New Year, new resolution: Fill vacancies

A column appearing on the first day of the New Year (based on the Gregorian Calendar) is a wonderful opportunity for any writer to focus on the big picture and the big issues of any subject they choose. I will, however, eschew that temptation and look at a smaller and simpler issue pertaining to the Indian economy and governance.

- PROSENJIT DATTA

The issue is about this question: Could filling up just existing vacancies in various government and regulatory bodies help the Indian economy become more productive, while also benefitting businesses and citizens? I would like to think that governance would improve dramatically if the Union government, state governments, and various regulators concentrated on this.

Take, for instance, our justice system with courts clogged by a backlog of cases running into millions. A recent report says that just in various high courts across the country, over 5.8 million cases—some 4.26 million civil matters and almost 1.6 million criminal cases—are pending.

Of this, 62,000 cases have been pending for more than 30 years. In subordinate courts, over 45 million cases are pending. Experts suggest that even if no new cases were filed, it would still take several decades for the courts to clear them.

A good part of the problem stems from the acute shortage of judges at every level. Many high courts in the country are operating with less than 50 percent of their sanctioned strength. In reply to a question in Parliament last year, Minister of State for Law and Justice (Independent Charge) Arjun Meghwal admitted that at the end of January 2024, 331 of the total sanctioned 1,114 vacancies for judges in various high courts were vacant. Similarly, there were over 5,000 vacancies across various subordinate courts in the country.