When courts are too slow, police replace judges

Why in the News

A suit filed in the Bombay High Court in 1947 was settled out of court only this year, after 79 years of litigation. Such delays push well-connected creditors to take money disputes to the police, making the police a parallel civil justice delivery mechanism.

What is the criminalisation of civil disputes?

1. What it is: A creditor recasts an unpaid debt, a civil dispute, as a crime such as “cheating” or “breach of trust”. It is like calling the police over a broken business promise.
2. Why creditors use it: Civil courts are too slow to recover money, so affluent and well-connected litigants turn to the police instead.
3. Legal position: Merely breaching a contract to pay money is neither cheating nor breach of trust, so such complaints usually have no criminal angle.
4. Police motive: A litigant offers an officer a cut if the debtor settles; one police branch is rumoured to work on a “commission basis”.
5. The takeaway: Debt recovery moves from a slow but lawful court process to a fast, coercive one run by the police.

Why are India’s civil courts so slow?

1. Decades-long suits: A suit in the Bombay High Court usually takes more than 20 years to decide, practitioners estimate.
2. Too few judges: Maharashtra has 15 judges per million people. At the Bombay High Court, the figure falls to 1.9 per million.
3. Backlog: The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), the official online database of court cases, shows 648,725 cases pending in the Bombay High Court.
4. Roster limits: The handful of judges hearing original civil suits cannot clear the backlog, even before new filings.
5. Archaic procedure: Civil procedure lets a defendant thwart a decree, the court’s final order. The Privy Council, colonial India’s top appeal court, said in 1872 that difficulties “begin when he has obtained a Decree”.

What do the brief comparisons with other countries show?

1. Judge strength abroad: New York state has about 157 judges per million people, more than ten times Maharashtra’s ratio.
2. Extra-judicial remedies: Litigants in Japan and Venezuela also seek remedies outside failing courts; in India the substitute is the police.

How does police pressure force a settlement?

1. Summons: Civil defendants rarely appear in person, but police send the “accused” debtor a cryptic summons at short notice.
2. Preliminary inquiry: In a “preliminary inquiry”, the debtor waits for hours, sees others abused and hears threats to arrest him or his family. He is told to return the next day.
3. Settlement without FIR: Most debtors give in before a First Information Report (FIR) is registered. By some accounts, half of such cases end at the preliminary inquiry stage.
4. Levers of fear: Fear of arrest, deplorable prisons and reputational loss push defendants to settle.

Why does the law fail to stop it?

1. Law on the books versus law in action: Scholars note a wide gap between what the law says and how it operates.
2. Abuse of process: The Supreme Court has repeatedly deprecated criminalising civil cases as an “abuse of process”, yet the practice continues.
3. Courts not to blame: Understaffed courts did not create the problem; the civil justice system needs structural and cultural reform.

Challenges

1. Judge shortage: Low judge strength keeps civil backlogs growing faster than courts can clear them.
2. Unrecorded coercion: Pressure applied before any First Information Report (FIR) leaves little record to challenge.
3. Unequal access: Only well-connected creditors can use the police route, so outcomes tilt towards power.

Way Forward

1. More judges: The Centre and States should raise judge strength towards the 50 judges per million the Malimath Committee recommended.
2. Civil procedure reform: Parliament should simplify civil procedure so defendants cannot stall decrees indefinitely.
3. Mandatory pre-litigation mediation: Parliament should make mediation compulsory for commercial disputes, as the 162nd Parliamentary Report (2026) recommended.

Conclusion

Slow courts have not removed the demand for dispute resolution; they have moved it to the police station, where coercion replaces adjudication. Whether courts again become the faster route will decide if this parallel system fades.

Key numbers

1. Maharashtra’s population: 112 million (Census 2011), larger than any European country except Russia.
2. Civil suits pending in the Bombay High Court: 9,454.

Government Initiatives to Reduce Judicial Pendency

1. e-Courts Phase III: Builds “Integrated Digital Courts” with paperless filing.
2. Justice Clocks: Installed in 37 High Courts to show real-time data on case disposal and pendency.
3. Alternative dispute resolution: Lok Adalats, Gram Nyayalayas and Online Dispute Resolution settle disputes outside regular courts.

Matching Previous Year Question

“No direct PYQ traced in the provided files. Thematic PYQ: [2024, GS2, 15 marks] Explain the reasons for the growth of public interest litigation in India. As a result of it, has the Indian Supreme Court emerged as the world’s most powerful judiciary?”