Evaluating judicial processes in Indian courts for operational efficiency

Abstract

The judiciary in India is plagued with delays, corruption and non-performance. Maligned by the press and public alike, it is described as being beyond redemption. While research into the causes of the delay is common, most of it has been from the judicial perspective. However, the case flow process can be easily analyzed as an operations process. The advantage of such a treatment is that an analytical model can be developed with quantifiable outputs. While the accuracy of such a model depends on the data used to generate it, collaboration with members of the legal fraternity can help to build a model which very closely simulates the real life judicial process. This model can then be used to test the validity of the solutions being proposed, and also helps to focus the proposed solutions towards those areas where they can be most effective. With a focus on the civil cases in the lower courts, a model was built to examine the case load and the loading on the critical resource of the system – the judge. The model helped to generate a number of possible solutions, which were broadly targeted towards increasing the supply of capacity and reducing the demand for output. The analysis suggested that the system could be improved with a few procedural changes. The study could easily be extended to measure the resource loading of other resources, namely infrastructure and administrative staff as well as to criminal cases and cases in higher courts.