Report No. 14

8. The following statement shows the state of work in the High Court since the year 1949:-

Statement Showing Details of The Proceedings Pending On 1st January, 1957 According To The Year Of Institution

		1949	1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	Remarks
No. of Judges		9	12+1	12	12	12	13	14	14
		Judge appointment under Art. 224.
First Appeals against Decrees	I	400	490	574	497	439	552	726
	D	361	216	287	297	300	262	285	401
	P	1306	1580	1867	2067	2206	2496	2736	3088
Second Appeals against Decrees	I	2209	2272	1785	1376	1568	1881	2014	1502
	D	434	309	323	293	445	359	359	421
	P	426	591	692	804	846	914	973	987
Appeals against decisions of a single judge in Appellate jurisdiction	I	25	28	23	6	20	28	12	35
	D	24	13	43	7	4	35	6	35
	P	34	49	29	28	44+6	43	50	50
						Special appeals				I-Institution D-Disposal and P-Pendency
Civil Revisions	I	955	919	859	863	1059	1135	1231	1198
	D	925	864	878	697	805	1187	1173	961
	P	343	398	379	545	799	747	805	1042
Writs	I						413	418	616
	D						405	761	468
	P					335	343	373	521
Criminal Appeals	I	630	616	544	578	743	582	536	654
	D	564	325	660	481	625	487	622	503
	P	161	452	330	427	545	640	554	705
Criminal Revisions	I	1642	1764	1321	1277	1597	1401	1374	1328
	D	1734	1514	1293	1193	1306	1732	1499	1255
	P	60	310	338	422	713	382	257	330

The congestion of work in the High Court is distressing. Disposals have failed to keep pace with institutions in nearly every branch of work. The number of pending proceedings particularly first and second appeals is staggering. A fair number of criminal appeals are over a year old appeals. The following statement, which indicates the year of the institution of the proceedings pending on 1st January, 1957 gives an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

Statement showing details of the proceedings pending on 1st January, 1957 According to the year of institution

Year	First appeals	Second appeals	Appeals against orders	Civil revisions	Miscellaneous judicial cases including writs	Criminal appeals	Criminal revisions
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1944	..	...	..	..	..	..	..
1945	..	..	..	..	..	..	..
1946	1	..	..	..	..	..	..
1947	18	..	..	..	..	..	..
1948	155	1	..	1	..	..	..
1949	219	34	..	..	..	..	..
1950	257	127	2	2	..	..	..
1951	315	284	32	..	1	..	..
1952	301	803	99	4	10	..	..
1953	262	825	129	41	14	..	..
1954	419	943	162	110	33	24	6
1955	452	1085	229	330	150	170	23
1956	689	1087	334	554	533	511	301
Total	3088	5189	987	1042	741	705	330

When we visited Patna in November 1957, we were told that the High Court was then still dealing with First Appeals instituted in the year 1949 and Second Appeals instituted in 1952 and 1953. It is a matter of regret that this progressive accumulation of arrears should have been allowed to continue without any addition to the strength of the court particularly between 1950 and 1954. The highest disposal of First Appeals in any single year was in 1956, when 401 First Appeals were disposed of. Similarly the largest number of Second Appeals disposed of in any one year was 2,734 in 1949. Even if disposals are maintained at these figures, it would take the High Court over seven years to dispose of the First Appeals and nearly two years to dispose of the Second Appeals pending at the end of the year 1956.

We have not got the figures of average duration for the years 1955 and 1956, but the gravity of the problem can be appreciated from the fact, that in 1953 the average duration of a contested First Appeal was 2151 days i.e., about 6 years and in 1954 it was 1,877 days, i.e., about 5 years and 2 months. Even uncontested First Appeals take about three years for disposal. The average duration of Second Appeals in 1954 was 1,504 days i.e., a little over 4 years. The state of work in this High Court strikingly illustrates the fact that in our country greater delays occur at the appellate stage and particularly in the High Courts. The following Tables clearly bring this out:-

Year	Average duration in days of a contested suit in a Munsif's Court	Average duration in days of Civil Appeal in District Courts	Average duration in days of Second Appeal	Total time taken
1954	504	D. J. 658	1504	2666 = 7 years
		S. J. 349		4 months.
				2357 = 6 years
				6 months.

Year	Average duration in days of a Contested Suit in Subordinate Judge's Court	Average duration in days of First Appeal	Total time taken
1954	763	1887	2640 = 7 years.

This sad state of affairs excited strong and naturally better comment. It appears to us that these delays are likely to persist notwithstanding the recent increase in the strength of the court as the increased number will be just enough to enable the court to keep pace with current institutions.

9. When we visited Patna, we were informed that at least 10 Additional Judges for a year or 5 Additional Judges for two years would be necessary to wipe out the accumulated arrears. This estimate was worked out on the basis that on an average, a Judge in Bihar is able to dispose of about 550 cases (Criminal and Civil) per year. The total number of cases pending at the end of 1956 was about 12,317. Of these, about 7,000 would be disposed of by the 14 permanent Judges; the balance of over 5,000 cases would need for their disposal about 10 Judges in one year or 5 Judges in 2 years.

It is possible that this might turn out to be an underestimate as over 3,000 first appeals are pending and of these nearly 2,000 must be over two years old. It is uncertain whether .a single judge or a Bench could dispose of 500 of these appeals which are all likely to be contested in a year. It cannot be said that the judges are not alive to the need for expedition. In fact we were told by some members of the Bar that the existence of a large volume of arrears in the High Court had greatly affected the psychology of Judges who tried to dispose of matters without giving a patient hearing to the advocates.

Recently, the High Court has amended the rules, to enable a single Judge to hear all Second Appeals, First Appeals against decrees upto Rs. 10,000 and against orders upto Rs. 20,000, and all civil revisions irrespective of the value. He is also empowered to hear criminal appeals in cases, in which the substantive sentence passed does not exceed 10 years and also writ petitions against the orders of the Panchayat Courts. This step should go a long way in economising judge power and expediting disposal. Although there was not much opposition at the Bar to the enhancement of the powers of a single judge, some senior members of the Bar expressed the view that such work was not unoften assigned to very junior judges and that Benches of junior judges were also common.

While there might undoubtedly be difficulty in view of the recent increase in the strength of the High Court in finding a sufficient number of senior judges for all the categories of work in which their services would be desirable, yet we feel that an effort should be made to entrust as far as possible all single judge work to a senior judge and to have at least one experienced judge in each Bench. Another measure which is bound to give immediate relief to the High Court is the enhancement of the appellate jurisdiction of the District Judge to Rs. 10,000 and the transfer of all appeals below that value pending in the High Court to the District Courts.

We understand that out of the 3,088 first appeals pending in the High Court about 2,000 are valued below Rs. 10,000. The transfer of these appeals to the District Courts should largely relieve the congestion in the High Court. It is necessary to emphasise that the cadre of District Judges must be strengthened for this purpose and additional District Judges appointed to dispose of the transferred appeals. An increase in the single judges jurisdiction to Rs. 15,000 might also have beneficial results.

10. Functions of Registrar.-

We have noticed earlier that the Registrar of this court is empowered to admit Second Appeals and have expressed ourselves against the continuance of this practice.

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