Courting controversy: The curious case of ‘Udta Punjab’ and the missing judges

The well-deserved roasting of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) by the Bombay High Court may never have come to pass had it not been for the absence of the subordinate Appellate Authority, the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal – which is conveniently vacant till 15 June – a day before the film is slated for release, depriving Phantom Films (the company that made Udta Punjab) their right to appeal. The normal rule is that you can’t invoke the High Court’s Writ jurisdiction unless all other remedies have already been exhausted. Incidentally, under the rules the government could’ve nominated someone temporarily, but it apparently didn’t. Happily, this was of little inconvenience to the makers of Udta Punjab, financially sound enough to engage the best lawyers to canvas their case before the Bombay High Court. Within days, their appeal had been withdrawn and a writ had been filed in the High Court. Indeed, even the relatively small community of filmmakers who may have to periodically litigate before the CBFC and the FCAT may have found such an inconvenience trifling, at best. [caption id=“attachment_2827930” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  ‘Udta Punjab’ poster[/caption] But far greater injustice was caused to ordinary litigants who faced a similar quandary only last year. A vacancy for over six months, due to the poor health of the chairperson of the Mumbai Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal caused major inconvenience to thousands of litigants. Just around the time the High Court was approached to remedy the situation, the Central Government brought out a notification permitting the filing of Mumbai Appeals before another bench – in Chennai. Imagine the plight of a debt-ridden litigant from Maharashtra who may not even be familiar with Tamil in having to arrange for airfare and legal counsel in another state. Some litigants lost their homes as banks grabbed them in the absence of any Appeal Court to grant stays. The situation was only remedied somewhat in April 2016 when the High Court asked the Solicitor General why two benches of the DRAT could not be set up. Meanwhile, a chairperson brought in from the Allahabad DRAT bench would visit Mumbai every alternate week. Such stories are par for the course in subordinate courts. Litigants routinely travel from far off places to attend to their matters only to be told that the judge is on leave, or won’t be coming till 3 pm. Perversely, their cases are sometimes dismissed for default if they or their lawyers miss attending on a given court date (such cases comprise a respectable chunk of Appellate litigation). Although long vacations for courts have been criticised for years, the real issue facing the judiciary is a shortage of judges. In fact, the issue of pendency of cases in our courts is inexorably tied to the availability of competent men and women to judge them. We have an abysmally low judge to population ratio. While the government seems to be happy with sanctioning more posts for judges, it seems less keen on actually filling them – as the deadlock between the Supreme Court and Parliament over NJAC clearly demonstrates. Meanwhile, the Central Government continues to enact statutes for Special Courts – the latest being the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 while failing to realise that these statutes are only good if they’re backed by the manpower necessary to enforce them, and – pun intended – do them justice.