Guwahati: Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan has called on trial courts to undertake a special drive to weed out frivolous criminal cases, saying their proliferation is placing an unworkable burden on the justice system.
Speaking on ‘Ethics in criminal litigation and the duties of the defence and the prosecution’ at the fourth discourse organised by the Centre for Discourses on Criminal and Constitutional Jurisprudence at the India International Centre in New Delhi on Thursday, September 17, Justice Bhuyan said criminal cases were being registered on increasingly frivolous grounds.
He cited instances involving people for consuming food, reciting poems, participating in demonstrations, raising slogans, commenting on social media and performing as stand-up comedians. Cases were also being registered over the titles and contents of books and films, he said, according to Bar and Bench.
“The accusations are ridiculous and often borders on an affront to one’s intelligence. Nonetheless, registration of such criminal cases continues unabated; not only that, in some cases chargesheets are also filed leading to trial,” Justice Bhuyan said.
He called for trial courts to launch a special drive to identify and weed out such cases.
Justice Bhuyan also referred to data from the National Judicial Data Grid, which showed that 4.27 crore criminal cases were pending across courts in India as of September 17.
Of these, 4.07 crore cases, or 95.31%, were pending before trial courts, while 19.84 lakh, or 4.64%, were before high courts. The Supreme Court had 22,143 pending criminal cases, according to the data cited by him.
“When you have so many cases clogging the court system with the system unable to cope with it, almost bursting at the seams, super-imposition of such frivolous cases has only added to the unworkable burden on the trial courts,” Justice Bhuyan said.
He said such cases were adding to the difficulties faced by the justice system and contributing to what he described as an “object of ridicule before the liberal democratic world”.
“The sooner we do it, the better it is for all of us,” he said.
Justice Bhuyan also stressed that lawyers should not place the outcome of a case above the integrity of the legal process.
“A prosecutor who hides evidence to secure a conviction and a defence lawyer who tampers with a witness to secure an acquittal commit the same wrong: placing outcome above the process,” he said.