Issues Of Personal Liberty Must Be Adjudicated With A Sense Of Urgency : CJI DY Chandrachud

Speaking at the inauguration of the Andhra Pradesh Judicial Academy, Justice Chandrachud acknowledged that the district and trial courts were the most critical cog in our judicial system. “We must get rid of the colonial mindset of referring and treating the district courts as the subordinate judiciary in the hierarchy,” he insisted, “In practice, not only are they the backbone of the judiciary but they are also the first and, for a majority of people, the only interaction with the judicial institution.” The word ‘subordinate’ itself, the Chief Justice said, referred only to the stages in an appellate process. “It is not reflective of a culture of subordination of the district judiciary and should not be reflective of a culture of subordination of the district judiciary. It only reflects the administrative control of the high courts over the district judiciary,” Justice Chandrachud explained, as he argued for a change in mindsets both at the top and the bottom. He said, “It is only when we change our mindsets that we will really be thinking in terms of a modern judiciary for the future.” On the stark difference between High Courts and the subordinate courts, Justice Chandrachud pointed out that an audit revealed the lack of sanitary napkin dispensers in most district courts and in many places, even the non-availability of usable washrooms for women judges, lawyers, and litigants. Therefore, the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure of the trial courts, the judge said, was an issue of utmost priority.

The Chief Justice further highlighted the role of the subordinate judiciary in protecting the constitutional value of liberty. Addressing another potent criticism that many undertrial prisoners spend years in custody, the judge said, “Bail, but not jail, is one of the most fundamental rules of the criminal justice system. Yet, in practice, the number of under-trials languishing in prisons in India reflects a paradoxical situation. Deprivation of liberty, even for a single day, is a day too many.” The grant or cancellation of bail, he added, should not be reduced to meaningless, mechanical, procedural remedies which are perfunctorily pursued at the grassroots level, at the district judiciary, only to get a rejection and a sanction to move to a higher court. The remedies must be provided by the district judiciary itself as they affect the poorest of the country “who not only suffer at the hands of the police but are also caught in this judicial web without adequate economic resources or knowledge to cut through the red-tapism of the law”, the judge said. “We must realise that the values that have been placed in the care of the judiciary, specifically at the district level, chart the course of a litigant’s life for months, if not years, to come. Issues of personal liberty must, therefore, be adjudicated with a fair sense of urgency.”

Justice Chandrachud said there is also a ‘brooding sense of fear’ among the courts of the first instance, on how the grant of anticipatory bail or a normal bail will be perceived at the higher level and that the fear is not purely irrational. “There have been multiple cases where trial court judges have been pulled up for grant of bail in certain High Courts. The performance of judges has been analysed on the basis of their conviction rate. At the chief justices’ conference, I have specifically called upon the chief justices to ensure that such practices are done away with,” he said.

On the issue of representation and diversity, Chief Justice Chandrachud happily informed that both men and women were entering the judicial fraternity and the judicial services in large numbers. He observed that the number of women recruits has ‘outstripped’ the number of men. “I do believe that this is the sign of the times when the judicial services will be enriched by the presence of what constitutes a very rich and more than half our society today.” He added, “I do believe that the future in our profession belongs to women.”

The Chief Justice also spoke about several initiatives being rolled out for the modernisation of the judicial system, including the digitisation of judicial records, the facility for e-filing of cases and for procuring certified copies online. The goal, he said, was to build a judicial system which was ‘natively digital’ while improving the existing physical processes. “In other words, we do not merely intend to digitise paper-based processes, but we want to transform processes for a digital environment,” the Chief Justice added. Addressing the issue of internet access, Justice Chandrachud told the gathering that, as part of the ‘Digital India’ mission, common service centres were being set up all over the country down to the level of every gram panchayat, with which e-court services have been proposed to be merged to ensure the availability of judicial facilities at the village level in the country. “Now we are trying to ensure that e-court services are merged so that the facilities of e-courts are available at the level of every gram panchayat and every village in our in our country,” he said. “Our vision for all our judicial processes must be centred on increasing the accessibility of justice for citizens in pursuance of the transformative ideals of the Constitution. Our mission has to be to ensure that the whole colonial model of people seeking justice is replaced by a new justice delivery system where we reach out to our citizens, where the justice system is reaching out to people at the grassroots level.”