The Myth Of The Underfunded Judiciary
Why is there a shortage of 7,000 courtrooms after Rs 11,000 crore is likely to have been spent on lower-judiciary infrastructure?
It is often suggested that the judiciary in India is unable to clear the backlog of cases because of a lack of judges, especially at the level of the district judiciary which is the first point of contact for most litigants in India. One of the reasons for judicial vacancies at the district level is the lack of courtrooms to seat judges. Against the sanctioned strength of 22,750 judges for the lower judiciary, the judiciary owns only 15,042 courtrooms (as per figures provided by the Department of Justice). Another 3,402 courtrooms function out of rented buildings and are subject to the lessor’s whims. The shortage is, therefore, at 7,708 courtrooms, presuming we do not want judges functioning out of rented premises. Creating physical infrastructure is fundamental to decreasing backlogs.
In this context, it is crucial to ask why India lacks courtrooms for judges. The judiciary typically shifts the blame to the executive for not allocating enough money towards judicial infrastructure. However, contrary to this narrative, the central government has pumped in an estimated Rs 7,460 crore through a centrally-sponsored scheme to build courtrooms and residential accommodations for the lower judiciary. That is a significant public investment in the judicial system.
Funding For Judicial Infrastructure
The scheme was introduced by the central government in 1993 to assist state governments in provisioning for the judiciary. Like all centrally-sponsored schemes, the funding is shared between the central and the state government. Currently, the ratio is 60:40, where the centre is responsible for funding 60 percent of the allocation. Till 2011, the contribution made by the centre was marginal, after which it increased substantially with a renewed focus on only the district judiciary.
So far, from 1993-94 to 2018-19, Rs 6,750.24 crore have been released by the centre under the scheme. Rs 710 crore is expected to be released in 2019-20 which would put the central share alone at Rs 7,460.24 crore.
Additionally, assuming that all states contributed a matching share to the amount released by the centre, approximately Rs 3,703 crore would have been released by the state governments.
This means an estimated total of Rs 11,163 crore would have been released for state judicial infrastructure over the course of 27 years, with the last eight years accounting for the lion’s share.
Given the amount released under the scheme, it is curious therefore that the judiciary still does not have enough courtrooms to function at full-strength. Using the norms prescribed by the Department of Justice, a division of funds available with the cost of construction would indicate that approximately 1,700 court-complexes which can seat at least 10 judges and include facilities such as judges’ chambers, library, conference rooms, and canteens, could have been built from the money released under this scheme alone. This roughly translates to 17,000 courtrooms, assuming funds were not diverted towards the construction of residential quarters.
However, as per the limited information available in the public domain, only 15,042 courtrooms are available to the judiciary and this figure includes courtrooms that existed in India for the lower judiciary before 2011 when the scheme effectively began contributing towards judicial infrastructure.
How Many Courtrooms Were Built Under The Scheme?
Even on the relatively simple question of the number of courtrooms that were built under this scheme, the Department of Justice appears to have no answers. We had sought this information from the DoJ in a Right to Information application. In its response, the DoJ declined to provide us with any specific numbers claiming instead that “The available information uploaded by State Governments/High Courts are already available on the web-portal hosted on the website of Department of Justice”. It is important to mention here that the figures on the DoJ’s website only gives details regarding the total number of courtrooms in a state and not an exact account of the number of courtrooms constructed under the scheme. We also examined the correspondence between the DoJ and state governments as part of our research with regard to this particular scheme and it appears that the DoJ never asked state governments to account for the number of courtrooms that were built under the scheme.
The Complicated Process Of Building A Courtroom
While the DoJ at the centre is responsible for designing the scheme, the task of implementation falls upon executive and judicial functionaries at the state-level. Infrastructure projects are generally time-intensive because the process goes through many stages such as the estimation of shortfall of buildings, approval of plans, identification of sites for the building, acquisition of land, the tendering process for construction and then finally the actual construction. When it comes to judicial infrastructure, the process gets more complicated, because the number of institutions that are involved increases.
A look at the process followed in Kerala will underscore this fact.
- A district-level committee—which comprises of the district judge, the district collector and the chief engineer of the public works department—prepares the plan.
- Then, the Buildings Committee at the High Court, and the Public Works Department at the state level approve it.
- Following that, administrative sanction is sought from the Home Department (or law departments in other states) and the Finance Department, after which the PWD releases the notice for tenders.
The participation of multiple authorities makes it difficult to fix responsibility for the delays caused. It leaves room for lapses in oversight and monitoring which we found indeed mar the achievement of targets under the scheme.
The Need For Performance Evaluation
It is clear that a lot could have been accomplished with the funds released under the scheme if it had been utilised efficiently. However, like many government schemes, this programme appears to have been subject to absolutely no performance audit. One evaluation study commissioned by the DoJ only acknowledged the failures of implementation by state governments without looking at the shortcomings in the DoJ’s design of the scheme. We filed an application under the RTI Act with the DoJ seeking details of the internal and external audits conducted on the scheme.
The reply made it apparent that the DoJ had never requested an audit of the scheme and was unaware of the audit reports filed by the office of the CAG with regard to the functioning of the scheme.
It is absolutely essential that the planning for future grants under the scheme takes into consideration a realistic account of the shortfall of judicial infrastructure as well as the financial capacity of the state governments. To fill these basic information gaps, the DoJ should conduct a nationwide audit that compares the available infrastructure with the judicial strength of each state, district wise. Any such survey should go beyond the mere availability of physical infrastructure and also evaluate the quality of existing infrastructure. This is important because a study by our colleagues has revealed the appalling quality of infrastructure in most court complexes across India.
The centrally-sponsored scheme is currently up for evaluation by the NITI Aayog for continuation beyond the year 2020. Given the underwhelming performance of the scheme, it is necessary to thoroughly evaluate its functioning before committing any more funds.
Chitrakshi Jain and Tarika Jain are Research Fellows at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.