Judge of Orissa High Court Justice S.K. Sahoo has called for a thirty-minute increase in the working hours of courts on all working days. He hoped that this would help in clearing the backlog of cases in the courts to some extent.

He said this while co-chairing a technical session on “timely justice to the litigants” at a national seminar organised by the Odisha Judicial Academy here on Sunday. While dwelling on the necessity of timely justice, Justice Sahoo pointed out that in Odisha, sub-ordinate courts functioned from 11.00am to 4.30pm and the high court from 10.30 am to 4.15pm.

“If half an hour is increased, there will be additional 10 hours in 20 working days in a month leading to 120 more working hours in a year. Imagine the difference it can make in disposal of cases,” Justice Sahoo said.

He said shortage of judges, lack of infrastructure, absence of courts, grant of adjournments and strike by lawyers posed hurdles in the way of timely justice.

“Hasty disposal of cases also contribute to increasing backlog of cases. A classic example of this was the filing of 30,795 bail applications in Orissa High Court in 2017. All the bail applications had been rejected hastily by the sub-ordinate courts in the state,” he pointed out. He said that the number of pending cases in the Orissa High Court was 1.7 lakh at present. However, he expressed satisfaction that the high court had been ranked second in the all-India ranking in disposal of cases with a disposal rate of 6,000 per month.

Justice Sahoo said: “Timely justice is like a good curry. But, a good cook is required to ensure its quality. Likewise, only a good judge can give you timely justice.”

He however, said: “Timely justice for litigants cannot be a one-man show. It should be a joint effort by all involved”.

Justice Sahoo said the human element had a vital role to play for timely justice to litigants. “They have to be passionate and committed about the cases in hand,” he added.