Lawyers too need Holidays - Not in favour of 365 working days
THE Supreme Court Bar Association has virtually opposed the proposed 365 days of working by Courts. The Bar Association President in a letter to the Chief justice of India states members of the bar cannot possibly work for 365 days as no human being can or should work 365 days.
However the Association has suggested certain measures for clearing the increasing backlog of cases in our courts.
1. Fill up of all the posts of Judges in all courts on the day of vacancy: As on date the Supreme Court has 5 vacancies. For High Courts throughout the country, the approved strength of Judges is 875, as on 1st April, 2014 the working strength has been 623 and therefore the vacancies as on 1st April, 2014 are 252. Against the sanctioned strength of 17,715 Judges, more than 3,300 posts are vacant.
2. Punctuality of the Judges to work in Court room full time is very essential: Punctuality of working in the Court rooms on time and for the full time must be strictly followed by all the Judges throughout the country. It is well known that some Judges come late, taking tea breaks, break for signing orders etc. during working hours and there is no control on this.
3. Strikes by lawyers: The strike by lawyers is another reason for arrears. There can be no justification for going on strike by lawyers except in rarest of rare cases because it affects their own clients and it affects their image also.
4. Governments as litigants: The Governments central as well as state and statutory authorities etc. in most of their litigations always go right up to the Hon'ble Supreme Court. This many times happens because the officers making these decisions have a fear that, if they do not go up to Supreme Court somebody may make allegations against them.