Luxury litigation, poor pay the price

The Supreme Court's recent warning against 'luxury litigation' is welcome. Hearing an 11-yr-old dispute between two influential parties, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said courts could not become instruments for settling personal vendettas or pursuing cases without genuine cause. It dismissed the dispute and imposed costs of ₹5 lakh each on the litigants.

India's courts have more than 5.6 cr pending cases, with over 11 lakh pending for more than 20 yrs. The backlog reflects vacancies, inadequate infrastructure and support staff, repeated adjournments, delays in investigation and evidence, procedural complexity, and weak case management. The consequences of delay, however, are unequal. For a wealthy litigant, a prolonged case may mean another legal bill and another hearing. For a poor litigant, it can mean repeated journeys to court, lost wages, mounting legal expenses and years of uncertainty. For an undertrial, delay can mean losing years of liberty before guilt is established.

The Law Commission and parliamentary committees have repeatedly pointed to judicial vacancies and systemic inefficiencies as major contributors to pendency. Civil-society research has also shown that poorer and less-educated litigants are particularly vulnerable to the costs and consequences of delay. While the top court is right to call out litigation as a privilege for those with deep pockets, the remedy must go beyond punitive costs. Courts need tighter case management, fewer adjournments, faster filling of vacancies, better infrastructure, and wider use of mediation and other forms of dispute resolution. The objective should not merely be to reduce the pile of pending cases but to ensure that the person least able to wait is not made to wait the longest.