By a circular dated April 23, the Registrar General of the Bombay High Court directed all judicial officers to list twice a month all “maintenance cases” and “recovery proceedings” filed under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DV Act), Section 144 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), etc and to ensure that no frequent/casual adjournments are granted in such matters unless exceptional circumstances warrant an adjournment.
The said direction has been issued citing the fact that the matters relate to basic sustenance and livelihood of dependents and that their belated adjudication defeats the very object of the law.
The intent behind the said circular is noble. It seeks to address issues that run deep within our legal system – judicial backlog and inordinate pendency of cases. However, the circular is akin to applying a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It is simply inadequate and misses the real issue.
Magistrates in Maharashtra, more specifically in Mumbai, who hear matters pertaining to the DV Act or maintenance under various statutes are also tasked with conducting regular criminal trials under various statutes. This includes adjudication of bail applications, remand applications, applications for recovery of property, recording of evidence, etc. arising out of the said criminal trials. In addition to this, many magistrates are also designated "special courts" under various special criminal statutes such as the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 and the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. This is something that the circular does not take into account.
The concern is that the directions do not entail suspension of other work while mandating the listing of “all” maintenance cases twice a month. This may result in the entire day being consumed hearing DV cases while other work goes ignored, especially considering the peculiarity of the magistrate’s role in Maharashtra and more specifically in a city like Mumbai.
Many of us who appear before magistrates across Mumbai find that they are burdened with a cause list with upwards of 150 matters a day. On some days, they might be handling over 300+ matters a day in case they are also acting as the “in-charge court” responsible for urgent adjudications arising out of another judicial officer's cause list who is absent owing to training/health reasons or is on regular leave.
Therefore, it is realistically impossible for any judicial officer to hear all the matters on their board on a given day without giving an adjournment except for serious/exceptional reasons.
Most judicial officers cope with the current state of affairs by calling out their board at the start of the day, adjourning most matters that are not urgent and setting aside matters that are due for arguments or require urgent orders/adjudications, given the peculiar facts and circumstances of the respective cases. Despite the severe backlog and pendency, most magistrates try their best to adjudicate as many matters as possible.
Add to this the fact that as per the National Judicial Data Grid, over 25,000 cases are lodged every month before the Metropolitan Magistrate courts of Mumbai alone. Therefore, our magistrates are tasked with a burden which keeps on growing with every passing day and there seems to be no end in sight.
Magistrates handle this backlog and adjudicate as many matters as possible without any serious help and without the assistance of dedicated judicial clerks to conduct research, proofread draft orders/judgments for grammatical errors, etc.
The current status quo, which entails judicial officers having over 150 matters listed on their board, should be seen in the context that most matters get adjourned to long dates. That is to say, most of these matters are given dates of upwards of two to three months and, therefore, each matter gets listed only five to six times a year. However, if all these matters are now to be listed twice a month, the cause lists are more likely to run into 300+ matters, if not more, on a daily basis.
Judicial pendency in India is fundamentally a problem of structural mismatch. The volume and complexity of litigation have grown exponentially, while institutional capacity has not kept pace. Courts remain significantly understaffed, with a low judge-to-population ratio compared to global standards. India has 21 to 22 judges per million people as opposed to the recommended 50 judges per million.
Moreover, vacancies in the subordinate judiciary continue for long periods, resulting in many posts remaining unfilled despite an already insufficient number of sanctioned judicial positions.
Further, infrastructure - courtrooms, staff, technology - remain uneven and often inadequate. Lawyers who appear regularly before magistrates find that courts refuse to preside on many occasions, citing reasons such as the lack of a stenographer or the need to dictate long-due judgments in other matters.
This only goes on to show that the lower judiciary is suffering from a two-fold problem: (a) it does not have enough judges; and (b) the few judges that it does have are not adequately equipped with the resources they need to perform their duties to the best of their ability.
Far too much has been written about how India can solve its judicial backlog and pendency problem. While many experts have offered suggestions, a few clear ideas are widely accepted as both urgent and necessary. These include:
Capacity expansion: Vacancies must be filled urgently and sanctioned strength increased where caseload demands. The reality is simple: we do not have enough judges. No amount of technology or infrastructure can compensate for this deficit. Without increasing judicial strength, pendency will persist.
Court infrastructure: The shortage is not limited to judges but extends to the infrastructure they require. Investment in courtrooms, clerical support and digital systems is essential to enable courts to handle both fresh filings and long-pending matters effectively.
Judicial support staff: While the Supreme Court and High Courts benefit from law clerks, the trial courts, who are the backbone of the system, remain largely unsupported. Magistrates and sessions judges often lack even basic research assistance from interns. Introducing law clerks at this level would significantly improve efficiency, ensure better-informed adjudication and reduce over-reliance on assistance from the Bar.
Case management and timelines: Routine procedural steps such as filing replies, rejoinders, compilations and written submissions consume weeks if not months and waste valuable court time. These “housekeeping” stages should be governed by clear, standardised timelines for case time management, requiring minimal judicial intervention. Any deviation should be permitted only upon payment of substantial costs. This would bring discipline, clarity and substantial time savings.
Specialised magistrate courts: As mentioned before, a typical magistrate’s court is burdened with a mix of remand work, bail hearings, trials and sensitive matrimonial matters. There is no reason why such different functions must be handled by the same court. Specialised magistrate courts, with focused training and jurisdiction, would allow for more efficient and expeditious disposal across these categories.
Several additional measures may be undertaken, including scaling up alternative dispute resolution and pre-litigation mechanisms, reforming government litigation policy, curtailing indiscriminate appeals, simplifying procedural laws, etc. Such reforms are more appropriately directed at courts handling civil matters.
As noble as the Registrar-General's direction to the judicial officers of Maharashtra is, it is unlikely to have any real impact. In fact, one would most humbly argue that it might end up resulting in an outcome contrary to what one hoped for, given that it is more likely to burden the daily cause lists of the judicial officers, which in turn shall lead to chaos. Having 20 lawyers mention their matter before you each morning, requesting that their case may be taken up before the other 150 cases listed before the court is bad enough. Now imagine all these lawyers making this request whilst being armed with the Registrar General's circular. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. One can only imagine what a judicial officer will go through.
Hamza Lakdawala is an advocate practicing at the Bombay High Court.