SANT KUMAR SHARMA
Jammu: It refers to written CIC-verdict dated 10.12.2015 in appeal-number CIC/SM/A/2013/001269 wherein Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) upheld a RTI response from the Supreme Court. The response from the apex court of the country declared that nobody in independent India has some authentic information regarding start of practice of long summer vacate ons.
Yes, long vacations for judicial functioning at Supreme Court even though its registry works like governmentoffices during long court vacations. The CIC did not find it fit to revert back RTI petition to Department of Justice for tracing origin of long court-vacations.
These are said to have continued as some British legacy when British judges in India were privileged with such long court-vacations. This helped them avoid hot Indian weather and also to facilitate them to visit their homes in England. Earlier also, we had raised this issue to create awareness among masses, the judiciary and the fraternity of lawyers.
However, the issue did not evoke much response and its pros and cons were not debated. The idea of raising this issue in public domain was to get it practically, and critically examined.
The idea still is valid and relevant even today as we have a long history of pending cases in courts at different levels. At every level in the courts, the list of pending cases is usually long. Be it lower courts, district courts, session courts, or high courts, it takes years to decide a case. Any case. The litigants are not handed over the verdicts or years together.
Consequently, they suffer. This facility, which costs a lot, in terms of working days lost, unfortunately, continues in free India. Even after about seven long decades of independence, that too with long pendency of court-cases. A long-pending recommendation of the Law Commission has been for scrapping long court-vacations.
This recommendation is being continuously ignored by those who can change the status quo. The Union Ministry of Law & Justice should immediately scarp any privileged vacations for courts. It should also ensure a common pattern of holidays all the way, from the Supreme Court to lower courts. Instead of closing work at courts altogether for long court-vacations, judges can be given vacations by rotation like exists system for Professors at medical colleges.
The Supreme Court calendar shows week-long vacations each for Holi, Dussehra, Muharram and Diwali, apart from fortnight-long winter-vacations for Christmas Day and New Year. If all other sections of society have no such facility of long festival-breaks and summer-vacations, is it justified for the Supreme Court and other courts to have such a privilege?
A regular five-member Bench of the Supreme Court has been hearing about the working of validity of National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) from 08.06.2015. Even during summer vacations the case continued to be heard on a regular basis. This show that courts can very well function without long court-vacations, if they want to.