Justice delayed is justice denied.” This has been glaringly highlighted during the Covid-19 lockdown as courts are hearing only very urgent matters due to social distancing being enforced strictly. Most courts are semi-operational or functioning through video-conferencing in a limited way. But in a salve for litigants and advocates, the Delhi High Court became the first court in the country to quickly pass a resolution to work during the summer vacation in June. All subordinate courts of Delhi will also be functional during this time.
The resolution passed by Chief Justice DN Patel of the Delhi High Court said: “In view of the severe hardship faced by the litigants due to the prevailing pandemic of COVID-19 that has impaired the functioning of the courts, it has been unanimously resolved by the Full Court that to make up for the loss of court working hours and to ensure restoration of normalcy in the functioning of the courts at the earliest, in modification of the resolution of the Full Court dated 16.09.2019, declaring the period of the Summer vacations for this Court and the Courts subordinate thereto in the month of June 2020, this Court and courts subordinate thereto shall continue functioning during the entire month of June i.e. from 01.06.2020 to 30.06.2020. It is hoped and expected that members of the Bar shall extend their full cooperation in making the functioning of the courts meaningful and purposeful during the month of June 2020.”
The Supreme Court Bar Association too has requested the cancellation of summer vacations in courts, thereby showing concern for the hardship caused to litigants due to the ongoing situation. The Association in a letter to the Court said that it was time for the chief justice of India (CJI) and other judges to put in place fresh measures for gradually restoring the full functioning of the apex court and cancel summer vacations in the larger interest of the litigants and justice.
Some senior lawyers of the Court have also written to CJI SA Bobde in this regard. One was Senior Advocate Dinesh Kumar Goswami who wrote that “in almost all the potential cities of the country it is neither advisable nor prudent to start the normal working” of courts. He said that normal functioning of educational institutions, opening markets, regularising railway services and flight services should not take place till at least April 30. “Also since there is a heavy amount of work on all the courts all over the country and in the larger interest of all the institutions may it be Educational Institutions, Judicial Bodies, the summer break all over the country may be withdrawn….”
While the CJI is yet to take a decision on suspension of summer vacations, the fact is that lifting the lockdown will risk the spread of coronavirus again. It is said that the courts will return to normal in July.
High Courts too have begun to cancel summer vacations. The Telangana High Court has cancelled it for all courts in the state and shall continue to function till June 5.
Keeping the courts open during summer will obviously have a positive effect on India’s case pendency which between 2006 and 2020 has increased by 22 percent (64 lakh cases). As of August 2019, there were over 3.5 crore pending cases. Of these, subordinate courts account for over 87.3 percent, followed by 12.5 percent in High Courts and the remaining 0.2 percent in the Supreme Court.