The Latest: Top stories of the day

1. West Bengal polls: the Election Commission steps up security for fourth phase after violence during last election day.

2. Two people have been killed in an Aligarh Muslim University campus gunfight.

3. We handed over the World Culture Festival site to the Delhi government, says Art of Living.

4. Janata Dal (United) suspends MP Anil Sahni over for allegedly forging air tickets in order to claim allowances.

5. Brij Narayan and Mandakini Trivedi are among the winners of Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2015.

6. Indian Premier League: Kolkata Knight Riders squeeze past the Rising Pune Supergiants by two wickets.

7. The premier of season 6 of the fantasy television series Game of Thrones aired in the United States on Sunday.

Game of Thrones Ads pic.twitter.com/f2W0gaqgzS — All India Bakchod (@AllIndiaBakchod) April 24, 2016

The Big Story: Order, order?

On Sunday, addressing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Justice of India did something unusual: he started to cry. What had pained him was the state of the Indian judiciary and the Union government’s inaction on the matter. Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur accused the Modi government of stalling the appointment of judges to the High Courts and for doing nothing to increase the number of courts and judges in the country. “Therefore not only in the name of the litigant… the poor litigant languishing in jail but also in the name of the country and progress, I beseech you to realise that it is not enough to criticise the judiciary,” Thakur said, breaking down.

Here’s another incident to show how the Indian public views the judiciary: In 2015, Delhi promised that people helping road accident victims would have the right to remain anonymous to the police. Indians have got used to this – but this is a shocking example of what we’ve been reduced to. So scared are people of getting caught in “court-kachheri” trouble that they’d rather let a man bleed out on the road than get involved in a decades-long case.

Part of the problem is simply the lack of judges. The Chief Justice accused the Modi government of sitting on 170 recommendations for judges to the High Courts. He said there are 434 judicial vacancies in the High Courts waiting to be filled. The numbers when it comes to case pendency in India’s courts is mind-boggling. Five crore cases are filed everyday – while only 2 crore are disposed of by the judiciary. That’s a backlog of 3 crore cases, every day. The 1986 Law Commission had pointed out that there were only 10 judges for every million Indians when there should be at least 50 judges for every 10 lakh.

Development has been India’s mantra since Narendra Modi’s took office in 2014. So pervasive is this narrative that even politicians such as Mayawati and Mamamta Banerjee have had to speak the language of development. Yet, as the Chief Justice himself pointed out, how can the Make in India campaign proceed without functioning courts? How can industry and commerce thrive without a quick system of dispute resolution? Even ignoring the elephant in the room – human rights abuse due to pendency – why is the crucial factor of the judiciary not taken into account by those signing the songs of “development”?

The Big Scroll

Rashme Sehgal explains why the backlog of over 3 crore cases in Indian courts will continue to grow. Sanjay Hegde argues that unless Supreme Court hears pleas on judicial appointments, India’s litigation system could collapse.

Politicking & Policying

1. “If I started worrying about mistakes, I wouldn’t be an efficient administrator,” says Kerala CM Oommen Chandy in an interview.

2. Modi, Shah ordered staged shootout in Ishrat Jahan case: Congress.

3. Mumbai’s ragpickers are being accused of starting the Deonar fires. But why would they when they live there?

Punditry

1. Which way will Muslim votes go in Bengal, asks Mayank Mishra in the Business Standard.

2. We need to rename “President’s Rule” as “Prime Minister’s Rule”, contends Fali S Nariman in the Indian Express.

3. An edit in the Mint lays out the long road to a $10 trillion Indian economy.

Don’t Miss

Meet the former Bangladeshis who are going to vote in their first Indian election: