Our courts are not in good health?  

Ours being a young democracy, the dependence on courts is tremendous

But the experts have raised concerns that our court system is not in good health.

We have very few judges for very many litigants, and our judges are overburdened.

The infrastructure of our trial courts is inadequate, and the quality of trial judges is generally poor.

This results in a shameful amount of pendency, and overflowing dockets.

The average high court judge is looking at a list of more than fifty matters a day and it requires a superhuman effort for a judge to keep track of so many hundreds of matters a week.

It's difficult to remember the facts, to hear arguments and ultimately to write a well thought out, reasoned order which balances rights and does justice.

What happens to the matters which are not heard that day?

An adjournment is given for the matter to be heard on some future date.

Adjournments in our system can be crucial, so crucial as to make or destroy cases.

There are cases where one party needs urgent relief because their interest is in danger.

When a court says that it will not hear the matter for the next three weeks there is always the potential for the matter to go beyond repair before the court even adjudicates the question.

Where the clock is ticking against a party, the court should be conscious and alert.

It needs to address the fact that those questions must absolutely be decided immediately.

Increasingly, there is a tendency to decide hard questions by adjourning them.

Both private and government parties use this tactic ruthlessly.

The ad hoc procedure has replaced so much of what is laid down in law.

Even where it appears that the government has erred, the court has shown a pattern of deferring adjourning and otherwise leaving the issue aside until it has lost the importance it had.

Experts fear that the judiciary has lost its independence and  fearlessness that it needs to check the executive and the legislature.