SH Kapadia
The Supreme Court will form a constitution bench of five judges to frame guidelines for media coverage of the court and its proceedings following a news report on Tuesday.
Legally India’s Pendency Project has made its debut in Mint today, after pending Supreme Court cases in November 2011 reached the highest number ever after increasing by more than 800.
Mint has summarised the revolutionary case pendency stats prepared by the Supreme Court in a concise chart, while Legally India asked two academics researching case pendency for comment on Kapadia’s Law Day speech and the new figures.
Lawyers & systems cause 71% of Supreme Court delays, are biggest culprits in ‘miscellaneous matters’
More than two thirds of cases pending in the Supreme Court – nearly 40,000 – were stuck not because of judges but due to procedural delays, including unpaid fees, unserved notice or documents not filed by counsel, according to detailed data released for the first time by the court as a result of its exercise in cataloguing court delays.
Supreme Court Postcard: Chief Justice SH Kapadia does not preside over the Chief Justice’s Court so much as dominate its vaulting, almost cavernous interiors with his presence. In part his impact is a product of his voice - a booming thunder somewhere between tenor and baritone - which is what you’d expect to hear from the Grand Inquisitor as you are confronted with heresies you have allegedly committed.
But if Kapadia is to have a place of pride in Indian judicial history – and everything so far signifies that he might - it will be for his administrative role as the Chief Justice of India even more than for his purely judicial output. Like Hercules before him Kapadia is in the midst of cleaning the Augean Stables that the Supreme Court of India has become under his predecessors but only part of the task is done.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) S H Kapadia has initiated the transfer of 20 high court judges, citing “public interest” in an apparent first step by him to clean up the judiciary.