NEW DELHI: In the season of dharnas and protests in Delhi, a Supreme Court bench led by Justice J B Pardiwala last week threatened in a lighter vein to sit on dharna at the Delhi HC main gate if by Nov 25 the govt failed to construct a foot overbridge and pedestrian paths to facilitate safe road crossing for lawyers, litigants and public.Justices Pardiwala and K V Viswanathan told additional solicitor general Vikramjit Banerjee – “If you don’t do it before the next date, both of us will be at the main gate of the HC, and we will not go home until you complete the work. That’s for sure. Baith jaayenge wahan dharna karne ke liye.”The case related to the stretch of Mathura Road near the HC and Zoological Park, where absence of a foot overbridge and pedestrian safe crossings had been flagged months ago by the SC. Amicus curiae Gaurav Agrawal informed the court on Friday that a traffic signal has been installed. But that did not satisfy the court which threatened sit-in dharna by the judges.If to get a work done for benefit of public, the SC judges, even in lighter vein, feel that dharna is a better option than issuing a mandamus to the govt, then it could have serious implications given the stark contrast between right to expeditious justice and the pendency of more than 95,000 cases in the SC. This is the view expressed by a cross-section of lawyers in lighter vein when TOI sought their responses to Justice Pardiwala’s banter.Even if one can tell litigants that they must not complain about the 36,000 cases which are pending ‘only’ for five years in the apex court which has time and again ruled that right to speedy justice is part of right to life, what would the SC tell the litigants who are waiting patiently for the balance of nearly 60,000 cases?
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If they decide to enforce their right to speedy justice through dharna at the SC, it would create a law and order situation, which an already stretched Delhi police will find it difficult to handle, the lawyers feared.What about those litigants in the HCs who have been awaiting a hearing in their cases for years together, without expecting a decision? They have been routinely told by the SC to await their chance in the HC and declined then out of turn hearing. maximum such application for a direction for early hearing pertain to the Allahabad HC, where over 12 lakh cases are pending, many for decades. If lakhs of litigants decide to hold dharnas at the HC and its bench at Lucknow, would the police be able to handle the surge of protesters?In the trial courts, the pendency is more than 5.1 crore cases, of which 47 lakh are more than 10 years old and 81 lakh are between 5-10 years-old. What if these litigants, who while awaiting justice have been drained of their finances, are physically exhausted by repeated adjournments and mentally disturbed by the pendency, decide to hold sit-in dharnas at the trial courts?
