allocations. As the past experiences of executing infrastructure projects show, there is no serious ownership from the states and district levels officials to complete these critical projects in a time-bound manner. Many projects are caught up in the institutional turf wars and often crucial issues like land allocations take many years delaying the project commencement. What complicates the matter is that since these projects are funded through CSS scheme, they have to follow a tedious process of paper work between the centre and states. Projects are mostly carried out in ad hoc manner without a clear timeline. This calls for a centrally coordinating agency that can monitor the works on a real time basis apart from empowering agencies involved in the execution of projects. Key issues like land allocations, tendering, and award of contract, site inspections require active coordination amongst multiple entities. This is where the NJIC can make critical intervention and open the doors for speedy resolution. While the fear of centralisation and top-down interventions emerging from the NJIC have some basis, this can be greatly reduced by having a corporation at each state involving respective high court and state and district level officials. However, the fog of doubts can be cleared once the blueprint of NJIC is out in the public. While one may debate about the nature and mode of functioning of such an entity, there is little denying the judicial infrastructure needs a big push.

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Research assistance was provided by Jibran Khan, Research Intern, ORF.

• Law and Justice
• India
• CJI
• courts
• GDP
• Judicial infrastructure
• Law and Justice
• NCMS
• NJIC

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