Thesis on The Court

Slow functioning of The Indian Judicial System

Nikita Mertia | English II | Niyati Sharma | 17-04-22

The Court
The court is a movie by Chaitanya Tamhane released in the year 2015. This movie
highlights various issues one faces through out a court proceeding. The issue I will be
focusing upon here is about how the many resources and invaluable time of the judiciary,
the advocates, the witnesses, and the parties is wasted just because there is no efficient
working by the few components of the entire situation.

The Thesis

The court is an important part of the life of an individual. Anywhere, anytime an

individual faces an issue, he runs up to the court to demand justice. Who gives these
powers to the judiciary? The Legal rules, policies or code of conduct is written down in the
national books like the Constitution, CRPC and many more. They are more commonly
known as the laws of the country. These laws give an unaccountable amount of power to
the judiciary system whose duty is to resolve problems between the citizens of the country
using and in accordance with the laws.

The judiciary takes an incredibly long time to resolve just one dispute. People must wait
for years to get justice and a verdict on small cases. Why does this happen? Wherever and
whenever, there are disputes among various parties, it is said ‘I will see you in court’ Why
is it that always people rely on the courts to provide them justice? Even so why does it
take so long for the judiciary to give out judgments? But it takes a prolonged amount of
time as we saw in the movie ‘Court.’ This is due to the incompetence of various bodies and
parties related to the case, in this scenario, the police. Every time the advocates and
suspect are given a new date for the hearing because there may be no proper evidence, or
the witness is not ready to appear before the court.

This not only wastes the time of the judges but also the resources that can be used for
other cases and increases the waiting time for pending cases. Could these resources be
saved? Could the related bodies and parties save that time and work efficiently? And is
there only on reason to the slow working of the courts? If the police start working

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efficiently, the time used up in the same cases can be reduced. The slow working of the
judiciary is not only because of inefficient working of the police but also numerous other
reasons like corruption, loose laws, the extremely low judge to population ratio and the
interference of politics in the working of courts.

1. Corruption
Corruption has eaten away the Indian government bodies like a termite. It is now
based in every individual through out the country. Corruption has affected the
judicial bodies in ways more than one can think off. The parties of a case bribe
many judges to get a judgement in their favour. This undermines the very essence
of justice but sadly, is a reality one cannot ignore. In the same grounds, even police
officers investigating a certain case are bribed to hide the true facts from the
judges and media and get people arrested who have no fault, to show they are the
culprits. There are many movies in the Indian cinema that highlight this fact. If
one focuses on the movie Court, the police officers here have introduced stock
witnesses to make their work easier, and the work of the Judiciary difficult. When
the parties do not get justice, they apply again to the higher courts, and this only
increases the line of pending cases in India. Therefore, corruption is a harmful
disease eating up the Indian judiciary.

2. Loose laws
Indian laws have many loopholes in them which are used by advocates to make
sure that the judgement is in favor of their client. Loose laws also make it difficult
for judges to make appropriate judgements, And the culprits roam free on the
roads. Even in the Jessica Lal Murder case, the high influence of the culprit made it
extremely easy for him to escape hearings and produce false witnesses. He was
able to do all this because of the lengthy court proceedings and loopholes in the
Indian laws. This is the perfect example of how “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Many times, the witnesses when summoned to the court do not appear and keep
wasting the time of the courts. This has again been highlighted in the movie Court,
where even after the witness does not respect the court summons and does not

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 show up the court take no action against them. Also, the policemen who present
stock and false witnesses, are not punished by the courts for such an atrocity. Even
though this has happened innumerable times the government or the courts do not
fine the witnesses for wasting time. This keeps going on and time is continued to
be wasted with no measure from the courts.

