By PTI
NEW DELHI: The year 2021 ended for the law ministry with a major push for electoral reforms and saw 120 high court and nine new Supreme Court judges being appointed.
Despite efforts to appoint eligible candidates as high court judges, 23 names reiterated by the Supreme Court for appointment as judges to various high courts are pending with the government since 2018.
The government will have to take a call on the issue in the coming year.
During this calendar year, 120 new judges were appointed to various high courts and nine high court chief justices and judges were elevated to the top court.
A record 126 judges were appointed to various high courts in 2016.
The plan of the government to set up an all-India judicial service on the lines of IAS and IPS to recruit judicial officers for lower courts continued to face hurdles from states and high courts.
Eight states are not in favour of setting up this service, while two have supported the idea.
As far as high courts are concerned, two are in favour of constitution of a judicial service, 13 are not in favour, six want changes in the proposal while two are yet to give their responses.
In government’s view, a properly framed All India Judicial Service is important to strengthen overall justice delivery system.
This will give an opportunity for induction of suitably qualified fresh legal talent selected through a proper all-India merit selection system as well as address the issue of social inclusion by enabling suitable representation to marginalised and deprived sections of the society.
A few days ago, Chief Justice of India N V Ramana had sent a proposal to the government to set up the National Judicial Infrastructure Authority of India (NJIAI).
The proposed body would arrange for adequate infrastructure for courts.
According to the proposal, there will be a governing body with CJI as patron-in-chief.
The other salient features in the proposal are that NJIAI will act as a central body in laying down the roadmap for planning, creation, development, maintenance and management of functional infrastructure for the Indian court system, besides, identical structures under all the (25) high courts.
At present, the primary responsibility of development of infrastructure facilities for judiciary rests with state governments.
To augment the resources of state governments, the Union government has been implementing a centrally sponsored scheme for development of infrastructure facilities in district and subordinate courts by providing financial assistance to state governments and union territories in the prescribed fund sharing pattern.
Till date, the central government has sanctioned Rs 8709.77 crore under the scheme to states and union territories.
In a major boost to electoral reforms being pushed by the Election Commission, a bill was passed by Parliament in the Winter session to allow the poll panel seed Aadhaar number with electoral rolls on voluntary basis.
According to the bill, the electoral law have been made gender neutral for service voters.
Another provision of the bill will allow the youth to enroll as voters on four different dates every year, as of now those turning 18 on or before January 1 of every year are only allowed to register as voters.
Another bill on mediation was introduced in Rajya Sabha and was referred to a parliamentary panel.
The bill seeks to encourage the alternate dispute mechanism to take the load off regular courts.
