Village courts to be set up to speed up justice: Bhardwaj

New Delhi, Nov 28 (UNI) Law Minister H R Bhardwaj today informed the Lok Sabha that his Ministry had ''worked on'' a Bill aimed at setting up village courts and sending judges to the ''doorstep'' of litigants to speed up justice and reduce pendency of about 30 million cases in various courts.

Replying to a calling attention motion by Mr G Karunakara Reddy and Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra (BJP), Mr Bhardwaj said the Centre would call another meeting of Chief Ministers, Chief Justices of High Courts and Supreme Court judges, if necessary, to find resources for increasing the number of judges.

The government was already encouraging alternate dispute redressal (ADR) mechanism and pre-bargaining to ensure speedy justice, the Minister said.

Of the three crore cases pending in various courts, about 2.5 crore were lying in subordinate courts, 42 lakh in High Courts and 38,000 in the Supreme Court, the Minister said.

According to a state-wise break-up, Andhra Pradesh accounted for 9 lakh cases, Bihar 12 lakh, Gujarat 39 lakh, Karnataka 10 lakh, Maharashtra 40 lakh, Orissa 9 lakh, Rajasthan 10 lakh, Uttar Pradesh 42 lakh, West Bengal 19 lakh and Punjab and Haryana 5 lakh each.

Several states were not forthcoming with funds to increase the number of judges in their High Courts and subordinate judiciary and this was hindering the efforts to raise the judges-population ratio, the Minister regretted.

A large number of cases were pending despite the good disposal by High Courts. In several states, each High Court Judge was giving verdicts on 2,300 cases a year. In UP, it was much more.

Responding to a query from Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on the possibility of reducing the present number of court holidays, the Minister said the Supreme Court was holding regular hearings even during holidays and in some states like Gujarat, the High Courts had introduced evening shifts. In Karnataka, the High Court was functioning on Saturdays.

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