New Delhi, Sep 1: Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Sunday said the fact that only 6.7 per cent court infrastructure at the district level is female-friendly needs to be changed.
Speaking at the ‘National Conference of the District Judiciary’, Chandrachud said it should be ensured that courts provide safe and accommodating environment for all members of the society.
“We must without any question, change the fact that only 6.7 per cent of our court infrastructure at the district level is female-friendly. Is this acceptable today in a nation where at the basic level of recruitment in some states over 60 or 70 per cent of the recruits are women? Our focus areas are on increasing accessibility measures which can be understood by carrying out infrastructural audits.
“Opening in-court medical facilities, creches and technological projects like e-seva Kendras and video conferencing devices. These endeavours aim to increase access to justice.
“Axiomatically, we must also ensure that our courts provide a safe and accommodating environment for all members of our society, particularly for groups such as women and other vulnerable groups such as persons with disability, members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and people across the socio-economic landscape,” the CJI said.
Chandrachud said that with the increasing number of women coming into the judiciary, the biases which we may unwittingly have towards our colleagues at the bar and the bench must be confronted.
He also disclosed that at the recently concluded the first-ever National Lok Adalat, almost 1,000 cases were disposed of amicably within five working days.
Meanwhile, the CJI also batted for a national-level recruitment process for judicial services, saying the time has come to move beyond the “narrow walls of regionalism and state-centred selections”.
“Our current national average disposal rate stands at 95 per cent. Despite progress, tackling pending cases remains a challenge. Increasing our disposal-to-filing ratio hinges on attracting skilled personnel.
At the district level, vacancies in judicial personnel stand at 28 per cent and of non-judicial staff at 27 per cent, he said, adding that for the disposals to outweigh the institution of cases the courts must work beyond the capacity of 71 per cent to 100 per cent. To fill the vacancies, the conference deliberated upon the criteria for selection of judges and standardising the recruitment calendars for all vacancies. The time has come now to think of national integration by recruiting members to the judicial services across the narrow walls of regionalism and state-centred selections,” the CJI said. (PTI)
