17 December 2022

Table of Content

Court vacations: What are arguments for and against judges taking breaks?

GS-2: Structure, Organization and Functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary—Ministries and Departments of the Government.

On the one side, pending cases are rising to record levels each year and on the other side, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) declared that the Supreme Court will not have a vacation bench during upcoming winter vacation.

Court Vacations

• Judicial schedule: Origin in colonial practice.

• The judicial functioning works on 193 working days a year in the Supreme Court whereas the High Courts function for 210 days and trial court functions for 245 days approximately.
• The High Courts have the power to structure their calendars according to the service rules.

• Annual summer vacation of the Supreme Court: Typically seven weeks from end of May to July.

• Other vacations:

• A week long break each for Dussehra and Diwali.
• Two weeks break at the end of December.

Criticism of the court vacations

• Snail’s pace of judicial proceeding and mounting pendency of cases.
• Vacation results in further unavoidable delays in listing cases.
• Origin of vacations lies in the colonial past – 

• It was too hot for the European judges of the Federal Court of India in summers.
• They took the winter breaks for Christmas.

What happens to important cases during court vacations?

• Vacation benches: When the court is in the recess, the combination of two or three judges are available to hear important cases such as bail, eviction, etc.
• Example: In 2015, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court heard the challenge to the constitutional amendment setting up the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) during the summer vacation.

• Similarly, in 2017, a case challenging the practice of triple talaq was heard during summer vacation.

Government’s stand

• The issue cannot be resolved until a “new system” on the appointment of judges is evolved.
• Long vacations obtain by the courts is not very convenient for justice-seekers.

• Numerous times the government has conveyed this message to the Judiciary as the obligation and duty to convey the message or sense of parliament.

Recommended reforms 

• In 2000, the Malimath Committee was set up to recommend reforms in the criminal justice system.

• It suggested that the period of vacation should be reduced by 21 days and the Supreme Court work for 206 days, and High Courts for 231 days every year.

• The 230^th report of the Law commission (2009) – headed by A R Lakshmanan –   suggested that vacations in the higher judiciary must be curtailed by at least 10 to 15 days and the court working hours should be extended by at least half an hour.

• In 2014, CJI R M Lodha suggested to keep the Supreme Court, High Courts, and trial courts open round the year.

• He suggested to plan the calendar according to schedules of individual judges, which should be sought at the beginning of the year.

• Former CJI T S Thakur also suggested holding court during vacations if parties and lawyers mutually agreed. 

Steps taken by Judiciary

• In 2014, the Supreme Court notified new Rules limiting the period of summer vacation to not to exceed seven weeks from the earlier 10-week period.

Arguments in favour of court vacations

• Vacations are much needed for rejuvenation especially in a legal profession which demands intellectual rigour and long working hours.
• Typically judges work for over 10 hours on a daily basis and apart from this, they utilize the vacation to write judgments.
• Like other working professionals, judges do not take leave of absence when the court is in session.

• Judges rarely take the day off for social engagements except Family tragedies or health issues.

• Cutting down on court vacations may not see a dramatic decrease in pendency of cases.
• Moreover, the Supreme Court disposes of the approximately same number of cases as are instituted before it in a calendar year. 

• In 2021, the Supreme Court disposes the 24,586 cases against 29,739 cases that were instituted before it in the same year.

Practices around the world

• The US Supreme Court hears approximately 100-150 cases a year, and sits for oral arguments for five days a month.
• In the UK, the Supreme Court sits in four sessions throughout the year, spanning roughly 250 days whereas the High Courts and Courts of Appeals sit for 185-190 days in a year.

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Shraddha Walkar's bones found in Mehrauli forest, says DNA test: Report

GS-3: Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and Effects in Everyday Life.

DNA testing conducted on the bones recovered in connection with the Shraddha Walkar murder investigation has confirmed a positive match with Shraddha’s father. This shows that DNA fingerprinting has become much important tool for the crime investigative authorities to solve the crime.

DNA fingerprinting

• DNA fingerprinting is a laboratory technique used to establish a link between biological evidence and a suspect in a criminal investigation.

The Origin of DNA fingerprint

• In 1984, DNA fingerprint was first developed Alec Jeffreys in the UK.

