By Rana Ajit, IANS
New Delhi : Judges of the higher judiciary have long enjoyed a work calendar with holidays matching those of schoolchildren, but a parliamentary panel has decided to step in and examine whether the long vacations are really necessary.
As Supreme Court and high court judges take a break during the ongoing fortnight long year-end holiday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Ministry of Law and Justice has decided to examine the need and rationality of long vacations in the apex court.
Said the panel’s Chairman and Rajya Sabha Member E.M.S. Natchiappan: “We are currently examining several issues of legal reform. We will also examine the rationality of continuing with the British legacy of long vacations in the judiciary.”
“It has also been brought to the committee’s notice that the backlog of cases in the apex court has begun rising of late. We would like to examine if vacations have a bearing on the rising trend of backlog of cases there,” Natchiappan told IANS.
He said the committee would like to examine the work schedule of judges like the time taken in hearing cases, reading various case files and laws, writing verdicts and whether long vacations aid or hinder their work.
Beginning Dec 17, the Supreme Court is officially on a winter break, nearly a week before Delhi schools called it a year. The court closed amid fiercely divided legal opinion over the need for long holidays in the judiciary, which often makes news for having more holidays than working days.
The total number of days of work for it, as per its 2007 calendar, works out to a meagre 176 out of 365 days. For the remaining 189 days, more than six months of the year, it was on holiday.
The holidays included roughly 104 Saturdays and Sundays, nearly two months of summer vacation, a week each of Diwali and Dussehra breaks, besides several other offs that ranged from a day to a week.
“Even the highest US court, where individual judges do not have to adjudicate more than 150 cases, does not have more than three to four months of holidays in a year,” said senior advocate K.K. Venugopal.
The British legacy of a long summer vacation has been continuing since independence. This year, the Supreme Court closed for summer from May 21 to July 8, compared to several schools that closed from May 15 to July 1.
While there could be a rationale for closing schools for two months in the scorching summer of Delhi, the apex court and high court judges have air-conditioned cars to commute and air-conditioned courtrooms to work in, said advocate Prashant Bhushan.
The rationale to close down courts in summer is questionable, he added.
Besides the holidays and vacations, individual judges are entitled to their own quota of leaves, according to the provisions of Supreme Court Judges’ salary and other Condition of Service Act, 1958.
Depending upon the number of years of service, they are also entitled to a certain number of off days on full salary, some on half salary and on quarter salary too.
Official data from the Department of Justice reveals that the number of cases pending in the apex court had come down to 19,806 in 1998 from a whopping 104,936 in 1991. But it’s rising again. At the beginning of 2006, it had risen to nearly 29,000 and by November 2007 it was 46,000.
Despite the rising backlog of cases, some lawyers support long vacations in the judiciary on ground of “tremendous work pressure” on judges.
“Every day, a bench of two to three judges hears around 50 cases. The cases listed on Mondays go up to 70 while it’s around 40 on Fridays. They also have to read the voluminous files every evening before hearing them the next day,” said a lawyer.
He added: “They also need time to write judgments, which cannot be written in open courts. And they end up doing all these work during holidays or vacations, which they deserve.”
But Venugopal disagreed: “It’s true that Supreme Court judges do a lot of work even at home. Yet, the apex court needs to arrest the rising trend of the backlog of cases and reducing their long vacations may be one way out.”