New Delhi: Identification of bottlenecks in case disposal and strategies to reduce backlog of cases at different levels came up for discussion at a national conference organised by the Supreme Court here on issues faced by the state judiciary. The conference held on Saturday witnessed participation of judges of the top court, the high courts as well as the district judiciary.”The idea behind this conference was to engage in a meaningful dialogue with different stakeholders and functionaries in the state judiciary, especially the district courts, to first understand the challenges being faced by them and thereafter, chalk out a plan to address the same,” the apex court administration said in a release.The conference had four technical sessions which covered diverse topics affecting the performance of state judiciary. The technical sessions were chaired by the judges of the apex court, including Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna.It said the first session witnessed discussions on ways to narrow the gulf between institution and disposal of cases, identification of case types flooding judicial dockets, identification of bottlenecks in case disposal and strategies to reduce backlog of cases at different levels.It said in one of the sessions, the feasibility of having a uniform case categorisation in different courts was explored.”In this session, ways to leverage technology and better to optimise the judicial processes were also deliberated upon,” the release said.It said discussions were also held on timely recruitment of judicial officers and court staffs, continual recruitment or empanelment of public prosecutors or legal aid counsels, creation of a permanent IT and data cadre in all high courts and district courts and measures to enhance objectivity in the process of recommending suitable candidates from district judiciary for elevation to the high courts.Discussions on career progression and continuous performance evaluation of judicial officers, need for establishing a common curriculum for training and capacity building of judicial officers and ways of ensuring accountability of judicial officers and court staff were also held during the sessions.
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