• Jeffreys discovered that DNA sequence is a unique identity for an individual and no two persons have same DNA sequence except for identical twins.

• In 1988, Lalji Singh – the father of DNA fingerprinting in India – developed DNA fingerprinting at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad.
• In 1989, for the first time, the Kerala police for used DNA fingerprinting technology.

Working of DNA Fingerprinting

• A crime laboratory develops a profile by analyzing selected DNA sequences called loci, which is used to identify a suspect.

• Though there is DNA in most cells in the human body, but for general purpose DNA can be extracted from – hair, bone, teeth, saliva, and blood.

• In addition, it can be extracted from used clothes, linen, combs, or other frequently used items.

• This DNA evidence is used to solve crime in two ways – 

• Known suspect: That person’s DNA is compared to biological evidence found at a crime scene found at a crime scene to establish or determine relations with the crime.
• Unknown Suspect: Biological evidences found at a crime scene are compared with offender profiles in existing DNA databases to assist in identifying a suspect.

• In addition, DNA fingerprinting can make separate prints of various individuals even from a sample mixture containing numerous DNA.

• This innovation is very useful in case of gang rape investigations.

Challenges with DNA fingerprinting

• State police forces are inadequately trained or not fully equipped.
• Crime scene is not fully protected and correct procedure is not followed.
• The investigator’s DNA get mixed with the DNA of the victims or the suspects.
• The samples can be ruined during the process of DNA fingerprinting.
• There is an issue regarding accuracy of the technology so that labs have to run each test with two to four samples.
• Privacy issue: If data is leaked from the lab, it could result in to disclosure of the personal information in the wrong hands.
• Social issue: If private characteristic information is obtained by insurance companies or potential employers, it could seriously impact their insurance rates and job prospects.    

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Indian PhD student at Cambridge University solves 2,500-year-old Sanskrit puzzle

GS-1: Indian Culture - Salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Dr Rishi Rajpopat claims to have solved Sanskrit’s biggest puzzle in his PhD thesis titled ‘In Panini We Trust’. He solved a grammar problem found in the ‘Ashtadhyayi’, which was written by the Panini in the 4^th century BC.

Panini – the ‘father of linguistics’

• Probably lived during the age of conquests of Alexander and the founding of the Mauryan Empire.

• Sometimes, he has been also dated to the 6^th century BC, the age of the Buddha and Mahavira.

• Lived in Salatura (Gandhara), north-west Pakistan.
• Probably associated with the great university at Taksasila.

• Taksasila also produced Kautilya and Charaka, who were masters of statecraft and medicine respectively.

• He composed great grammar of Sanskrit, the ‘Ashtadhyayi’, or ‘Eight Chapters’. 

• It is a linguistics text that set the standard for how Sanskrit was meant to be written and spoken. 
• Thereafter, Sanskrit was developed and reached its classical form.
• It aid down more than 4,000 grammatical rules which employs single letters or syllables for the names of the cases, moods, persons, tenses, etc. in which linguistic phenomena are classified.

Commentries on Panini

• In the 2^nd c. BC, Patanjali wrote Mahabhasya. 
• In the 7^th c., Jayaditya and Vamana wrote Kasika Vritti.

The Problem

• Ashtadhyayi is very reach in the language’s phonetics, syntax and grammar.
• It is known as ‘language machine’, where you can feed in the root and suffix of any Sanskrit word, and get grammatically correct words and sentences in return based on rules set by Panini.
• But, in case of applicability of two or more rules at the same time, it creates confusion.
• To resolve this, Panini himself gave a ‘meta rule’ – a rule governing rules.
• But, the Meta rule failed to solve the machine’s problem and kept producing exceptions.

The solution

• According to Dr Rajpopat, the error lies in the wrong interpretation of the meta-rule throughout the history.

• An ancient scholar Katyayayana misunderstood the meta-rule, and his wrong interpretation got compounded over centuries.

• He claimed that the ‘Ashtadhyayi’ is an accurate ‘language machine’ that produce grammatically sound words and sentences almost every time.

Significance of the Discovery

• It is possible to construct millions of Sanskrit words using Panini’s system.
• Due to exact and formulaic grammar rules, Sanskrit language algorithm can be taught to computers.

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