Expressing her concern over mounting backlog of court cases, President Pratibha Patil on Saturday said that this might lead a revolt by the common man by taking the law into his own hands and trigger the culture of mob lynching.

Delivering a seminar on Judicial Reform organised by Confederation of Indian Bars at Vigyan Bhawan here, Mrs Patil said, “The foremost problem to be tackled is the huge swell in the volume of litigation. Congestion in courts has become a daunting challenge. Case disposals are excruciatingly time consuming.”

However, Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan blamed the government for the increasing number of the cases saying it was due to “lack of proper facilities and good governance”.

‘Delay frustrates’

With a caution to the judiciary, the head of the state said, “The agonising delay has rendered the common man’s knock on the doors of justice, a frustrating experience. This has ominous portents. We cannot allow a situation where the common man is tempted to take the law into his own hands and subscribe to the deviant culture of lynch mob.”

Justice Balakrishnan said, “Lack of proper and good governance largely contributes to the number of cases in subordinate courts all over the country.”

Bad governance

He said due to lack of good governance, many people are forced to take recourse to judiciary for redressal of their grievances. If the decision making authorities took firm, independent and impartial decisions, the citizens would not normally be driven to litigations.

The Chief Justice said in a majority of the cases, either the Central or the state governments are one of the parties either filing the case or defending the case.

The Chief Justice said that with the implementation of National Minimum Court Performance Standards (NMCPS), more than five per cent of the cases in courts would be decided in a year.

He said the NMCPS, developed by the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, in consultation with the National Informatics of India (NIC), would incorporate ingredients like computerised monitoring of progress in trial of cases.