Time to think of national-level judicial recruitment: CJI Chandrachud

New Delhi, Sept 1 (PTI) Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Sunday batted for a national-level recruitment process for judicial services, saying the time has come to move beyond the "narrow walls of regionalism and state-centred selections".

Speaking at the valedictory ceremony of the 'National Conference of the District Judiciary', the CJI was of the view that attracting skilled personnel was key to tackling the high pendency of cases and stressed the need to standardise the recruitment calendar across the country to ensure that the vacancies are filled up timely.

"Our current national average disposal rate stands at 95 per cent. Despite progress, tackling pending cases remains a challenge. Increasing our disposal-to-filing ratio hinges on attracting skilled personnel.

At the district level, vacancies in judicial personnel stand at 28 per cent and of non-judicial staff at 27 per cent, he said, adding that for the disposals to outweigh the institution of cases the courts must work beyond the capacity of 71 per cent to 100 per cent.

"To fill the vacancies, the conference deliberated upon the criteria for selection of judges and standardising the recruitment calendars for all vacancies. The time has come now to think of national integration by recruiting members to the judicial services across the narrow walls of regionalism and state-centred selections," the CJI said.

Chandrachud informed that the Centre for Research and Planning of the Supreme Court of India has been preparing a white paper to integrate the state-level training modules at the State Judicial Academy with national and international best practices.

"Currently, some of the courses at the State Judicial Academies have a robust curriculum while the others focus on re-engaging a newly qualified judge with law subjects. We are in the process of setting up a systematic, nationwide curriculum for judicial training and harnessing technology to track our progress.

"The new curriculum promises to bring innovative training methods, a thematic framework, uniformity in training calendars, integrating judicial training with IT, recasting the National Judicial Academy to fill knowledge gaps and most importantly to establish a feedback and assessment methodology," he said.

The CJI said justice delivery is an essential service provided by courts to citizens, especially the most vulnerable.

He said efforts in the past decade have modernised the judiciary, aiming for a tech-savvy and accessible infrastructure such as trained personnel, spacious court complexes, facilitation centres, e-seva kendras, medical facilities and creches.

"Just a day before we inaugurated a new creche which enhances our capacity from twenty infants to over a hundred infants. This reflects the changing demographic of our judiciary. The young are progressively taking over the reins," he said.

Chandrachud said the committee on reducing arrears of cases comprising Justice AS Oka, Vikram Nath and Dipankar Datta has skillfully laid out an action plan for reducing case pendency through case management.

"The three stages of the action plan include the preparatory stage of forming district-level case management committees to identify target cases, undated cases, and reconstruction of records.

"The second stage which is ongoing aims to resolve cases which have been pending before the courts for 10-20 years, 20-30 years and more than 30 years.

"From January to June 2025, the judiciary shall execute the third phase of clearing the backlogs of cases pending for over a decade in the courts. This effort requires an intricate co-ordination of various applications and data management systems to plan and track our strategies," he said.

The CJI said other strategies for dealing with the backlog include pre-litigation dispute resolution.

The Supreme Court of India recently conducted its first-ever Lok Adalat at which almost one thousand cases were disposed of amicably within five working days, he said.

"There is no reason for cases that can be settled between the parties to languish before the courts for lengthy periods. The courts undoubtedly are a forum for upholding the rule of law and dispensing justice under the law.

"However, alternative strategies such as Lok Adalat and mediations provide us with an avenue to introspect whether an adversarial proceeding is even required between the parties," he said.

Pointing that the well-being of judges -- both personal and professional -- has a vital stake in the overall health of the judicial institution, the CJI said judges deal with distress that affects them mentally and physically.

"Addressing this issue requires us to recognise the unique stressors of judicial work, enabling a robust support system and prioritizing mental health and wellness initiatives. We must start by destigmatising the conversation around mental health and fostering an open and supportive environment for our judges to function.

"Judicial wellness is not a personal concern, but a democratic imperative for upholding the rule of law and maintaining public confidence.

"With that view in mind, we have dedicated an entire session at this conference to judicial wellness. We heard from the head of the Government's flagship project, the Ayush hospital at Sarita Vihar, who gave us her words of wisdom and knowledge," he said.

CJI Chandrachud said the perceived gap between the district judiciary and the High Courts must be bridged.

The CJI said an environment of open, frank and wholistic communication between judicial officers and High Court judges is vital in achieving fair transfer policies, equitable distribution of work and transparency in promotion and assessment.

Inspecting or administrative judges must ensure that their process of evaluating judicial officers is based on data collected over a period of time and not through mere inspections on designated days, he said.

"The purpose we seek to achieve by this is to instil a sense of ownership and belonging in members of the district judiciary who are entitled to be judged based on their long-term and consistent performance," he said.

Observing that the district judiciary is the backbone of our institution, the CJI said these last two days have allowed them to revisit the state of the judiciary and deliberate on constructive solutions that could be acted upon in the immediate and long-term future. PTI