1. Citizens’ appeal: Ensuring expeditious and
timely justice to all
Lack of Management of cases
Case Flow Management Model &
Privatization
“Justice Delayed
is Justice Denied ”
- Yaswanth T T M V S P
- Varun Teja S
- Raghavi Kodati
- Rajath Nandan K
- Naveen Raaj KP
Justice League-5,IIT Madras

2. India has more than 30 million pending cases and increasing at an
alarming rate
Disconcerting facts of Indian Judicial system
0
50
100
150
Judges per Million
Judges per
Million
Human
Resources
• India has only 11 judges per million.275 out of 906 High Court Judge
positions are vacant.
• Only 10-12% of graduates take Law as career.
• Rate of increase in cases is 12 fold compared to that of Judges
Cases Pending
• More than 50000 cases are pending in Supreme Court.
• About 4.5 million cases are pending in High Courts.
Rate of Increase
in Cases
• More than 20 million cases filed in last two years.
• 74% cases that are pending are less than 5 years old
• It is expected that the pending cases will increase to 15crores by
2040Budget
Allotted
• Judicial System is allotted only in the
range of 0.071-0.078% of total budget
from last two decades
2Indian Institute of Technology Madras

3. Reasons for Delay
Adjournments
Apathy and
inaction on the
part of the police
Corruption
among police
Police fail to
ensure turn up of
witnesses
Intentional delay
by advocates and
Petitioners
Low court
charges and Lack
of Accountability
Quality of
Investigation and
Documentation
Lack of Modern
Equipment
Heavy burden of
cases on Judges
No effective case
management
Lack of Judges &
Public Prosecutors
Reasons for
Delay
3
Average case
disposal time:
15 years
Cases increasing at
12 Fold
Only 11 Judges
per million
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

4. Reasons for Delay
Lack of Judges and
Public Prosecutors
Poor Budget
Allocation
Lack of Importance
to Judiciary
Early retirement
age of Judges
Retirement age of
65 and 62, despite
life expectancy
being highrt
Lack of skills and
motivation for law
graduates to
pursue this field
Higher income in
private practice or
in other fields.
4
0
1
2
3
1999
2001
2003
2005
2009
2013
Lower Courts
Lower
Courts
0
2
4
6
High Courts
High Courts
(millions)
(Crores)
PENDING CASES
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

5. Courts, not the case participants, would bear the responsibility for the management of cases from
the time that they are filed, until completion of all court work. Case recording involves the collection
of case information at case initiation, the scheduling of hearing dates, and the issuing of case
management orders that govern case progress to trial or disposition by non-trial means.
The aim is to resolve cases as early as is reasonable and to reduce the costs for the parties and the
court of doing so.
Court’s Control on
Case Progress
The allocation of
judicial system
resources according
to the demands of
individual cases
To distinguish among individual cases in terms of the amount of attention they need from judges
and lawyers and the pace at which they can reasonably proceed to conclusion.
Through an early screening process involving courts soon after filing, cases would be divided into
different “tracks” reflecting their respective management requirements. For example, an expedited
track for cases with little or no involvement of judges.
Preparation for court
events by parties
and lawyers
The scheduling of future events should balance the need for reasonable completion of necessary
case-related preparation.
Forthcoming events should be scheduled sufficiently far in the future to allow accomplishment of
necessary tasks, to maintain awareness that the court wants reasonable case progress and does not
want continuances because participants have not completed necessary preparation.
A portray of solution proposed
MANAGEMENT OF CASES AND DELAY REDUCTION IN COURTS
Monitoring and controlling the process of cases from initiation through trial or other initial disposition to the
completion of court work to make sure that justice is done promptly
5

6. Because most cases are disposed by plea or settlement, reasonably firm trial dates will produce
earlier pleas and settlements and encourage actual trial preparation in cases that cannot be resolved
by other means.
Sometimes, courts may anticipate that some cases scheduled for trial may settle or have to be
continued. So, it must set its trial calendars realistically, like airlines that “overbook” flights in
recognition of the prospect that some passengers may not appear for flights.
Commencement of
events as per
schedule
Scheduling to start
trials on time and to
provide adequate
time for them
Judges should try to track the amount of time that they actually spend in trial each day, and they
should seek to make each trial day as long as is reasonable for trial participants and court staff in order
to make optimal use of trial time.
They should communicate their expectations about the length of the trial day to counsel and court
staff and seek their aid in keeping to the trial schedule which include sound estimates of likely trial
duration, provision of time in the calendar between trial starts, etc.
(In continuation…..)
EXPECTATIONS FROM CASEFLOW MANAGEMENT
• Time Standards
• Backlog reduction & size of pending inventory
• Controlling costs of justice
• Maintaining equality, fairness & integrity
6
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

7. Privatization of Courts
Addressing lack of resources and reach of the Judiciary
• Courts setup, staffed and run by private firms at a cluster level
• Support to the private firms provided by government during the set-up.
• It will serve as a civil court, dealing with cases worth less than 5 lacs.
Depending on their performance the slab will be raised.
• Companies recruit LL.B graduates and train them to qualify for a Judge
position. After the training period, these graduates return to work with the
firm on terms of contract.
• Litigants can recruit external attorney to represent their cases.
• Private court charges are levied depending upon the case value, litigants
income, no. of court session.
• Decentralized system ensures speedy justice for litigants and lessens the
burden on higher courts
• Litigants can challenge the private court’s decision at a higher public court.
If proved wrong, the private firm has to pay a penalty ( depending on the
case value) to the Govt.
• Private courts have authority on Police like any other courts
Plan of
Action
7Indian Institute of Technology Madras

