ROLE OF DISTRICT JUDGE IN IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL JUDICIAL POLICY

ROLE OF DISTRICT JUDGE IN IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL JUDICIAL POLICY* <!--[if gte mso 10]> ROLE OF DISTRICT JUDGE IN IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL JUDICIAL POLICY* By Mr. Justice Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, PhD (Law), Judge High Court of Sindh * The author has served as District and Sessions Judge in the Province of Sindh and was part of successful pilot project on delay reduction under Access to Justice Program. The first national judicial policy recently announced by the National Judicial (policy making) Committee (NJPMC) ' calls for cooperation from all the stake-holders of justice sector, for, the nation after great sacrifices has succeeded in installing an independent judiciary with the restoration of all the deposed judges of superior courts. Since now the ball is in the court of judiciary, therefore, to pay back all the five heads of the superior courts being the components of NJPMC in consultation with all stake-holders and the representatives of civil society announced the policy giving targets and goals to deal with 1704871 cases and time frame for their disposal as well as time frame for all sort of cases in future to avoid rebirth of backlog. One of the reasons of the huge pendency is the fact that there was no national body and any mechanism which could oversee the working of the courts vis-a-vis their disposal of cases. Although the provincial high courts have- been working in piece meal in this regard though some positive results were also achieved from time to time on account of policies and priorities of the chief justices of that time. Now since this policy has been announced by a statutory national policy making body, which is the apex judicial forum, the same will bear the desired fruit and the judiciary will be able to deliver what it is expected to. As it is provided in the judicial policy that major chunk of the pending cases is in District judiciary i.e. 1565926 as most of the litigation starts from the District Courts. So keeping aside the backlog issue at superior courts level, if the problem at District Court level is solved it can be said that the judiciary has removed a stigma over it because this is the forum which a common man is required to approach in case of injustice by the State functionaries or by the might(s). The District judiciary is headed by a District and Sessions Judge (D.J.) who leads a team of several subordinate Judges including Additional District and Sessions Judges, Senior Civil Judges, Civil Judges - and Judicial Magistrates. On administrative side he is the supervising officer of the District Judiciary and initiates annual confidential reports of his subordinate Judges and also inspects their courts at least once in a year. He not only holds monthly meetings with his judicial officers but also administrative officers in the district including District Police Officer and District Coordination Officer. He is the most powerful officer in his district and can implement his decisions effectively. He is therefore required to be proactive besides honest, farsighted, patient, bold and hardworking. If he plays his role of supervising officer effectively his subordinate officers are bound to work in the same fashion. Now the question is as to what role is to be played by him in the implementation of the National Judicial Policy in respect of disposal of cases at district level. The simple answer is that he is to play a pivotal role of monitoring officer in the district judiciary to monitor the working of his team members scientifically but dynamically. In the first instance he is required to prepare a work plan for the duration which the NJPMC has given for the clearance of the backlog fixing targets and goals to be completed by each Judge in his district keeping in view the No. of cases which he is required to dispose of. This work plan is to be prepared in consultation with the Judges and the office-bearers of the District and Taluka Bar Associations whose members are also committed to cooperate in implementation of the judicial policy. Once the work plan is ready the same should be notified to the Presiding Officers of the courts and the Bar Associations for the information. In order to implement the work plan it is necessary for the presiding officers of the courts to examine very minutely the' case files of all pending cases in their courts to determine that in how many cases the parties have their interest alive. They will find that there are a number of cases which are only pending for the sake of prolonging their disposal in order to fulfil his evil design on account of inaction of the presiding officer. Such cases be marked and weeded off on the first date of hearing. Each Presiding Officer is also required to notify his schedule of working indicating the time at which the cases are taken up by him for particular event i.e.; hearing, evidence, arguments, etc. By this the advocates will make themselves available to proceed with the matter and would not seek adjournment on the ground of lack of time resulting maximum output. They should also ensure that there should be no adjournment for any reason which is only possible if the dates of hearing are firm and fixed with the consultation of the concerned advocates. For that purpose the presiding officers are to involve themselves while fixing the dates keeping in view their availability on that day and number of cases already fixed. They will also be required to plan their leave schedules in advance to eliminate an adjournment factor on that account which will also inculcate confidence among the litigants and the advocates regarding firmness and certainty in the hearing dates. Each D.J. is required to open a monitoring cell in his district. The monitoring must be on daily, weekly and monthly basis through specifically designed Performa(s) by the D.J. to get the unified required data in order to prepare the required reports. It is also an important requirement of close monitoring that the D.J. must hold at least one inspection in a month of each Court of his district in order to assist the presiding officers to overcome the difficulties which they are facing in disposing of particular cases specifically the old cases in order to ensure implementation of the work plan. For that purpose if 2 hours at the end of each working day is reserved for the inspection of one Court, perhaps he would be able to monitor the working of his subordinate Judges effectively. During the, inspection he would be apprised about the difficulties which each presiding officer is facing in this regard. He can also take assistance from Additional District and Sessions Judges in case the district comprises large number of subordinate courts. The difficulties put forward by the presiding officers which require, assistance from the High Court or even Supreme Court can be highlighted during such periodical meeting which will be held periodically by these courts. On account of such close monitoring it is only possible to achieve the targets set forth in the National Judicial Policy by the NJPMC. It is however, necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the judicial policy that all the vacancies in each district must be filled in without further delay if the desired results are to be achieved, the Judges must be protected from the highhandedness of some unscrupulous members of the Bar who to pressurize presiding officers and create scene when their ill designed motives are not fulfilled. Each Presiding Officer be provided the basic implements such as typewriters, computers and the staff for performance of his functions and for this High Court is to look into immediately otherwise the Judicial Policy will remain on Papers.