Judges shortage keeps cases pending in courts pendency of court cases rate in courts hits

Kurnool: As many as 36,540 cases are pending in all the 37 courts in Kurnool district as on September 30, 2014. Of these, 21,681 are civil, while the remaining 14,859 are criminal.

The people associated with the judicial realm assert that there are countless reasons for this particular situation. "We must count how many judges are working," said senior advocate Naga Lakshmi.

There should be 37 judges for 37 courts, but currently six courts have no judges. Even the principal district judge position is vacant. Full additional control of principal district judge is being shouldered by the special judge for SC/ST Court-cum-sixth additional district judge of Kurnool, P. Venkata Jyothirmai.

Principal district judge’s position has been vacant since the last week of July 2014. “Lack of regular judicial officers is also a problem. As there is no regular judge in Nandyal, Kurnool judge goes to Nandyal court once in a week,” said advocate K. Govindu.

C. Nagendranath, an advocate and former Kurnool Bar Association President said, “The concept of pending cases is wrong, cases will come and go. Saudi Arabia has Sharia law and China is a communist nation, yet there are cases. Any system will have disputes.”

He added, “Ability of the judicial officer is crucial, they need ability to manage their work and time and the attitude of the advocate is also important.”

Advocate K. Omkar said that, “Criminal case is a court procedure and it is not in anybody's ha-nds. It involves inquiry, chargesheet, trial, arguments and then is delivered the judgement.”

Advocates at Kurnool Bar Association said that currently, the judges were being recruited without proper training and that the norm of three years’ prior experience as an advocate to become a judge has been done away with.

False cases filed to settle scores is another reason for the huge number of pending cases.

“We were sued falsely, we came to the Court for six months and fortunately our case has been quashed. We are happy now. There are people running around the courts for 15 years,” said two persons in the court complex.

“Pending cases will reduce only if people use the law properly and stop misusing it. Some parties intentionally drag the case for years together to trouble the opposite party,” said P. Venkata Jyothirmayi.

Infrastructure, recruitment and number of courts have to be increased substantially to solve the pending cases.