District judges and chief judicial magistrates attend a state-level conference addressed by the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, April 9: Orissa High Court Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda today called upon the subordinate court judges in the state to take on the problem of delay in disposal of cases “as a challenge”. He advised them to try their best “to evolve innovative methods for early disposal of cases without in any way sacrificing merit or quality and provide speedy relief to the litigants”.

Addressing a conference of district judges and chief judicial magistrates the Chief Justice (CJ) conceded that delay in administration and huge pendency had brought about some amount of frustration among lawyers and litigant public. But he called upon judicial officers in the state to “rise to the occasion and dispel the misgivings by some quarters that justice delivery system is crumbling with pressure of backlog of cases”.

While claiming that the rise in number of cases are signs of faith in administration of justice and its delivery mechanism, Gowda said: “Delay in justice administration is the biggest operational obstacle which has to be tackled on a war footing.”

“A judge of the subordinate court must strike a balance between fair trial and expedition and his approach should be to decide a case than to invent the reasons for not deciding it. The function of the judge is not to avoid deciding a case on some ground or the other but to decide a case by applying the law,” the CJ said.

The one-day conference in which 14 district judges and 30 chief judicial magistrates were participating was aimed at interacting and discussing on dispensation of justice vis-à-vis problems that come in its way.

The CJ said that “the problems faced by justice delivery system are very many but definitely not insurmountable”.

“Infrastructure facilities are considerably inferior to the ones which are available to the judicial officers of other states. Still you have to strive hard to achieve the goal of surmounting the hurdles, because the common man is staring at you silently begging justice,” the CJ said underscoring the need for introspection among judicial officers.

For speedy disposal of cases the government has introduced the e-court project. The project has led to the have been computerised and linked with the high court. The CJ expected the subordinate court judges to take advantage of it.