EP119: Backlogged Courts — Is The Judiciary Or Government To Blame?

The total number of pending cases in courts exceeds 5 crore, with the government being the largest litigant, accounting for 50% of these cases. Of the total pending cases, 85% are concentrated in district courts alone.Nikhil Mehra, a Supreme Court lawyer, and Abhishek Dwivedi, a lawyer practicing before the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, break down the various problems facing the courts in fast-tracking the huge pile of pending cases and the solutions for them in this episode of What This Means with Diksha Yadav.01:13 - Understanding why the govt is a major litigant 04:47 - What's the way out for cases where the govt is the litigant? 10:00 - The challenges at the district courts 19:00 - What's hampering the recruitment of judges in lower courts? 30:00 - Video conferencing and technology adoption in various states 37:30 - Use of tech for organizing, streamlining procedures, and speeding up pending cases while avoiding unnecessary delays 47:25 - The reality of pending cases 50:25 - The repealing of 2000 obsolete laws - does it matter? 57:12 - The next few months won't be that great for the judiciary 57:45 - With NJAC, we may end up replacing judicial turf control with feudal turf control