The money spent by governments on high courts and subordinate courts in their respective states, except Delhi, was less than 1 percent of their total expenditure for the year 2018-19, a Supreme Court order revealed.
Delhi spent Rs 1,045 crore for judiciary while the overall expenditure of the state in 2018-19 stood at Rs 50,200 crore. Thus, only 2.08 percent of total spending of Delhi in 2018-19 was on judiciary, though it was the highest among all states in terms of percentage.
The highest amount spent on judiciary was by Uttar Pradesh, which bore an expenditure of Rs. 1,614 crore. However, it accounted for only 0.35 percent of the state’s total expenditure.
In terms of percentage, Arunachal Pradesh was at the bottom of the table, incurring only Rs 5.27 crore, a measly percentage of 0.02 percent of its total expenditure in 2018-19.
Assam was second from the bottom, spending only 0.09 percent of its total expenditure on judiciary. It spent a paltry sum of Rs 268 crore in comparison to its total expenditure which stood at Rs 2.91 lakh crore.
Besides Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, only 6 states — Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal — spent more than Rs 1,000 crore for judiciary in 2018-19.
These details were given by the Supreme Court in its order of February 28 asking states to implement the recommendations of Justice P Venkatarama Reddi Pay Commission with respect to pay, allowances and pension of judicial officers.
The pay commission under Justice P Venkatarama Reddi was set up by the Supreme Court in May 2017 on a petition filed by the All India Judges Association, seeking a relook into the service conditions of judicial officers. The pay commission submitted its report to the court in January 2020.
The court observed that the primary objections raised over the years when it came to the implementation of various directions concerning the service conditions of the subordinate judiciary had always been alleged paucity of financial resources. However, such objections, the court noted had been rejected by the court on earlier occasions too and should not be re-agitated.
It then proceeded to note that the expenditure on judiciary was inadequate and negligible in comparison to overall spending by states.
“…the expenditure on account of High Court and subordinate courts in the respective states continues to be inadequate and negligible in comparison to its overall expenditure for the year 2018- 2019”, the court said in its order.
The court directed all states to file their response to the pay commission’s report within four weeks.If any of the states fail to file such a response, it will be presumed that they have no objections to the recommendations made by the commission, the court said.
Senior counsel PS Narasimha was appointed amicus curiae to assist the court. The court also directed that the states should be represented in this case by their respective advocate generals.