Hyderabad: Chief Justice of India Justice T.S. Thakur on Saturday said that the delay in appointment of judges would deprive people of their fundamental right of access to justice.
While inaugurating the 14th all India meet of State Legal Services Authorities here at Park Hyatt, the CJI said that the process of appointment had got delayed as the Constitutional amendment to constitute the National Judicial Commission for appointments of judges for High Courts and Supreme Court was challenged.
Maintaining that the process of appointing judges must go on while improving the system, the CJI said that all steps were being taken to fill up vacancies of judges of High Courts in the country.
The Chief Justice said that they had recently finalised the appointment of 90 permanent judges and about 40 appointments of fresh judges.
While disclosing that 130 names recommended from various high courts are in the process with the law ministry. Justice Thakur said, “I am sure that the Union law minister is going to process those because he realises that while we are open to improvement of whatever the procedural angle is, the process of appointments must go on because access to justice is something which has been recognized by the Supreme Court as fundamental.”
He added, “It is the fundamental right of a citizen to access justice and if you are not to appoint judges you are actually depriving people of their fundamental right and that is something which is totally unacceptable.” Justice Thakur said that the number of vacancies of judges in High Courts would go up to 500 by the end of the year.
Stressing on the need and importance of the Alternative Dispute Redressal system, Justice Thakur said, “We disposed 62 lakh pending cases by Lok Adalats, mediation and also decided 1.61 crore pre-litigation cases, otherwise 2.20 crore cases would have reached the courts, which would be choked.”
Union minister of law and justice D.V. Sadananda Gowda appealed to people to make use of the seven alternative dispute methods to resolve their disputes without a cost burden and for getting speedy relief.
He appreciated the efforts of the legal services authorities in setting up legal clinics in jails to ensure that undertrial prisoners were not unduly locked up in jails for want of money and legal help to secure bail.
TS Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, in his address, appreciated the efforts of the legal fraternity in rendering justice to the needy and he assured of providing financial assistance to construct permanent mediation centres in all the districts of the state.
Supreme Court senior judge Justice A.R. Dave said that they had launched seven new schemes through the national legal services authority for extending legal help to trafficked women, tribals and others.
Acting Chief Justice of the Hyderabad High Court, Dilip B. Bhosale, explained that the Hyderabad High Court was the first HC in the country, which was using Android application to inform case statues to litigants and lawyers.
