Reform in justice delivery system

(MainsGS2:Separation of powers between various organs dispute redressal mechanisms and institutions.)

Context:

• Recently, the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud stated that increasing the number of judges will not demolish the perennial problem of pendency, and that it is difficult enough now to find good High Court judge material.

Age barrier:

• Country  has difficulty in finding good talent to be appointed as judges of the High Court, but year after year we see the spectacle of large numbers of experienced and fine judges retiring from the High Courts because they have reached the age of 62. 
• Many have several good years of work left in them which goes waste, much like the richest sediment on river banks getting washed out to sea. 
• All that needs to be done is to continue them with pay and perquisites, and we would have kept the best for their last run of service.

Bring back retired judges:

• Extend the out-of-box thinking and bring back retired Supreme Court judges to hear admission of Special Leave Petitions.
• These are appeals filed in hundreds every week against all kinds of orders of lower courts and tribunals across the length and the breadth of the country.
• They are the biggest clog to justice in the Supreme Court (SC) because they take away half the time of the country’s senior most judges in just reading these mountainous files to decide which minute fraction to hear and dismiss the rest. Further, extend this a little more and have a scheme by which experienced High Court senior advocates sit as judges once a week to hear matters from another State High Court.

Online justice:

• The courts responded splendidly to the COVID-19 shutdown by harnessing online facilities, and, pretty soon, judges and lawyers were quite well-versed in this new medium and welcomed its ease and flexibility.
• Unfortunately, we have gone back to the old days of only physical hearings in crowded courtrooms, jettisoning even the benefits of hybrid methods. 
• However, enabling these ad hoc judges to work online from home with minimum support staff is an excellent harness of human and technology resources which will enable a vast number of cases to be disposed of.

Conclusion:

• Conventional reform prescribes more of the same like more judges, more courts, more staff, more infrastructure. 
• But we need a strikingly different approach, one which garners and puts to best use excellent available resources, technological and personal, and can make a telling impact.