Bhubaneswar: The judiciary in India has been reeling under huge backlog of cases pending for years. Currently, 14.58 lakh cases are pending in Odisha and 12.98 lakh of them are in the lower courts.
This has been attributed to inadequate infrastructure combined with insufficient manpower and inefficient court management system.
In 1993-94, the Centre implemented the ‘Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Development of Infrastructure Facilities’ to address the infrastructure bottlenecks at the district and subordinate courts across the country. The state governments have been allocated funds under this scheme on a matching basis for improved capacity building to deal with the pending cases.
However, latest studies reveal that the district and lower courts in several districts of Odisha still lack basic facilities as mandated by sub-committee of National Court Management Systems set up by the Supreme Court in 2012. Available data also reveals that Odisha has been allocated less funds under the scheme as compared to other states.
Vidhi Center for Legal Policy, an independent think tank, released a survey report in 2019 underscoring the lack of basic amenities such as barrier-free access, absence of guide maps or signage, fully-functioning washrooms, e-case display boards and security checking at the lower courts. During the survey, around 300 litigants and several lawyers in the 30 district courts of Odisha were interviewed.
The study found that 25 out of the 30 court complexes in Odisha are accessible by public transport, while litigants in five districts rent private vehicles to reach the courts. Similarly, facilities for parking of the vehicles of the advocates, court staff and litigants are available only at 13 district court premises.
Court buildings in only eight districts of the state have guide maps to help the litigants to reach the courtrooms concerned without taking anybody’s help. On the other hand, electronic display boards are functioning properly in only 13 districts to help people identify which cases are being heard in which courtroom.
Most of the courts do not have well-maintained and clean washrooms. The study found that 15 court complexes had washrooms, while 18 did not have washrooms for women.
The most disturbing finding of the study was the absence of facilities in court buildings for a barrier-free access to the specially-abled litigants. Only six district court complexes in the state have ramps, but none have facilities like Braille notice boards or tactile pavements for the visually impaired.
Moreover, none of the court complexes in Odisha have functional baggage scan facility at their entrance despite the increasing incidents of violence in the state. What is worse, only 15 court complexes in the stare have fire extinguishers, while only four court complexes have emergency exit signage. Even police booths exist on only 26 court premises.
Gyan Ranjan Mohapatra, OP