Madhya Pradesh High Court dismisses challenge to scheme for disposal of oldest cases in district courts

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently dismissed petitions challenging a scheme under which district courts in the State were ordered to dispose of the 25 oldest pending cases every three months. [OBC Advocate Welfare Association v. High Court of Madhya Pradesh] .The High Court's decision to introduce the scheme had prompted lawyers to go on strike in March this year, with the State Bar Council members even meeting the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. That meeting ended with the CJI assuring the lawyers of redressal of their concerns and requesting them to call off their strike.However, the OBC Advocate Welfare Association and Advocate Union for Democracy and Social Justice challenged the scheme before the High Court, arguing that except the legislature, nobody can prescribe any time limit to decide cases. .Sad day for the State: Madhya Pradesh High Court warns lawyers of contempt action if they do not end strike.A Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh said that the aim of the scheme framed by the High Court was to provide speedy justice to litigants.The scheme strikes the right balance between administrative efficiency and the legal protection of the rights of the citizens, the Court held."Scheme is to make the judicial officers answerable and accountable. Their hardships have been taken into consideration and, therefore, three provisions have been introduced, namely, that of carry forward by one quarter, not including the cases in which there is stay by a superior court in the list of 25 oldest cases and thirdly, factoring in the time which is spent by a Judge in holding a Link Court, etc. for which principle of proportionality has been applied," the judgment stated..The '25 debt scheme' called for a list of 25 cases for each quarter be prepared and a consolidated list of 100 cases for a year be sent to the Registry of the High Court. Undisposed cases out of the oldest 25 cases by the end of the year 2022 would be carried forward to the first quarter of the year 2023, which will be in addition to the 25 oldest cases of first quarter of 2023.Cases of the first quarter could be carried forward to the next quarter in case the disposal of 25 cases in the first quarter was not possible for various reasons..The Court opined that the scheme was aimed towards those litigants who were standing in the queue with no clue of the existence of any light at the end of the tunnel. “If he is given a hope, a dream that even he could get his justice quickly then the application of scheme which fulfills the aspirations of a common litigant, cannot be snatched away in the name of personal inconveniences to the body of Advocates who have failed to bring on record any empirical data to support their case.".Observing that the petitioners had failed to show how the scheme prejudiced the lawyer community or litigants, the Court said that expecting more efficiency in the system and taking measures to achieve the same cannot be said to be violative of Article 21 of the Constitution.The Court went on to observe that petitions had been filed in utter haste without undertaking any empirical study..On delays in the court system, the Court noted,“Studies which have been undertaken to understand the underlying reasons for delay apart from undefined huge pendency on account of poor Judge-Population ratio and inadequate infrastructure, also takes into consideration that due to independence of judiciary, some Judges think that they are not accountable to anyone due to which many a times they are drived towards comfort, etc. resulting in delay in the system.”The Court further said that nobody can be allowed to escape from the net of the system merely on account of delay and laches. Merely prescribing a roster for disposal of 25 oldest cases was not violative of fundamental rights, it added.It also highlighted that the scheme was introduced in 2022 and there was no challenge to the original scheme. .In conclusion, the Court said with passage of time, the High Court has improvised the scheme after taking into consideration realities as have emerged from time to time.“Thus, it is not the case of the petitioner that High Court has failed to take into consideration, difficulties of the judicial officers or the Advocates and on that ground also, petitions deserve to be and are hereby dismissed,” it added..Advocate Rameshwar Singh Thakur represented the petitioners.Deputy Advocate General Ashish Anand Bernard represented the State..[Read Judgment]