8. Technologyadoptionfor
ExpeditiousdispensationofJustice
DOCUMENT AND PROCESS SERVING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM : All cases pending at the time of start-up should be updated
on a daily basis in the system in accordance with defined guidelines. Every day the court is automatically fed by the system
so that the proceedings are entered on the day’s cause list. It tracks the time spent by the court on the case, the concerned
parties present in the court, and recording of witnesses, judges, orders and judgments etc. Preparing final cause list will be
made easy and it would be made accessible to all the counsels.
Suitable facilities for AUDIO-VIDEO DEPOSITION OF EVIDENCE should be made available to allow witnesses (especially
high‐risk witnesses, child witnesses, old and infirm witnesses) to be present via video conference in the court. These audio-
video depositions of evidence, authenticated by the witness and the judge using digital signatures and fingerprint readers.
The e‐meetings could be fully archived in an indexed database for easy search and retrieval.
E-FILING: Proposition for the complaint, petition, appeal, application etc., to be filed in electronic form (or) on‐line via
internet or in the court premises, so that the process of filing is simplified for the litigant and the lawyers. The provision for
on‐line payment of court fees, process fees etc. can be enabled. After this, on‐line scrutiny and verification of the e‐filed
documents by the court registry.
E-ADMINISTRATION: All the courts in the district, the IT training centre, and the library are connected by a local area
network, so that information at all levels about bar and court management can later be made available to court users,
litigants, members of the bar, and judicial officers and staff. An Intranet portal can be set-up where the agenda, relevant
documents and minutes of the meeting are uploaded and archived. Such e-meetings could eventually save a lot of time
and paper.
8Indian Institute of Technology Madras

9. • Additional financial and human resources in the
judiciary system
• Efficiency of the courts increase due to competition
• Expeditious Justice
• Reducing work load on the Higher Judiciary
• Profits. Higher court charges depending on
performance
Advantages
• The judgements are monitored and approved by a
Government appointed senior/retired judges/district
collector.
• Penalty of more than 50% of case worth to private courts if
challenged and proved wrong in higher courts
• Including multiple private firms in a single court to avoid
undue influence on judgments.
Regulation
9Indian Institute of Technology Madras

10. Modernizing
infrastructure and
gadgets used by
Court staff and Police
Separate courts for cases
against the Government,
as they comprise more
than 50% of the existing
arrears. The court will
exercise greater authority
on police and
investigation agencies
Scholarships, internship
programs for law school
students to inspire
them to take up the
profession,
Create Indian Judiciary
Services for direct entry
to Higher Judiciary
Creation of police posts
to exclusively carry out
court orders and thus are
directly addressable to
the court. Responsible for
execution of warrants,
summons
Courts on Weekends
and Holidays- If
judges and staff
volunteer to work on
these days for extra
pay
Court charges should
be levied per session.
All parties will pay the
court charges. This can
be mainly for
maintenance and to
prevent trial of petty
cases
Mandatory public
prosecution for
private attorneys, for
a fixed number of
hours or cases.
10Indian Institute of Technology Madras

11. 11
Expeditious
and timely
justice for
all
Increase in
Human
Resources
Effective case
management
Private Courts Computerisation
Decrease in
Pending cases
Ability to meet
the demand
increase in cases
IMPACT OF IDEAS Possible problems in
Implementation
Lack of trust and
doubt in
credibility of
judgment of
private courts
among public
Increasing court
charges is a
deterrent to
disposing justice
to a section of
society.
Lack of financial
resources to
implement
many of the
proposals
Stringent
regulation may
disinterest
private players.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

12. References:
• Dispensing Administrative Justice More Efficiently, Judge Brian O’Ferall, Provincial Court of Alberta-Civil
Division, Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals.
• Reforms in the Judiciary-Some Suggestions, Report no.230 Law Commission of India, GOI, Aug 2009.
• Case Flow Management System and Court Automation, Zafar Ahmed Khan, District and Sessions Judge,
Karachi-East.
• Case Flow Management: The Heart of Management in the New Millenium, David C.Steelman,John A.Goerdt,
James E Mcmillan
• Differentiated Case Management ,National Criminal Justice
• Expeditious Investigation and Trial of Criminal Cases Against Influential Public Personalities, Report no.239,
Law Commission of India, GOI.
• Case Management and its advantages, Justice M.Jagannadha Rao.
• Court Organization and Effective Case Flow Management-Time to Redefine,
Hon.William.F.Dressel(Retd.),President, National Judicial College, USA.
• Police Organization in India, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.
• Law and Justice-A look at the role and performance of Indian Judiciary, NR Madhava Menon
• Lecture on Delayed Justice, by Hon’ble Shri Y.K. Sabharwal, Chief Justice of India,July 2006
12
Justice League, Indian Institute of Technology
Madras