Report No. 14

15. State of file in District Courts.-

The following statement shows the civil and criminal work done by District Judges and Additional District Judges during the years 1954-56.

District and Sessions Judges and Additional District and Sessions Judges and Assistant Sessions Judges

Criminal Work

		Session Cases							Criminal Appeals			Civil and Revisions
Year	Pending at the beginning of the year	Instituted	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institution	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Instituted	Disposal	Balance
				Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
1954	467	1437	1393	505	6	1845	5939	5828	1908	18	N.A.	3404	3313	628	58
1955	511	1527	1308	652	6	1926	5365	5699	1560	32	686	3153	3158	776	37
1956	658	1702	1725	622	12	1592	5481	5454	1552	67	813	2719	3434	1066	12

Note.- These figures have been supplied by the High Court of Patna. There are however some discrepancies in these figures.

It will be seen from this statement that the civil work is very much in arrears. The average duration of a contested suit in 1954 in the court of a District Judge was 1114 days, that is, a little less than 3 years. This was the highest in India during that year.

The Subordinate Judges share with the District and Additional District judges a great deal of their civil appellate and sessions work. This will appear from the following two statements.

Civil Appeals

District Judge

	Civil Suits					Misc. Civil cases and petitions					Civil Appeals					Civil Misc. Appeals
Year	Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions Disposal	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions	Disposal	Balance
				Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	10	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21
1954	145	64	104	43	52	1281	2294	2143	1109	314	4316	4877	1462	2694	931	654	1376	785	668	53
1955	95	89	97	53	34	1423	2757	2231	1398	472	3625	4727	1604	2780	517	721	1510	869	622	39
1956	87	91	52	63	56	1865	2875	2548	1619	499	3533	4178	2009	2455	534	680	1489	967	640	55

It will be seen from this statement that the civil work is very much in arrears. The average duration of a contested suit in 1954 in the court of a District Judge was average was 1114 days, that is, a little less than 3 years. This was the highest in India during that year.

The Subordinate Judges share with the District and Additional District judges a great deal of their civil appellate and sessions work. This will appear from the following two statements.

Civil Appeals

			Regular Civil Appeals			Misc. Civil Appeals
Year	District Judges	Sub Judges	Total	District judges	Sub Judges	Total
1954	1,462	4,777	6,239	785	708	1,493
1955	1604	4,676	6,280	869	838	1,707
1956	2,009	3,330	5,339	967	646	1,613

Sessions Cases

Year	Committed during the year	No. of cases disposed of	Disposed of by District judges	Disposed of by Assistant Sessions judges	No. of cases pending at the end of the year	Average duration from the date of Commitment
1951	1,447	1,317	830	487	568	127.1
1952	1,518	1473	890	583	608	147.7
1,953	1,488	1,629	949	680	469	139.9
1954	1,459	1,407	812	595	519	124.9

Notwithstanding the fact that a substantial number of civil appeals are disposed of by subordinate judges, there is long delay in the disposal of regular appeals in the courts of District Judges. The average duration of a contested appeal in the district courts in the year 1954 was 658 days, being the highest in India during that year. As against this, the average duration in the courts of subordinate judges was 349 days.

It is quite evident that in spite of the assistance given by the subordinate judges, the existing strength of the higher judiciary is unable to cope with even the current institutions, leaving aside the mass of arrears that have already accumulated both on the civil and the criminal side. The enhancement of the appellate jurisdiction of district judges suggested by us will therefore necessitate an increase in their numbers.

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