33% Cases Coming To Supreme Court Are Bail Applications; This Calls For Introspection : Justice SK Kaul

While inaugurating NALSA’s First Regional Conference for the year 2023 titled ‘Northern Regional Conference on Enhancing Access to Justice’ organised by the Uttar Pradesh State Legal Services Authority at Varanasi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Judge, Supreme Court of India & Executive Chairperson NALSA, on Saturday said that to dispose of the pending cases on bail and remission, some kind of a revolution, an out of the box thinking, was required or it it would take 500 or even 700 years for the judiciary to dispose them. Pointing out the issue of large number of pending cases, Justice Kaul said, "We have been trying to suggest to the government, not very successfully so far, that on this 75 years of celebration of Independence, some out of the box thinking is necessary. I had an occasion to comment on it judicially where I said, lets segregate the heinous crimes, whatever you say 7 years or 10 years, lets keep a benchmark and if it is less than that, and if it is a single offence case, and if the person has served one-third of the sentence, then take a bond and release him. Why do you want to take it up in Appeal in three tiers again and again and then the State landing up before the Supreme Court in every case." "This is one of the problems. So that the courts are also little free to deal with the more heinous cases and concentrate on them. They become the most prolonged and acquittal rate is also high," Justice Kaul added. Justice Kaul started his inaugural talk at the conference by pointing out that, "The broad parameters on which a justice system is evaluated are availability of justice, accessibility of justice and its deliverability. If I may say so, the equality of opportunity for justice is the base. We are a vast country with a large population of socially and economically underprivileged. How do you create a balance between the two to work out our justice system." Issue of UndertrialsJustice Kaul first referred to the issue of huge number of undertrials languishing inside prisons across the country. He said, "One of my great concerns has been the issue of people who are undertrials, looking for bail, cases to be considered for remission, whether they can be dealt with in plea bargaining, etc." He said, "while a prosecution system needs to be strengthened so that there is an effective prosecution, the defence system also needs to be strengthened so that they provide an equal opportunity. And NALSA’s view is to provide the best of legal assistance to people who are not others able to afford it. And that I think is the singular part of the focus which must be maintained."Referring to the speech made by The President of India Smt. Draupadi Murmu on National Law Day wherein she had narrated her experience of the state of prisons in India, Justice Kaul said, "We have huge undertrial prisoners. Is it that we think that we cannot convict people so let us punish them by keeping them in prison during that period of time. This unfortunately seems to be a philosophy that permeates. We think he must have done this because he is charged and we must keep him in behind bars for the longest time Somewhere this philosophy needs to be jettisoned. The whole purpose, leave aside murder cases or extremely heinous cases, I have not understood what is the purpose of custodial interrogation or keeping him in custody beyond the period of chargesheet being filed." Wrong to burden the SC with bail mattersJustice Kaul then also pointed out that the issues concerning bail and similar matters should be dealt with appropriately at the appropriate levels i.e. the High Courts and the district courts and the Supreme Court should not be over burdened with the same. He said, "before coming here I tried to personally see how many bail matters are coming before the SC. The figure was more than 33%. That means after it has been through he scrutiny by the district level and the High court level, still the SC has to step in for purposes of bail in more than one-third cases. This is only for introspection I am saying. Why is it that we are not able to deal with it at the relevant level. Why should the SC be burdened with this every day, every bench having anything from 5 to 10 matters coming up. Therefore it is an introspection and a rethought process. For which the SC at various times has commented trying to give some guidance for this purpose." Every state has its own peculiarities, need to learn from others Justice Kaul, while calling out the states to learn from other states who are performing better by doing things differently, said, "The problem is of course more aggravated in some states and less in others. In this beautiful town of Varanasi where we are now, UP faces a great challenge. It’s a great challenge because of the number of cases. Each state has its own peculiarities. UP, Bihar and even Maharashtra. Some of the states have greater problems because of pendency issues." While sharing his experience from the Punjab and...

33% Cases Coming To Supreme Court Are Bail Applications; This Calls For Introspection : Justice SK Kaul

Anurag Tiwary

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