KOLKATA: With as many as 9,331 criminal cases at his desk, all over three months old, Bankshall metropolitan magistrate court's Sk Jafar Ali has the highest workload among all judicial magistrates in Kolkata. Two of his colleagues in the same court, magistrates Debarati Dey and Annu Gupta, are hearing 8,819 and 8,577 such 'old' criminal cases. Interestingly, some of their other colleagues are hearing just one to three long-pending cases. The MM court has 55 magistrates.
This disproportionate allocation of cases among magistrates has been laid bare by the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), which tabulates each pending case. It also reveals that the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Kolkata has a staggering 78,376 pending "excessively dated criminal cases" that are more than three months old. Among the three of them, magistrates Ali, Dey and Gupta share 34.1% of the caseload.
Magistrate Ali presides over the fourth MM court while magistrate Md Rukmuddin presides over the fifth. While Ali has been assigned 9,331 old criminal cases, Rukmuddin has only one three-month-old criminal case. Likewise, Gupta has 8,577 old criminal cases in the 10 MM court but magistrate Moumita Roy of 11 MM court has been allocated only three.
With delay in trial now being held by the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court as a valid ground to grant bail because it infringes on Article 21 (right to life), the focus is back on the 26.3 lakh criminal cases pending in Bengal.
Among the 26.3 lakh pending criminal cases in Bengal, 7.5 lakh are more than three months old. In Kolkata, along with the Bankshall MM court's pending 78,376 old cases, the Alipore CJM court has 64,432 pending criminal cases. At Alipore CJM's court, too, magistrate Debarati Roy alone has a caseload of 7,869.
The Bankshall, Alipore and Sealdah magistrate courts are the first places where FIRs are to be placed within 24 hours by police in Kolkata. Any subsequent arrest and bail pleas are heard by these courts. Only after police wind up the probe and in case of graver offences, do sessions or district courts take charge. Magistrate courts are mapped to specific police stations, and case pendency also reflects on police lethargy to complete the probe. It indicates that in some instances, the case has not moved beyond the FIR stage.
"Pending cases in police stations reflect on the increasing pile of cases pending in lower courts. The role of magistrates kicks in at the time of granting bail, after which it's the chargesheet stage. If there is a delay by police stations, it results to cases pending before magistrates," said senior criminal lawyer Milon Mukherjee. He added that the ratio of courts to cases also needed to be considered when looking at pendency in lower courts.
According to a Calcutta High Court report for 2023-24, the sanctioned strength for district judges (entry level) is 338, while the working strength is 270 with 20 vacancies. The sanctioned strength of civil judge (senior division) is 337 while the working strength is 243 with a vacancy of 65. The report states around 167 posts of judicial officers are vacant.
Advocate Arindam Das said case is also due to shortage of judicial officers.