3. The exceptionally low judge to population ratio

The judge to population ratio in India is a mere 21.03 judges to a million people as
per 2020. This shows that there are not enough judges in the Indian courts to take
up with the number of cases in India. This only increases the backlog as there are
less judges and slow working of the courts and a high number of cases. There are
over four crore cases pending in India today. Apart from a smaller number of
judges to investigate cases, there are numerous public holidays which has led to
the working days being not more than two hundred days for judges. As looking at
the conditions of the judiciary system in India, the government should cut down
unnecessary holidays and work towards reducing the piles of pending cases. As
judges have fixed amounts of salary, and numerous allowances, they do not work
as hard as they need to and therefore their working efficiency reduces. The
judiciary examination pattern and reservation has only led to decreasing the
judges in India, where it should be the opposite. The judges in India work looking
at the clocks and as soon as is strikes five they pack up and leave not caring
whether the case is completed or not. Such behavior results in increasingly
pending cases and less care given towards them by judges. The Bhopal gas tragedy
is yet another example where the judges took more than 15 years to pass a
judgement. The victims who had suffered have awaited judgements and justice
and eventually lost all hopes. This show how judges are indifferent to the plight of
the common people.

4. Interference of politicians in the working of the courts

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 Often politicians interfere in court proceedings when someone of their known or
family is involved in court cases. They try to influence the decisions of the judges
and manipulate them with their powers. Politicians engage the courts in false cases
or cases with sheer importance to divert the attention from main cases to other
unimportant ones. There have been unimportant and baseless cases fought in the
court by different state governments like ‘dahi-handi to not exceed twenty feet’
and many more. And very often government keep challenging court decisions
because they want to do what they think is the best. The Karnataka government
has openly defied the court judgements in the Cauvery water dispute without any
consequences. This leads not only to wastage of resources, but also undermines
the power of the courts in the eyes of public and forbids the people from justice to
which they are entitled.

The Conclusion

After looking at various issues faced by the courts, we can conclude that all these issues
can be resolved if the Indian government comes in form. There are many measures they
can take up to ensure the courts work in their code of conduct and are not driven by self-
motive only. The judges should be stripped off their benefits if they do not work efficiently
and solve as many cases as they can. The governments should also try and recruit as many
judges as possible to increase the judges to population ratio. it is vital for the better
functioning of courts and will also help in reducing the backlog cases in the courts.
Everyone should be treated equally in the house of justice, and no one should have
privileges because of their power position and money. There should be high penalties for
people and judges who indulge in bribery. Governments should try and eradicate
corruption as much as possible because it is making the public bodies of India hollow.
Politicians should always be kept away from courts and must be mandatory for every
citizen of India to accept judgements by the courts and no one should have the authority
of defying them. Also there needs to be a cutting down of public holidays offered to the
judges as they need to give their valuable time into solving pending cases because of the

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slow working of courts. It is nothing but an unnecessary luxury. We need to restore the
meaning and status of courts in India because the government and people have started
taking it very lightly. And our undermining the true essence and meaning of justice. An
ounce of duty even falls on the advocates. Advocates should make sure that their clients
are not following a wrong path and should help courts reduce their burden. Advocates
should be able to resolve a dispute or an argument between the parties outside court with
settlements from the mutual consent of the parties that are beneficial to both.

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The Review

The incorporation of the saying in the introduction is aptly justifying the cause of the
thesis and is used in good sense. The thesis is well written, and constantly keeps referring
to the play by Dario Fo providing enough evidence. But there is not enough evidence from
outside the play. There is only one incident constantly being highlighted, where other
cases or incidents could be used. Also, the mention of the excerpt of Merchant of Venice
does not quite link the thesis to the example. The paragraph talks about how the judiciary
is cohorts with the executives, where as the excerpt talks about why a punishment is so
violent.

The passage does not contain remedies on how these atrocities by the policemen can stop
or how can they be controlled. It tells us what the issue is but does not suggest ways that
this can be stopped from happening again. How the policemen can be held accountable
for their actions remains a mystery.

The otherwise use of quotes and sayings makes the essay interesting and a good read.

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