It seems that many politicians and organizations want to decide electoral issues through the courts.
There are over 5 crore pending cases in the country’s courts, of which around 80,000 are pending in the Supreme Court. However, in recent months, cases related to political disputes, decisions of parliament or legislatures, cases involving Members of Parliament and governments, investigations by agencies into economic offences, scams, and cases involving politicians and officials are consistently being given priority. Not only this, renowned lawyers are also appearing in court regarding decisions of constitutional bodies like the Election Commission or commissions of retired judges.
Divisions within political parties, identification of genuine or switched parties, their assets, issues related to funding, are coming up. After economic liberalization, it seems that issues related to the allocation of contracts to domestic and foreign companies by central or state governments or public sector companies, and cases of some technical or corruption-related issues are coming before the Supreme Court. That should not sideline issues related to the common man.
These days, the field is set for the Lok Sabha elections. However, it seems that many politicians and organizations want to decide electoral issues through the courts. Leaders like Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, Lalu Yadav of Bihar, or Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, or many others, including Mamata Banerjee of Bengal, along with their supporters, are using the excuse of central investigative agencies, CBI, ED, Income Tax, to target political opponents.
Not only this, attempts are being made through prominent lawyers to immediately hear legal bonds related to preventing legitimate electoral bonds. It is also interesting that many prominent lawyers themselves are associated with some political party and have even reached the level of the country’s law minister. It is also possible that the final approval of the appointments of judges in the lower courts was given during their ministerial tenure, and after some years, they reached the higher courts. There is no doubt that the decisions of the courts will be based on the provisions of the law. But in this era of political tug-of-war, will the cases of ordinary citizens be hanging for years?
According to government records, out of the pending cases, more than 61 lakh cases are pending at the level of 25 high courts and more than 4.46 crore cases are pending in district and subordinate courts. The total approved number of judges in the Indian judiciary is 26,568. Where the approved number of judges in the Supreme Court is 34, the approved number of judges in the high courts is 1,114. The approved number of judges in district and subordinate courts is 25,420.
After Independence, the Preamble of the Indian Constitution made by our Constitution makers is considered the soul of our Constitution. It expresses a commitment to achieve four ideals—justice, liberty, equality of opportunity, and fraternity. Among these four, the mention of “justice” is made first. A major objective of our judicial system is that the doors of justice should be open to all. Our sages had, centuries ago, placed before it the ideal of reaching justice to the doors of the people even before this, meaning reaching justice to the doors of the people.
In the administration of justice, the use of practical wisdom along with bookish knowledge is also expected. It is said in Brihaspati-Smriti, “Only depending on scriptures, the decision is not obligatory. Thinking without reason leads to the loss of dharma.” That is, it is not appropriate to make decisions based solely on the study of books and scriptures. For this, “reason”, “discernment” should be taken as the support of “intelligence”, otherwise there is a possibility of harm to justice or injustice.
The creators of our Constitution had decided that the person sitting on the seat of justice should have an inclusive attitude towards accepting changes over time, establishing a balance in opposing thoughts or principles, and protecting human values. The judge should be completely free from any kind of bias, prejudice, and preconceived notions towards any person, institution, or ideology. The personal conduct of the person administering justice should also be disciplined, restrained, free from doubt, and should enhance the prestige of justice. The objective of the justice system is not only to resolve disputes but also to protect justice, and one way to protect justice is to eliminate delays in justice. It is not that delays in justice are only due to deficiencies in the functioning or system of the courts.
The plaintiff and the defendant, as a tactic, often keep prolonging the case based on the deficiencies present in laws and procedures, etc. In order to eliminate the problems present in judicial actions and procedures, the judiciary, while remaining vigilant, has to play a more important role. By adopting national and international efforts, some limits will also have to be set for political cases.