{"id":36613,"date":"2023-07-31T01:35:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T20:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=36613"},"modified":"2025-04-21T23:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:54:26","slug":"constitution-benches-pendency-29-cases-oldest-one-on-for-31-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/constitution-benches-pendency-29-cases-oldest-one-on-for-31-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitution Benches Pendency: 29 cases, oldest one on for 31 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is a Constitution Bench of the SC?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How a Constitution Bench is Formed?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Pending Cases before Constitution Benches<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Pendency of cases in the Judiciary<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Causes &amp; Solutions for this Backlog of Cases?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Steps Taken to Reduce Pendency of Cases<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Way Forward<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>At last count, the Supreme Court had 69,766 cases pending before it for adjudication.<\/li>\n<li>Amongst these cases, there are 29 cases which are pending before the Supreme Court\u2019s Constitution Benches and the oldest case before a five-judge constitution bench has been pending for 31 years now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is a Constitution Bench of the SC?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A Supreme Court bench with <strong>a strength of minimum five judges<\/strong> is called as Constitution Bench<\/li>\n<li><strong>It is set up when a significant question of law arises<\/strong>, necessitating interpretation of a provision or provision of the Constitution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How a Constitution Bench is Formed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Article 145 (3)<\/strong> of the Indian Constitution says \u2013\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A minimum of five judges need to sit for deciding a case involving a \u201csubstantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution\u201d<\/strong>, or<\/li>\n<li>For hearing any reference under Article 143, which deals with the power of the President to consult the SC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Chief Justice of India<\/strong>, who is also the master of the roster, decides which cases will be heard by a Constitution Bench, the number of judges on the bench and even its composition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pending Cases before Constitution Benches<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There are <strong>29 Constitution Bench<\/strong> matters pending in the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n<li>Out of these 29 cases, 18 cases are pending before 5-Judge Bench, 6 cases pending before 7-judge Bench and 5 cases pending before 9-judge Bench for adjudication.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pendency of cases in the Judiciary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As of December 31, 2022, the total pending cases in district and subordinate courts were pegged at over <strong>4.32 crore<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Amongst this, <strong>over 69,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court<\/strong>, while there is a backlog of more than 59 lakh cases in the country&#8217;s 25 high courts.\n<ul>\n<li>Out of these, 10.30 lakh cases were pending in the Allahabad High Court &#8212; the biggest high court of the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Causes &amp; Solutions for this Backlog of Cases?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Judicial Vacancies &amp; Productivity \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Many experts have suggested that the Indian government should tackle the challenge of increasing pendency in Indian courts by appointing more judges to the bench.<\/li>\n<li>The current strength is around <strong>20 judges per 10 lakh population which is quite low<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The Law Commission in its 120<sup>th<\/sup> report in 1987 had recommended 50 judges per 10 lakh population.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>While this reasoning seems intuitive, it is also important to consider the productivity of the country\u2019s judges.<\/li>\n<li>To this end, judicial productivity is calculated as the ratio of judges to case disposals per year.<\/li>\n<li>While empirical evidence on this metric is sparse, one 2008 study suggests that <strong>judicial productivity in Delhi district courts is about half of that in Australian courts<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Increasing the number of judges without finding ways to improve their productivity is, at best, a half measure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Budgetary Allocations for the Judiciary \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the India Justice Report 2019, of the twenty-seven states and two union territories included in the study, twenty-one of them had judicial spending growth rates that were slower than the growth rates of their total expenditures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Government being the Largest Litigant \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Intra and inter departmental disputes of branches of governments, states vs centre matters and issues arising and among government and public sector undertakings end up in courts.<\/li>\n<li>This adds to workload of judiciary and thereby adds to pendency of cases.<\/li>\n<li>The government, being the largest litigant should self-motivate itself to use alternate dispute redressal system and approach the courts only as a matter of last resort.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Steps Taken to Reduce Pendency of Cases<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The burden to reduce pendency is not only on the judiciary but also on the central government as <strong>40% of the litigation is of the government.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>At the government level:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Centre has introduced a mobile application &#8211; <strong>Justice App<\/strong> &#8211; meant exclusively for judges across the country to help them track how many cases are pending before them.<\/li>\n<li>The government has also upgraded the judicial infrastructure by introducing <strong>Information Communication Technology <\/strong>(e-Court Mission Mode Project) to more and more courts in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>At the SC level: <\/strong>The appointment of judges to the higher courts is frequently recommended by the SC Collegium. <strong>For example,<\/strong> in 2021 it recommended the appointment of 129 High Court judges, soon after the appointment of 7 judges to the SC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Way Forward<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The 112th Law Commission of India report suggested the fixation of the <strong>judge strength formula.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Introducing the <strong>All-India Judicial Services<\/strong> (AIJS), after building a consensus within the judiciary.<\/li>\n<li>The Judiciary should curb the practice of seeking adjournments as a norm rather than an exception.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What type of judgement is considered as a Landmark Judgment?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Landmark judgments are pronounced by the Judges of the Supreme Court or High Courts in India. These judgments set a precedent in law or determine a major new legal principle or judicial concept or affect the interpretation of the existing law in a significant manner.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)\u00a0 Where was the first Supreme Court of India set up?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Calcutta, was founded in 1774 by the Regulating Act of 1773.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/constitution-benches-pendency-29-cases-oldest-one-on-for-31-years\/articleshow\/102255570.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Constitution Benches Pendency: 29 cases, oldest one on for 31 years<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/explained-the-constitution-bench-of-the-supreme-court\/article65955010.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Hindu<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court had 69,766 cases pending before it for adjudication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}